Object Oriented Development (OOD) has been touted as the next great advance in software engineering. It promises to reduce development time, reduce the time and resources required to maintain existing applications, increase code reuse, and provide a competitive advantage to organizations that use it. While the potential benefits and advantages of OOD are real, software developers have come to the realization that Technology is the only way out.
1) When you define a class, you set the rules for all the objects in that class.
2) Another way to say this is that the class definition describes the characteristics of a class's objects.
3) If an object has the characteristics defined by it's class, it is a member of that class.
4) However, objects may differ in characteristics that are not specifically defined by the class.
5) Objects are independent and do NOT have to be identical to each other in all characteristics.
6) That is OK, as long as the attributes (characteristics) in the class definition are met by each object.
7) As long as the attributes in the class definition are met by each object.