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Advantages and Disadvantages of OOP Programming Languages

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm that includes or relies on the concept of classes and objects. It is utilized to structure a software program into straightforward, reusable pieces of classes that are utilized to create individual instances of objects. Since OOP is a programming paradigm, there are many object-oriented programming languages such as C++, Java, Python, Javascript, Visual Basic.NET, Ruby, PHP and etc. A programmer creates a software program by organizing linked pieces of data and behaviors together into a layout called a class. The individual objects are instantiated or made from the class layout; these objects often represent a real-world thing. The complete software program runs by having multiple objects associate with objects to form the bigger program.

Why OOP?

OOP makes code organized, reusable, and simple to preserve; it follows the DRY strategy (Don’t Repeat Yourself). Utilizing a modular architecture, object-oriented design and implementation approach can make software improvement groups much more beneficial than was plausible with prior prevalent methods like “structured programming” therefore object-oriented programs are regularly easier to debug and modify. Object-oriented programs are created by making classes and creating objects from the classes. In OOP, everything is an object. Classes form the blueprint for how information and behaviuors are structured. Objects are made for particular instances of a class. For example, a programmer might form a dog class as a standard way to organize all the vital data about dogs and then instantiate an individual dog as an object created made from the dog class, like a dog called Woofy.

Advantages and Disadvantages of OOP Programming Languages

Classes and Objects

A class is an object constructor. Class is a concept, and an object is the embodiment of that concept. There needs to be a class before creating an object. For example, a class called ‘person’ would provide a blueprint for what a person looks like and what a person can do. To actually utilize a person in the program, an object needs to be created. Programmers utilize the person class to create an object of the type ‘person’. Classes are exceptionally beneficial in programming. For example, if a programmer needs to utilize 100 people, rather than describing each one of them in detail from scratch, he can use the same person class to make 100 objects of the type ‘person’. Programmers will still have to give each a name and other properties, but the fundamental structure of what a person looks like is the same.

Methods and Functions

Once objects are created, it should be able to do something. This is when a method is required. A method in OOP is a procedure-related with a class. A method characterized the behaviour of the objects that are made from the class. Another way to say it is that a method is an action that an object is able to do. The relation between method and class is called binding. For example, an object of the type ‘person’ made utilizing the person class. Methods linked to this class could comprise of things like walking and driving. A function is a combination of instructions that are combined to achieve results. A function often requires a few inputs and returns results. For example, driving a car. To find out the mileage, people need to perform a calculation utilizing the distance driven and the sum of fuel utilized. People could write a function to do this calculation. The contentions going into the function would be distance and fuel consumption, and the result would be mileage.

Concepts of Object-Oriented Programming

OOP has four main concepts which are encapsulation, inheritance, abstraction and polymorphism. Encapsulation is containing all valuable data inside an object, and only uncovering chosen data to the outside world. Attributes and behaviours are characterized by code inside the class template. Then, when an object is instantiated from the class, the information and methods are encapsulated in that object. Encapsulation stores away the internal software code implementation inside a class, and hides internal information of inside objects. Encapsulation requires characterizing some fields as private and some as public. Private meaning methods and properties are only accessible from other methods of the same class. Public is when the methods and properties are also accessible from outside the class. Encapsulation enhances security. Attributes and methods can be set to private, so they are not accessible outside the class. To get information about data in an object, public methods and properties are utilized to access or update information. This includes a layer of security, where the developers choose what information can be seen on an object by uncovering that information through public methods in the class definition. Information is hidden from the outside world and given controlled access. Outside the class, no one knows how many data members or methods are there. The syntax for encapsulation is private, getData( ) or setData( ).

Abstraction means that the user interacts with only chosen attributes and methods of an object. Abstraction utilizes clear, high-level tools, to access a complex object. Abstraction utilizes straightforward and simple classes to represent complexity. Abstraction is an extension of encapsulation. Abstraction also serves a vital security role by only showing chosen pieces of information and only permitting information to be accessed through classes and altered through methods, the developer protects the information from exposure. Abstraction in C++ can be implemented using class. Class aids in gathering data members and member functions utilizing available access specifiers. Data members are decided by a class whether which will be visible to the outside world and which will not be. Another type of abstraction in C++ is header files.

Inheritance permits classes to acquire features of other classes. Putting it another way, parent classes extend traits and behaviours to child classes. Inheritance supports reusability. If basic properties and behaviours are defined in a parent class, child classes can be made extending the functionality of the parent class and including extra traits and behaviours. The syntax used for inheritance is extends. A subclass which is inherited from the base class can be created utilizing the below syntax.

The title of the subclass is the subclass_name, the mode in which is needed to inherit the subclass is access_mode and the name of the base class in which is utilized to inherit the subclass is base_class_name. Public mode is used to derive subclass from public base class, protected mode is used to derive subclass from protected base class and private mode is used to derive subclass from private base class. In single inheritance, a class is only permitted to inherit from one class. Multiple inheritance permits a class to inherit from more than one class. A derived class is created from another derived class through multilevel inheritance. Other than that, more than one subclass is inherited from a single base class using hierarchical inheritance. By combining more than one type of inheritance, a hybrid inheritance is utilized.

Polymorphism is designing objects to share behaviours. Utilizing inheritance, objects can override shared parent behaviours with particular child behaviours. Compile time overloading is accomplished by function overloading and operator overloading. In function overloading, when there are numerous functions with the same name but distinct parameters then these functions are said to be overloaded. Functions can be overloaded by alter in number of contentions and change in sort of contentions. It is able to make operators to work for user defined classes in C++. This implies that C++ has the capacity to supply the operators with a special meaning for data type, this ability is known as operator overloading. Runtime polymorphism is achieved by function overriding. When a derived class has a definition for one of the member functions of base class, it is called function overriding. The base function is overridden.

Advantages and Disadvantages of OOP

A number of advantages can be determined as a result of these object-oriented features. OOP models complex things as simple, straightforward structures. Instead of endlessly rewriting same piece of code, it can be written once and utilized or inherited as needed. OOP languages comes with wealthy libraries of objects, and code created amidst projects is also reusable in future projects. OOP moreover prevents duplicating of code. Fixing bugs is much easier with OOP. Fixing an error in a well-structured class is simpler than finding the error in multiple places in code. Besides that, OOP protects information through encapsulation object’s data can only be accessible through public attributes and methods. Finally, OOP is easy to work with in a team of developers, allowing multiple people to code a project at similar time. Despite all the advantages, OOP is difficult to learn has it has a steep learning curve. The thought process incorporated in OOP may not be natural to some people, and it can take time to get used it. Inheritance and polymorphism can be challenging to comprehend at the beginning. It also has the potential to lead to larger program sizes and produce slower programs. Object-oriented programs usually involves more line of codes than procedural programs.

In conclusion, object-oriented programming requires considering about the structure of the program and planning at the beginning of coding. Looking at how to break up the requirements into easy, reusable classes that can be utilized to blueprint instances of objects. Overall, implementing OOP permits for better data structures and reusability, sparing time in the long time.

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