Object Orientated Computing Essay, Research Paper

The object orientated approach has changed the way in which computing and programming has been done in the past. These changes affect almost everyone and with computing technology becoming more and more integrated with business and every day life it is useful to look at the importance of these changed to the technology industry.

Object orientation is a method of computing by which objects, which are encapsulated procedures for handling data, perform actions based on instructions from a client.

In other words the client issues and instruction which the object performs using its own procedures for handling the data received from the client. This differs to the procedural approach in that in the procedural approach the client has perform the procedures for the action to be completed. This is easier to understand using an example.

Suppose you were asked to update a system in a company to include a function which calculated employees pay. Using the procedural approach you would be faced with the task of writing an entire programm which would then read all the data required for the calculation and and carry out the task. Using the object orientated approach would mean that all the programmer has to do is use an existing object which calculates employee pay and let it calculate the pay for you.

The fact that programmers now don t have to rewrite code every time they want to update or creat a new system is a very important point. It means that systems can be implemented faster, easier and more cost effectively. Why try and create something which has already been successfully created. By encapsulating computing and programming procedures in objects the system is less likey to be negatively affected by change. The reason for this being that any changes made will not affect the objects as the procedures required for the actions of the objects are retained within the objects and cannot be accessed from outside the object. Object orientation also makes updating a system far easier. Because objects exist which perform certain tasks all a person has to do to update a system is change the object slightly or add the relevent objects to the system. This is a far more convenient approach than the procedural way in which a person would have to restruce and recreate the entire system to accommodate the changes.

From this we can see that object orientation in technology is vitally imporatant. It means that programmers can now create business solutions far quicker and more efficiently than before. Systems can be updated and maintained far more easily. These factors in turn help the technology industry advance and a faster rate and help it become more efficient and productive.