object-oriented programming: a primer

a programming language model, object oriented programming focusses on “objects” rather than “actions” and data rather than logic. historically, programming has centred itself around a procedural focus: viewing a program as logical procedure that takes input data, processes it, and produces output data. and, then, viewing the programming challenge writing the logic, as opposed to defining the data.

object-oriented programming turns things on their side by turniing the emphasis of software and software programing from intense focus on logical procedures to intense focus on the programming objects we wish to manipulate with said logical procedures. so, programmers speak of attributes, methods and triggers, where previously they spoke of input/output and procedural logic.

for programmer, objects, their states, actions and the events (the word ‘trigger’ pops up here) that affects these states and actions become the focus of design and development. the notions of state and action seem intuitive enough that i will omit explaining them. however … what do we mean by “event” …. ?

the term “event(s)” specifically refers to events that affect system function, as opposed to those that describe a transaction that’s part of system function – i.e. ‘customer wanting to buy the merchandise’ describes the event, and not ‘customer provides his credit card’ — (its part of the purchase transaction, triggering by the initial purchase request). programmers work with temporal, state and external events.