Thanks Robert, Scott, and Cosmin--as always--for your responses. I've requested one of the books you mentioned, Robert, via inter-library loan (and I'm still keeping my eyes out for the ones you mentioned last week, Scott). I'll save your message, Cosmin, for occasional reference as I go along. In many ways, I'm the kind of person you mentioned--the one who wanted to drag-and-drop his way into programming. Still, there comes a point where one is ready to move beyond event handlers with lots of code (or procedures) for handling events. I'm at that point, and have always assumed I needed to eventually learn the ins and outs of object oriented programming.
Through the years I've found good references that tell me about OOP ideas and how to set up basic classes and objects in Delphi. For reasons unexplainable to me, people seem to like using animals and/or pet shops quite frequently as examples :-) So, I know how to write a TAnimal class, make TDog and TCat classes that inherit properties from TAnimal, etc. The difficulties come when I try to apply the ideas to real world situations. First, it seems like there's a lot of applications that are simpler to write in a more procedural style, e.g., general utility or office-like apps for individual users, like a text editor, mp3 player, or file utility program. Second, even when trying to create something that *does* fit well (even to me) within an object oriented viewpoint, it's hard for me to figure out where best to place methods, and how to have objects communicate with one another. For example, if one were writing an application related to managing students registering for courses, it makes sense to have Student objects and Course objects. When one registers, though, these objects would need to communicate with each other. I would have trouble deciding how to do that, while keeping classes/objects "encapsulated," and deciding where to place a Register method--after all, registration affects *both* the Student and the Course. So, for now, I'm taking a look at Beginning Java Objects. Even though "Java" is in the title--hence my previous question--much of the book is about the general ideas, with little or no connection to Java itself. I think the book devotes a lot of attention to the issue I just mentioned. Again, I appreciate the responses and the reading suggestions. I'm not a programmer (yet!), but I am an educator, and I know that the teaching resources available today for Java (beginners) are definitely superior to those available for Delphi (and probably most other languages, too). So, I'm glad folks sent along a couple of the older resources for Delphi that they thought were both useful and still up to date enough to be valuable. Later -- Al _______________________________________________ Delphi mailing list -> [email protected] http://www.elists.org/mailman/listinfo/delphi
