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I'm hoping to get some tips to kinda help me break out of what i consider after all these years a bad habit of procedural programming. Every time i attempt to do a project in OOP i end up eventually reverting to procedural. I guess i'm not completely convinced with OOP (even though i think i've heard everything good about it!).

So i guess any good practical examples of common programming tasks that i often carry out such as user authentication/management, data parsing, CMS/Blogging/eComs are the kinda of things i do often, yet i haven't been able to get my head around how to do them in OOP and away from procedural, especially as the systems i build tend to work and work well.

One thing i can see as a downfall to my development, is that i do reuse my code often, and it often needs more rewrites and improvement, but i sometimes consider this as a natural evolution of my software development.

Yet i want to change! to my fellow programmers, help :) any tips on how i can break out of this nasty habbit?

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"Tell, don't ask," and "Law of Demeter," and "Open-Closed Principle." –  Dave Jarvis Dec 8 '09 at 22:16
Don't think procedural programming is a nasty habit. If you truly are better with procedural programming and are able to reuse your code, why the urge to change? The creator says web sites should be done in the simplest of ways (that's what I get from reading his blog). Try oop to learn more than one way to do your work, but don't think you are doing things wrong :) –  AntonioCS Dec 8 '09 at 22:25
it's generally seen as a stigma by my peers, so after so many people provide such comments, it makes you wonder if maybe you should be doing something in another way... –  Shadi Almosri Dec 8 '09 at 22:27
Another alternative to OOP is functional programming. Simple, powerful, and gives reusable code. Don't limit yourself to OOP, it may simply not suit your style. –  Kzqai Dec 8 '09 at 22:38
Have you tried electro-convulsive therapy? :-) –  Stephen C Dec 9 '09 at 1:30

20 Answers 20

up vote 13 down vote accepted

What is the point in using object-oriented programming when you cannot find good reasons or motivation to do so?

You must be motivated by the need to conceive and manipulate ideas as objects. There are people who feel the need to be perceptive of concepts, flow or functions rather than objects and they are then motivated towards programming oriented towards concepts, ideas, or functional flow.

Some 13 years ago, I switched to c++ from c simply because there were ideas I needed but c would not easily perform. In short, my need motivated my programming oriented towards objects.

The object-oriented mind-set

First, you have bytes, chars, integers and floats.

Then your programme starts being cluttered with all kinds of variables, local and static. Then you decide to group them into structs because you figured that all the variables which are commonly passed around.

Conglomeration of data

So like printer's info should have all its variables enclosed into the Printer struct:

{id, name, location,
  manufacturer, networkAddr},

So that now, when you call function after function over printer info, you don't have functions with a long list of arguments or a large collection of static variables with huge possibilities of cross-talk.

Incorporation of information

But data conglomeration is not good enough. I still have to depend on a bunch of functions to process the data. Therefore, I had a smart idea or incorporating function pointers into the Printer struct.

{id, name, location,
 manufacturer, networkAddr,
 *print(struct printer),
 *clean(struct printer)

Data graduates into information when data contains the processes on how to treat/perceive the data.

Quantization of information

Now laser, ribbon and inkjet printers do not all have the same set of information but they all have a most common set of denominators (LCD) in information:

Info common to any printer: id, name, location, etc

Info found only in ribbon printers: usedCycles, ribbon(fabric|cellophane), colourBands, etc

Info found only in inkjet: ink cartridges, etc

Info found only in lasers: ...

For me and many object-oriented cohorts, we prefer to quantize all the common info into one common information encapsulation, rather than define a separate struct/encapsulation for each printer type.

Then, we prefer to use a framework which would manage all the function referencing for each type of printer because not all printers print or are cleaned the same way.

So your preference/motivation oriented away from objects is telling you that your programming life is easier if you do not use objects? That you prefer to manage all those structural complexities yourself. You must not have written enough software to feel that way.

The necessity of laziness

Some people say - necessity is the mother of creativity. (as well as, Love of money is the root of evil).

But to me and my cohorts - laziness in the face of necessity are the parents of creativity. (as well as the lack of money is the other parent of evil).

Therefore, I urge you to adopt a lazy attitude towards programming so that the principle of the shortest path would kick into your life and you'll find but have no other choice than to graduate towards orienting yourself towards programming with objects.

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+1 Good explanation... –  Shadi Almosri Dec 9 '09 at 10:20
+1 yeah, good description of the evolution of the programming mindset –  Robert Grant Dec 9 '09 at 10:44

Step 1. Read a good Design Patterns book. http://www.oodesign.com/

Step 2. Pick something you already know and rework it from an OO perspective. This is the Code Dojo approach. Take a problem that you already understand, and define the object classes.

I did this -- and wrote down what I did.

See http://homepage.mac.com/s_lott/books/oodesign.html#book-oodesign

You can do the same series of exercises to get the hang of OO design and code.

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Great links! --- –  Pekka 웃 Dec 8 '09 at 22:13
That oodesign.com link is really good - I don't think I've come across it before. –  Erich Douglass Dec 8 '09 at 22:25
Step 2: pick an oo only language (such as C# or something) step 3: old step 2 –  RCIX Dec 8 '09 at 22:25
@RCIX: moving to learn another language wouldn't really be feasible as i do wish to learn but it also has to fit in with my work flow and time, learning another language would unfortunately be too time consuming (i think/assume) –  Shadi Almosri Dec 8 '09 at 22:28
@Shadi Almosri: Since you don't say what languages you currently know, claiming C# is "moving to learn another language" would be irrelevant. If you don't know C#, update the question to say what you do know. –  S.Lott Dec 9 '09 at 1:47

The OO mindset is based on principles that lie at a much more basic level than design patterns. Design patterns are somehow fashionable these days (and have been for a while), and they are useful, but they are just one more layer that you can put upon more basic stuff that you absolutely must learn and master if you want to do OO properly. In other words: you can do OO perfectly without design patterns. In fact, many of us did OO well before the phrase "design patterns" was even coined.

Now, there is stuff you can't do without. I suggest you start at the basics. Read and understand "Object-Oriented Software Construction" 2nd edition by Bertrand Meyer. It's probably the best book on OO programming around, both in width and depth. That is if you're interested in programming.

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i'll grab a copy of that book :) –  Shadi Almosri Dec 8 '09 at 22:51
I hope you like it! –  CesarGon Dec 9 '09 at 0:34

First, congrats on taking steps to learn something new! I hate it when developers decide to NOT evolve with technology.

As far as moving from procedural programming to OOP, I would say that one thing that you can do is take an existing app (as others have mentioned) and, before you even open a text editor, sit down and think about how each aspect of the application would be converted. I have found that more than half of OO programming is defining the conceptual objects in your mind first.

Again, I will agree with everyone's recommendations on design patterns. Specifically, I would look into the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern as this one might be the easiest one to grasp. You have already written code, so you should be able to look at your existing applications and begin putting each part into the M,V or C categories.

Best of luck and have fun!

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thanks for the good wishes! MVC is the way forward here i think as well, i've used CodeIgnitor as a good base to work and start with, i just unfortunately keep slipping out of it. i think you're right to the degree of mapping out maybe even drawing all the different classes and required methods + interactions first before even coding to get a "visual" over view of what will be required... –  Shadi Almosri Dec 8 '09 at 22:31

There are already quite a few answers about where to find information on programming in an object-oriented fashion. Indeed, there are many great books out there that will define the basic concepts however I think the question was more on how to "stick with it" through development for someone new to the method.

Of the many concepts in object-oriented programming, the main one that will keep you on track as a newcomer is encapsulation. Does my class know how to take care of itself? Does my class have behaviour? If it doesn't, then you don't have a class, you have a structure and you'll likely be writing a lot of procedures to change its state (as it's said, "you are back to writing C in Java"). Does my class only expose methods publicly that are required for its use? Those questions may not be terribly elaborated upon but perhaps consider this thought experiment when designing your classes: What if each one of your application's classes were to be developed and maintained by a different developer on the internet and the classes also had to interact with eachother over the internet. Would each developer agree that the class they are writing and maintaining adheres to the single responsibility principle and therefore be happy that they aren't maintaining what should be someone elses code?

Regarding the design of class interfaces, consider writing all of the code that uses your classes first. Don't worry about what has to happen at the metal yet. You should be able to stub out the entire program in terms of the class relationships before you write your first bit-twiddling implementation detail. If you can't do this without twiddling bits or making a variable public, then it is time to go back to your class relationship diagram and see if you are missing an abstraction. Phrased another way, use your code before you write your code. Do this first, and you might be suprised how clean your code and interfaces turn out if you've never done it before.

While design patterns are certainly good to learn, and some are extremely powerful, they aren't generally intrinsically object-oriented and as some argue (and I tend to agree) design patterns are often just exposed weaknesses in the language. One language's design patterns is another's basic founding principles. So when starting, don't get hung up on whether or not some relationship is a good candidate for a bridge or a facade; this is not specific to object-oriented thought, this is related to what a specific language's constructs afford.

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+1 for "the question was more on how to "stick with it" through development" :) i'll add some of your points to my list –  Shadi Almosri Dec 9 '09 at 10:26

I think it helps to first skim over some existing, decent, proven object-oriented code (e.g. Qt source code) so you can get a feel for "how it's done". After that, learning from a book or creating your own framework will be much more effective.

In general, it really helps to see things in context before reading about and practicing them, as it gives you moments to say to yourself, "Oh, that's why they did that!" At least that's how it works for me.

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The hard part of OO is which stuff should be put together into one object. As you already mentioned the evolution of your source code, here you have a simple guideline on how to evolve your source code towards an OO design:

"Put stuff together that changes together."

When two pieces of code have similar change velocities, that's a hint that they should be placed in the same object. When the change velocities are different, consider placing them in different objects.

This is also known as "Change Velocity".

If you follow that guideline your code will naturally evolve towards a good OO design. Why?

Fragments of code often have similar change velocities if they access a common representation. Every time the representation changes, all the pieces of code that use it must change at once. This is part of the reason we use objects as modules to encapsulate representation. Separating interface from implementation makes sense under this guideline too - the implementation changing more often and thus having a higher change velocity.

If a class has a stable part and an unstable part, that's a difference in change velocity that suggests moving the stable part to a (possibly abstract) base class.

Similarly, if a class has two parts which change equally often but at different times or in different directions (that is to say, for different reasons), then that again suggests refactoring the class.

Sometimes replace "class" with "method". For example, if one line of a method is likely to change more often than the rest - perhaps it is the line which creates a new object instance and contains the name of its class - consider moving it to its own routine. Then subclasses can easily effect their change by overriding it.

I came across this concept on C2 wiki many years ago, but I've rarely seen it used since. I find it very useful. It expresses some crucial underlying motivation of object oriented design. Of course, it's therefore blindingly obvious.

These are changes of the program. There is another sense of change velocity - you don't want instance variables changing at different rate, or rather that is a sign of potential problems. For example, in a graphics editor you shouldn't keep the figures and the handles in the same collection, because the figures change once a minute or once an hour and the handles change once a second or once a minute.

In a somewhat larger view, you want a system to be able to change fast enough to keep up with the changes in the business.

PS: the other principle that you should follow is "Law of Demeter", that is, an object should only talk to its friends. Friends are: yourself, instance variables, parameters, locals, and members of friendly collections - but not globals and static variables.

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+1 some really good points in there that i'm going to note down and take away :) –  Shadi Almosri Dec 9 '09 at 10:24

You might consider using the CRC (Class/Responsibility/Collaboration) card approach to OO design. This is nothing too scary - just a way to sort out what your objects should be, and which object should be responsible for which tasks by writing stuff down on a bunch of file cards to help clarify your thoughts.

It was originally designed as a teaching tool for OO thought, and might work for you. The original paper is at: http://c2.com/doc/oopsla89/paper.html

A poster above suggested programming in Smalltalk to force you into OO habits, and to an extent that's a good suggestion - Smalltalk certainly did me a lot of good, but

a) you may not have the spare time to learn a new language. If you do, great.

b) I used to tutor a university course in OO programming, using Smalltalk, and the students did an excellent job of proving that old joke about how "You can write FORTRAN in any language".

Finally: when I was learning about OO (from books) I got the impression that you subclassed a lot, creating complicated class hierarchies. When I started working with OO programmers I realised it didn't happen as often as I thought. I think everyone makes this mistake when they're learning.

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+1 for the comment about class hierarchies. I agree that this is one of the most off-putting things about OO design. –  Tony van der Peet Dec 9 '09 at 10:39
Good comment about class hierarchies. I had the same original impression from school but it just doesn't happen. In Effective Java by Joshua Bloch, his item titled "Favor composition over inheritance" is compelling in this regard. –  charstar Dec 10 '09 at 1:52

The only way to write better code is to write more code. Take a project you've implemented procedurally and convert it to OOP (assuming you're working in a language that supports both). You'll probably end up with a fragile, tightly coupled solution the first time around, but that's ok. Take the bad OOP implementation and start refactoring it into something better. Eventually, you'll figure out what works, and what doesn't.

When you're ready to take the next step, pick up a Design Patterns book and learn some of the OOP design terminology. This isn't strictly necessary, but it will give you a better grasp of some of the common problems and solutions.

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I think you should convince yourself by researching all of the downsides with procedural programming, for example (some buzzwords following, watch out): scope, state ... practically you'd be able to extract many terms just by reading examples of design patterns (read: common examples of using objects together.)

Stressing yourself into learning something you don't believe in won't get you anywhere. Start being really critical on your earlier work and refactor it to avoid copied code and using the global scope, and you'll find yourself wanting more.

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For me the ah-ha moment of OOP was the first time I looked at code and realised I could refactor common stuff into a base class. You clearly know your way around code and re-use, but you need to think around classes not procedures. With user authentication it's clear you're going to have a username and password, now they go into the base class, but what if you need a tokenId as well, re-use your existing login base class, and create a new subclass from that with the new behaviour, all your existing code works without change.

See how that works for you.

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Good Point! I think i'll have to grab an old bit of code and try and convert it into the OOP Model –  Shadi Almosri Dec 9 '09 at 10:21

Well, first off design patterns are about the worst thing to pattern your programming to.

It's just a big set of things. It's nothing to do with OOP, and most of them such as singleton are constantly used for all the wrong reasons (ie initialization). Some of these things you have to use so telling you about them is pointless, others are counterproductive, and the rest are just special case things. If you try to learn anything this way everything will start to look like some bizarre doodad someone came up with for a very special problem or because they needed infinite genericity (which is seldom true). Don't let people con you into using a million iterators and templates for no reason and make things ten times more complicated.

Really OOP is a simple subject that gets massively overcomplicated. Unfortunately in C++ it has a lot of issues but really simple virtual methods are what matters. Pure virtual base classes used much like a java interface object are the most useful but also just plain virtual methods here and there will come in handy.

It's mostly been overblown. It also doesn't lend itself well to every problem. If you make database and gui stuff it lends itself well to that. If you make system tools it is usually not as helpful.

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I found that one of the things which has really helped solidify the benefits of OOP for me has been writing unit tests with a mock object framework (such as EasyMock). Once you start to develop that way, you can see how classes help you isolate modules behind interfaces and also allow for easier testing.

One thing to keep in mind is that when people are first learning OOP, often there is an overemphasis on inheritance. Inheritance has its place, but it's a tool that can easily be overused. Composition or simple interface implementation are often better ways of doing things. Don't go so far in attempting to reuse code via inheritance that you make inheritance trees which make little sense from a polymorphism standpoint. The substitution principle is what makes inheritance/interface implementation powerful, not the fact that you can reuse code by subclassing.

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A great step would be to start of with a OOP framework, you can still write procedural code in the framework but over time you can refine your coding habits & start converting functionality into objects.

Also reading about patterns & data modeling will give you more ideas about to code your logic in a OOP style.

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Any frameworks you recommend? –  Shadi Almosri Dec 8 '09 at 23:54
syfony, code igniter, phpcake & yii seem pretty popular –  Ben Rowe Dec 9 '09 at 22:42

I have found that a very intense way learning to train abstraction in programming is to build a OOP library with a defined functionality, and then to implement two projects with similar but still different requirements that are building on that library, at the same time.

This is very time-consuming and you need to have learned the basics of OOP first (S.Lott has some great links in the other answer). Constant refactoring and lots of "Doh!" moments are the rule; but I found this a great way to learn modular programming because everything I did was immediately noticeable in the implementation of one of the projects.

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Simply practice. If you've read everything about OOP and you know something about OOP and you know the OOP principals implemented in your language PHP... then just practice, practice and practice some more.

Now, don't go viewing OOP as the hammer and everything else as the nail, but do try to incorporate at least one class in a project. Then see if you can reuse it in another project etc..

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Learn a new language, one that helps to move you gently to OOP. Java is nice, but a bit bloated, though. But its system library is mainly OO, so you are force to use objects. Moving to another language also helps you not to reuse your old code :-)

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I think it´s important to learn the theory first. So reading a book would be a good start.

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I already know the theory, and how to program in it, i just don't do it :P –  Shadi Almosri Dec 8 '09 at 23:53
Oh, ok, then starting a little project is your way to go. Learning theory, learning by doing, and learning by others. :) –  Status4 Dec 10 '09 at 21:45
  1. I believe that the mechanics of OOP seem completely arbitrary and make no sense until you read a book on design patterns and understand the "why" of it. I recommend Head First Design Patterns. I thought OOP was ridiculous and completely useless until I picked up this book and saw what it was actually good for.

  2. OO makes a lot more sense when you understand function pointers and how it relates to indirect function calls and late binding. Play around with function pointers in C, C++, or D for a little while and get a feel for what they're for and how they work. The polymorphism/virtual function part of OO is just another layer of abstraction on top of this.

  3. Procedural is the right tool for some jobs. Don't act like it's wrong. IMHO all three major paradigms (procedural, OO, functional) are valuable even at a fine-grained level, within a single module. I tend to prefer:

Procedural is good when my problem is simple (or I've already factored it enough with functional and OO that I now have a subproblem that I consider simple) and I want the most straightforward solution without a lot of abstraction getting in the way.

Object-oriented is good when my problem is more complex and has lots of state that makes sense in the context of the problem domain. In these cases the existence of state is not an implementation detail, but the exact representation is one that I prefer to abstract away.

Functional is good when my problem is complex but has no state that makes sense at the level of the problem domain. From the perspective of the problem domain, the existence of state is an implementation detail.

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First, learn writing. Second, learn user experience and interaction design. Third, learn business analysis. Fourth, learn role modeling.

Now that you know what objects are, you will come to see that objects are not found in code. They are found at runtime; in the space between the machine and the user's mind. This is what object orientation really means. Unfortunately recent academia has twisted it into an engineering concept. Nothing could be further off the mark. And try as they might to emulate, the end result is crap. Why? Because the "OOP" paradigm as the industry knows it today is built on a fundamentally flawed idea: decompositional analysis of identity. How is this flawed? Because identity in and of itself is meaningless. It is void. In a mathematical sense, in a philosophical sense. This is not how a human being perceives and interacts with the world.

Canon: Alan Kay, Trygve Reenskaug, James (Jim) Coplien

How I wish I was in your position. :)

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