Object Oriented Programming - The Growing Need

In today's competitive world, the need of the hour is to develop simple and speedy solutions that can be instantly applied to varied requirements. This has resulted in the creation of different and sometimes, complex software systems. However, although the complexity of a software system is a reality, there are ways to ensure that this complexity doesn't become a stumbling block to the smooth functioning of the software.

One way of simplifying this complexity is to split the software system into its component parts and arranged the parts in a hierarchy. This is very similar to the way in which the employees of an organization can be grouped according to the functions that perform and then arranged in a hierarchy.

Before object oriented programming came into effect, procedural programming was in use. Programs written by using the procedural programming approach consist of various functions. These functions can be executed any there within the program. Function in a program contains the instructional steps that are performed to carry out an activity.

The functions of a procedural program are interdependent and, therefore, difficult to separate one from another. These interdependent functions cannot be used in other program. As a result, even for a similar task across program, the entire function has to be recoded. This may program development a complex task.

For example, you have program, EmployeeDetails, coded in procedural language that keeps the details of employees of a bank. The program has a function, printDetails that prints the details of each bank employee. This function can be called many times in different parts of the same program. If you want to print the details of employees of a different organization, such as Railway reservation by using the same function, printDetails, then you have to recode it and another program.

In addition, data in procedural programming is visible and accessible throughout the program, making it easy to manipulate the data from anywhere in the program.

Some examples of procedural language are COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language), PASCAL and BASIC (Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). While BASIC was too simple and proved insufficient for programming complex applications, COBOL was used primarily for documentation and data-handling. All procedural languages lack support for OOP.

The limitations of the procedural programming led to the evolution of the object oriented approach. In OOP the program is broken into independent chunks known as objects, which can be integrated to create a complete program. Thus, objects can be used across various programs. This enables a programmer to develop an application in a relatively shorter duration.