Introduction to Objects and Classes

You have seen in Part II, “Language Basics,” how programming languages evolved from assembler to object-oriented languages. We have not explained then what exactly is an object-oriented programming language. You will learn this in this chapter and in Part III.

We all know what an object is in day-to-day life: a rock found on the beach, the oak tree in front of the house, or Bucefalus—the horse of Alexander the Great. All these are examples of objects, each one of them having its own characteristics, quite different from those of other objects. We can speak of an object to someone who has never seen it and still convey an idea of what that object looks like. For example, I have never seen Alexander's horse (nor ...

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