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Object-oriented programming language

An object-oriented programming language is one that allows or encourages, to some degree, object-oriented programming methods.

Though Simula (1967), a language created for making simulation programs, was probably the first language to have the primary features of an object-oriented language, Smalltalk is arguably the canonical example, and the one with which much of the theory of object-oriented programming was developed.

These languages include "pure" object-oriented languages such as Smalltalk, Eiffel and Ruby, which were designed specifically to facilitate - even enforce - object-oriented methods; languages such as Java and Python, which are primarily designed for object-oriented programming but have some procedural elements; and languages such as C++, Fortran 2003, and Perl, which are historically procedural languages that have been extended with some object-oriented features. Oberon (and its successor Oberon-2) include most of the functionality of objects (classes, methods, inheritance, and reusability) but in a distinctly original, and elegant, form.

Some languages include abstract data type support, but not all of the features of object orientation (eg, Modula-2 which provided excellent encapsulation and information hiding). These are sometimes called object-based languages.

Inheritance and polymorphism are usually used to reduce code bloat , but abstraction and encapsulation are used to increase code clarity, quite independent of the other two.

Languages with object-oriented features

01-04-2007 01:18:14
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