Overview

This chapter introduces you to the object-oriented paradigm by comparing and contrasting it with something familiar: standard structured programming.

The object-oriented paradigm grew out of a need to meet the challenges of past practices using standard structured programming. By being clear about these challenges, we can better see the advantages of object-oriented programming, as well as gain a better understanding of this mechanism.

This chapter will not make you an expert on object-oriented methods. It will not even introduce you to all of the basic object-oriented concepts. It will, however, prepare you for the rest of this book, which will explain the proper use of object-oriented design methods as practiced by the experts.

In this chapter,

• I discuss a common method of analysis, called functional decomposition.

• I address the problem of requirements and the need to deal with change (the scourge of programming!).

• I describe the object-oriented paradigm and show its use in action.

• I point out special object methods.

• I provide a table of important object terminology used in this chapter on page 21.