Object Oriented or Class Oriented Design?

Tue 03 July 2007

Its been over 40 years since object orentation as a programming pradigm started in Norway when Kristen Nygaard and Ole-Johan Dahl invented the language Simula . Now a days most software is describe their work using some sort of object vocabulary and or use an OO language. However the ubiquity of object oriented languages does not mean, in experience most developers aren't getting the full leverage out of object technology. Object orientation is a programming paradigm you can design object oriented software and implement it using almost any programming language, of course some languages offer you more support than others, conversly you can implement your software with a very non object oriented implemetation using an 'Object Oriented Language' such C#, Java or even Smalltalk. Object oriented design and object thinking trancends programming languages. So it not the tools or programming language you use to implement the software, but its the way you think about a design. Thinking in objects is the key to leveraging the most out of object technology to create elegantly designed software. Trygve Reenskuag creator of the MVC pattern, and the creator of the OORAM software Engineering Method comments that programming languages are class oriented rather than object oriented, thats why most of us end up thinking and modelling in terms of classes rather than objects. A Class is powerful abstraction to implement objects, but its inadequate for modelling and thinking about objects, because a Class is static, it is defined at build time, objects on the other hand are dynamic. read more ...