News 2 - Object Oriented Programming

1. This week we learned about the different types of computer languages in the class, such as, assembly language, machine language, procedural language and object oriented language.

Machine language is the lowest level of computer language, and it’s all in numbers. It manipulates the computer hardware by instructions translated from assembly language.

Object oriented programming language (OOP) is a high level computer language. The essential characteristic of object oriented language is uses of object. An object is a module that contains one or more routine functions. The programmer can create relationship between one object and another. The new object can inherit the basic functions from the existing object. It increases the reusability and modifiability of the program.

2. I found an interesting article about object oriented programming:
http://www.devx.com/opinion/Article/26776

3. The author in this article believes that OOP is good in theory, but it’s not so good in practice. He thinks OOP leads to programmers not understanding each other’s code. The author suggests that simply copying and pasting codes can replace the OOP’s concept of code reusability.

I don’t agree with the author’s point of view. The ideas of reusability and modifiability must take into consideration the business concept- OOP allows software companies to sell their code packages to another company, or pass the packages to another developer without revealing their codes. There will be security issues if all written objects’ codes were readily accessible by anyone. Also, the author’s idea of copying and pasting codes is not practical because it will generate more errors and compatibility issues. He did not suggest any viable alternative to OOP that would simplify the programming experience and improving efficiency.