Object-oriented design is incredibly useful in my opinion. While there are also functional and procedural languages, I feel that languages which are primarily Object-oriented are the most exciting and useful for the types of projects which I enjoy. Topics such as game development, large-scale user interface focused applications such as Microsoft Word, and general programming can all benefit from an object oriented approach. While functional and procedural languages are certainly important and have legitimate uses, I would be unlikely to choose one for any large project.
I recently read a blog post on The Robert Half Blog, a blog which focuses on career advice and discussion of skills which employers look for. The post focuses on a quick overview of some reasons that object-oriented programming is useful and some of the aspects of object-oriented programs which make them easier to understand compared to code written with different paradigms.
Overall, the article focuses on features which are key to the concepts of object-oriented design. Modularity is discussed, and while I was already aware of the concept the post brings up an interesting point. The idea that the self-contained nature of object oriented code makes it easier for teams to work on many different projects at once, while minimizing the chances of duplicate code (since classes and objects are self contained, it is almost always clear what each one will do in terms of functionality).
Additionally, the topics of inheritance and polymorphism are discussed. While I have always been able to easily visualize the concept of inheritance (one concept extends from and inherits functionality from another), polymorphism has been confusing to me throughout my academic career. The author of the post uses a clear example which was very helpful in clarifying my understanding of polymorphism. An example “car” class is discussed, with “drive” function which controls driving in general for all types of cars which extend and inherit from the parent car class. Since all types of cars inherit the drive method from the superclass, they can call drive with their own information and variables, and the method has the ability to be adapted into many potential situations.
Finally, the post discusses the use of object oriented languages in problem solving. It is described as a “natural and pragmatic approach”, which accurately describes object oriented languages in my experience.
Although the information provided in this post is fairly general in the information it provides, the examples and concise explanations of a few concepts which were becoming unclear to me over time (it has been a while since I have been able to study and review modularity and polymorphism, polymorphism in particular has been especially confusing). The post provided a good review of these concepts, and I will likely attempt to introduce polymorphic methodologies into some of my projects in the future. In some circumstances I think a simple explanation can be more effective than something complicated.
https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/salaries-and-skills/4-advantages-of-object-oriented-programming
From the blog CS@Worcester – CodeRoad by toomeymatt1515 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
