Object Oriented Programming Key Concepts

Flashcards for reviewing key concepts in Object-Oriented Programming (OOP).

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)

A programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects" which contain data in the form of fields (attributes or properties) and code in the form of procedures (methods).

Common feature of objects in OOP

The procedures (or methods) are attached to the objects and can access and modify the object's data fields.

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) in short

A programming paradigm in which complicated behavior arises from the interactions of small, self-contained objects.

Four key concepts of OOP

Abstraction, Encapsulation, Inheritance, and Polymorphism

Abstraction in OOP

A viewpoint-specific representation of a problem domain; modeling your problem space in terms of interfaces, classes, and objects.

Edsger W. Dijkstra

Dutch computer scientist and 1979 ACM Turing Awardee, known for contributions to programming as a high, intellectual challenge.

Encapsulation

Also known as information hiding, it means you don’t need to know all the details of how something works in order to use it; exposing information on a need-to-know basis.

Inheritance

Sharing implementation code among related classes; a specific form is the interface, which defines the methods that a class must represent without specifying how they are implemented.

Polymorphism

An object of one type can be used as an object of its parent’s type (or as an object of the type of one of the interfaces that it implements).

Abstraction

Defining your entities and how you interact with them.

Encapsulation meaning

All you need to know about the entities is how you interact with them.

Inheritance and Polymorphism meaning

Subtypes abide by the “contracts” set up by their supertypes.