Hi Jim and Peter,
Ah...I can see how that might be something of a problem. Not being aware
of the technical terminology is certainly reason to be confused and not
be able to understand the tutorials and code examples. Here is a very
brief crash course on some of the common object oriented terminology
used in Java, VB .NET, C# .NET, etc that use an oop design.
Class: This is a way of organizing related functions and variables
according to a specific type of object or objects contained in your program.
Inheritance: This is the method by which a developer extends the
functionality of one class by creating a newer subclass containing
specialized functions and variables.
Polymorphism: This is a fancey way of saying that a class contains one
or more functions of the same name, but accepts and returns different
parameters.Unlike procedural languages that will allow for only one
function of a particular name object oriented languages will allow you
to declare several functions in the same class using the same name, but
will take different parameters as needed.
Object: This can be anything such as a button, window, car, robot, dog,
cat, horse, you name it. Objects are created by creating a new instance
of a particular class much in the same way you would initialize a
variable, but unlike variables these objects can call variables and
functions contained in the class it points to.
Override: This is a method in which a developer can override the default
functionality of a function in a particular class by declaring a new
function in a subclass with new parameters. This is not to be confused
with polymorphism which only takes place when the two functions are
contained in the same class.
Serialization: This is a method in which a developer converts the
contents of a particular object to a binary stream and then sends it
over a network connection or sends the stream to a file for storage. At
some later point the stream is later deserialized, and converted back to
the original state of the object. Serialization is primarily how game
developers such as myself save games simply by seralizing all of the
games objects, writing them to a binary file, and later reversing that
process when the game is loaded. It is much more easier than writing the
data to a text file, and later reading that information back in line by
line.
HTH
Jim Kitchen wrote:
Hi Peter,
I've got the same opinion and problem with object oriented
programming. Every tutorial I have tried to read starts out using
terms that I don't know or understand, so I am lost right from the get
go.
It may have been the same 30 years ago if I had read a tutorial, but I
didn't. I just typed in some example source code and started
experimenting with it. So now I have been experimenting with sample
source code for 30 years. Well and getting help from other
programmers now and then as well.
BFN
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