(See related pages)
|
|
|
| This chapter presents an overview of object-oriented programming. Method specifications—
what a user needs to know about methods—include comments written in
javadoc notation, a consistent form that can be read from a browser. Our focus, on
the use of classes rather than on their implementation details, is an example of data
abstraction. Data abstraction—the separation of method specifications from field
and method definitions—is a way for users of a class to protect their code from being
affected by changes in the implementation details of the class used.
The three essential features of an object-oriented language are:
1. Encapsulation of fields and methods into a single entity—the class—whose
implementation details are hidden from users 2. Inheritance of a class’s fields and methods by subclasses 3. Polymorphism: the ability of a reference to refer to different objects. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is an industry-standard graphical language that illustrates the modeling of projects. |