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Object-Oriented Programming

Object-oriented programming organizes software around objects that combine state with behavior. Classes, interfaces, inheritance, and composition help you define how those objects are created and collaborate.

itSoftware engineering

Object-Oriented Programming

Object-oriented programming organizes a program around objects. An object combines state with behavior. State records what the object knows. Behavior defines what the object can do.

A class describes a kind of object. It declares the fields that hold state, the methods that provide behavior, and often the constructors that initialize new objects. Each object created from a class is an instance. Two instances can follow the same class definition while holding different state.

This model gives you a useful design question: who should own this state and the rules that change it? A good object keeps related state and behavior together. Client code asks the object to perform an operation instead of changing its internals directly.

The four core ideas

Abstraction

Abstraction models the attributes and interactions that matter for a problem. A payment method may expose an operation to authorize a charge. Client code does not need every detail of the payment network to use that operation.

An abstraction is selective. It leaves out details that do not belong in the current model. The useful question is not whether the class resembles a real thing. Ask whether its public behavior represents a clear responsibility in the software.

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