Object Oriented Programming

Python is a true object-oriented language. The term ``object oriented'' has become quite a popular buzzword; such high profile languages as C++ and Java are both object oriented by design. Many other languages add some object-oriented capabilities, but were not designed to be object oriented from the ground up as python was. Why is this feature important? Object oriented program allows you to focus on the data you're interested in, whether it's employee information, the results of a scientific experiment or survey, setlists for your favorite band, the contents of your CD collection, information entered by an internet user into a search form or shopping cart, and to develop methods to deal efficiently with your data. A basic concept of object oriented programming is encapsulation, the ability to define an object that contains your data and all the information a program needs to operate on that data. In this way, when you call a function (known as a method in object-oriented lingo), you don't need to specify a lot of details about your data, because your data object ``knows'' all about itself. In addition, objects can inherit from other objects, so if you or someone else has designed an object that's very close to one you're interested in, you only have to construct those methods which differ from the existing object, allowing you to save a lot of work.

Another nice feature of object oriented programs is operator overloading. What this means is that the same operator can have different meanings when used with different types of data. For example, in python, when you're dealing with numbers, the plus sign (+) has its usual obvious meaning of addition. But when you're dealing with strings, the plus sign means to join the two strings together. In addition to being able to use overloading for built-in types (like numbers and strings), python also allows you to define what operators mean for the data types you create yourself.

Perhaps the nicest feature of object-oriented programming in python is that you can use as much or as little of it as you want. Until you get comfortable with the ideas behind object-oriented programming, you can write more traditional programs in python without any problems.