Object‐Oriented Development

Abstract The object‐oriented model for software development has become exceedingly attractive as the best answer to the increasingly complex needs of the software development community. What was first viewed by many as a research curiosity and an impractical approach to industrial strength software is now being enthusiastically embraced. Object‐oriented versions of most languages have been or are being developed. Numerous object‐oriented methodologies have been proposed. Conferences, seminars, and courses on object‐oriented topics are extremely popular. New journals and countless special issues of both academic and professional journals have been devoted to the subject. Contracts for software development that specify object‐oriented techniques and languages currently have a competitive edge. Object‐oriented development is to the 1990s what structured development was to the 1970s, and the object‐oriented movement is still accelerating. The object‐oriented model is more than a collection of new languages; it is a new way of thinking about what it means to compute and about how information can be structured. In the object‐oriented model, systems are viewed as cooperating objects that encapsulate structure and behavior and that belong to classes which are hierarchically constructed. All functionality is achieved by messages that are passed to and from objects. The object‐oriented model can be viewed as a conceptual framework with the following elements: abstraction, encapsulation, modularity, hierarchy, typing, concurrence, persistence, reusability, and extensibility. Programming and the use of object‐oriented language are discussed. Object‐oriented transition and the future and also discussed.