Week 6: A Tangible Object that's Made of 1's and 0's

CSC 148 Entry 4

    Before I talk more about the my understanding of Object-Oriented Programming I thought I think it's sort of poetic having objects exist as an abstract concept within the computer yet existing as nothing more in the physical world as some pattern encrypted onto our computers. So I think it's quite ironic when we call them objects yet it is so fitting.

     Object-Oriented Programming is the creation of classes which in turn dictates the properties which an object of that class has and what can be done with the object. When I first created a class for the first time and understood the implications of what I have done I felt like I was an omniscient being with unlimited power. In my mind I had the thought that I was creating atoms and dictating what physical properties they had and how they could interact with atoms. I think this is an analogy which is quite similar to what is the core concept of Object-Oriented Programming. Classes are like creating an representation of the properties of a type of object. Sort of like dictating the properties of an atom. Atoms are the core components of the world. Everything is made of atoms and different compilations of atoms. Much like how most programs are combinations of classes and how classes interact with each other.

     An instance of a class is defined as an object. Sort of like how matter is all an instance of some atom in the periodic table. Similar to how the periodic table have various groups such as halogens, earth metals, Nobal gases, classes can be under different classes. This is called Inheritance. The classes inherit all the properties of the parent class. Inheritance is something which object-oriented programming has that gives it an extra level of depth. It is essentially the ability to make subsets of objects. This creates a branching of possibilities of types of objects that exist and is very powerful for programming.