Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) has received both love and hate from people in the coding world. Some love the ideas and principles behind it, but there are those who critique it for personal and subjective reasons.
Some see that OOP isn’t compatible with the newest software trends and coding practices. In contrast, the other side argues that OOP has a solid set of logic that allows it to be relevant and useful regardless of the innovation in the space.
Since the role of information technology would be crucial in this digital age, we must discuss this particular school of thought. This article will focus on all aspects of object-oriented programming – why people love it and why people criticize it. This work will show the ideas behind this paradigm and prove that OOP matters.
What Is Object-Oriented Programming?
Before we go into intricate details and reasoning, let’s first objectively define what object-oriented programming is. This term was coined by Alan Kay way back around 1966 when he was at graduate school.
The idea behind OOP was to put mini-computers in software that can communicate via message passing rather than through direct data sharing. This idea stops the breakdown of programs into different data structures and procedures.
A technical definition of the term would be that OOP is a computer programming school of thought or model that organizes software design around data or objects. This is contrary to the route of using functions and logic.
When it comes to object-oriented programming, it puts great significance in organizing your code into objects that model the parts of your problem. These objects hold together the vital variables for describing each possible state of your model’s component.
This way of programming is excellent for big, complex, and actively updated programs. These programs could be used for design, manufacturing, developing mobile applications, and many more.
To put it simply and convert everything as a one-liner, object-oriented programming was created to organize the complexity of procedural codebases.
The 4 Main Blocks Of Object-Oriented Programming
Classes – This is a blueprint for creating objects; it provides initial value for states and implementations of behavior. The class defines the nature of a future object. You can interpret class as a concept while the object is the reality or the embodiment of that concept.
Objects – An object is a data field with unique attributes and behavior. These are instances of a class created with certain data. Objects have the flexibility to correspond to real-world objects or abstract entities.
Methods – This defines the behavior of the objects created from the class. To put it simply, the method is an action that an object is able to perform. These are functions defined in a class that describes what the object will do.
Attributes – These are the characteristics of the class that aids in separating it from other classes. It is what makes them unique and identifiable.
Five Proven Advantages of Object-Oriented Programming
1. Modularity
The advantage when working with OOP languages is that you will know exactly where to look when something goes wrong. When this scenario happens, troubleshooting is a long process since some developers go through code line-by-line to see what went wrong.
However, when practicing OOP, you are using the principle of encapsulation. The objects here are self-contained, and each functionality does its own function while leaving other bits alone.
Since encapsulation allows objects to be self-contained, the process of both troubleshooting and collaborative development is easier and smooth.
2. Reusability
When using OOP in your code work, your written codes can be reused through inheritance. This means that a team member doesn’t need to repeat the process of writing the same code multiple times.
Additionally, if you want to change all objects, just change your class, and all objects will inherit the new code. Being able to achieve these things, data redundancy is one of the best advantages that OOP gives to its users.
3. Increased productivity and efficiency
With the advantage of creating new programs with ease and the ability to utilize reusable code, this makes programmers more productive and efficient. This process of organizing codes efficiently allows for more tasks to be done and gives more time to produce quality outcomes.
A programmer that adheres to OOP can also utilize new software objects to make completely new programs. This particular action can be done by taking advantage of libraries with useful functions.
4. Problem-solving
Tackling problems is a common task among professionals in the space, whether in-house, offshore, or nearshore developers. But what separates the best from the rest would be their approach in addressing these issues. Handling a complex set of problems and turning them into smaller chunks is a practice displayed in OOP.
In this paradigm, you break down your software code into smaller chunks. Then these chunks can be reused in solutions to various complex and simple problems. They too can be replaced by future modules that relate to the same interface with implementation details.
5. Polymorphism flexibility
Polymorphism, by definition, means the ability of an object to take on many forms. When used in OOP, it is the concept that you can access objects of different types through the same interface. This enables a single function to adapt to the class it is placed in.
What Makes Object-Oriented Programming Unique?
There are various reasons why programmers adhere to OOP’s ways and ideas. But if we were to sum it all up, it would give four factors as to why OOP is unique and followed by many.
Inheritance
The structure of classes is done through hierarchies, and inheritance allows the overall model and methods in one class to trickle down the hierarchy. This only means that less programming is needed when adding functions to complex systems.
If a step was to be added at the very bottom of the hierarchy, the processing and data connected with that unique step also need to be added. Rest assured that everything else is inherited.
The overall ability to utilize or reuse existing objects is such a great advantage of object technology. This particular feature helps make OOP unique and be different from others.
Encapsulation
Encapsulation in OOP means bundling data with the methods that operate on the said data. This is used to hide the values or state of a structured data object inside a class, which stops unauthorized parties from having access to them.
To put in a single sentence, encapsulation in programming binds the class members together and prevents them from accessing other classes. It’s like how a drug addiction treatment center or an inpatient treatment facility keeps all their clients’ records and data private.
Another example could be how a business declares your customer information and other sensitive product information management details as private, so they don’t scatter it digitally. This concept of security by using data hiding is called encapsulation in programming.
The use of encapsulation is such an excellent idea mainly because of these reasons:
- The functionality is all in one place compared to being scattered and placed in multiple places.
- The data inside the object can’t be modified unexpectedly by external code.
- A well-encapsulated code is easier to read and understand.
- It protects the integrity of the code. This makes the code safer and more reliable.
Polymorphism
Whenever you are in a classroom, you act as a student and take notes. When you’re visiting an eCommerce website, you act like a customer and buy items, read exit-intent pop-ups, and receive cart abandonment emails.
Another example would be a man who is a father in his household but an employee in the workplace. The examples mentioned a single person but possess different behavior or traits when in different situations or places – this is what polymorphism is.
This concept of OOP makes one object take multiple forms in various instances. OOP processes classes and objects by a single interface. With polymorphism, you can code to an interface that lowers coupling while increasing reusability and making your codes easier to understand.
By utilizing polymorphism, codes are more extendable and easily maintained. It re-enforces simplicity in the whole process. For example, we have a parent class and some child classes which inherit from it. In some instances, we want to utilize the collection that contains all these classes. There are also situations where we have a method dedicated for the parent class, but we also want to use it for the children class.
This type of scenario can be solved using polymorphism. This component of OOP allows programmers to use a class like its parent to avoid confusion with mixing types. But the child class mentioned will keep its own methods as they are.
Abstraction
When it comes to object-oriented design, programs are often significant. This makes it difficult to maintain a large codebase and make changes along the way. If the developer needs to understand every single function that’s part of a large codebase, then it will take them weeks to finish reading it all.
Fortunately, abstraction is present to ease this particular issue. Abstraction means to hide away the implementation details inside something. It should only show operations relevant to other objects. This means you don’t have to deeply understand every function you use.
When you take courses like digital marketing courses or SEO, all of the proven marketing strategies are presented to you. The preparation of the program and all the other intricacies of making the program were hidden. When regular people use a SERP simulator, they don’t need to understand every function of the code; what they need to know is what the simulator is presenting – things that are relevant to them.
All the relevant information was shown to you just like how OOP shows operations that are relevant to the objects. And as for the implementation (the preparation of the program, the intricacies of the SERP search, etc.) were already hidden away.
Criticisms Against Object-Oriented Programming
No matter the industry, every school of thought created within it will always receive criticisms from people – and OOP is no exception. Just as this paradigm has excellent benefits and advantages to its users, some still doubt it.
Below are the common criticisms and disadvantages laid out by people in the space:
A. Steep learning curve
The learning process in OOP may not be as simple compared to others. Everybody will have different learning curves, and it may depend on their level of understanding of the paradigm and experience in the industry.
Understanding the concept of classes, objects, and polymorphism might pose a great challenge when applying OOP. However, this situation is normal, especially if you’re quite new to programming.
It is already a given that programming won’t be a walk in the park, but knowing how to use OOP can get easier in time with the right determination and effort. Research, practice, and dedication can go a long way.
B. Bigger program size
When using OOP, the typical lines of code will be longer compared to procedural programs. However, t