CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2012/ch2a 2w15 rr

Introduction

Object-oriented design is a programming model that began in the late 60's as software programs became more complex. The idea behind the approach was to build software systems by modeling them based on the real-world objects that they were trying to represent. For example, banking systems would contain customer objects, account objects, etc. Today, object-oriented design has been widely adopted <ref> Introduction to Object Oriented Design</ref>. When done properly, this approach leads to simple, robust, flexible and modular software. When something goes wrong, the results could be bad. Object oriented design can be seen from different perspectives. In the language-centric perspective, objects are containers of data and methods. The model-centric perspective views the objects as model elements reflecting the real world objects and Responsibility-centric perspective views objects as interacting elements each playing a role in object community.

Background

The history of object oriented design has many branches, and many people have contributed to this domain. The 1960s and 1970s saw the emergence of object oriented programming languages, such as Simula and Smalltalk, with key contributors such as Kristen Nygaard and Alan Kay, the visionary computer scientist who founded Smalltalk.<ref>History of Object Oriented Design</ref> But object oriented design was informal through that period, and it was only form 1982 that it became popular. Contributors in this domain include Grady Booch, Kent Beck, Peter Coad, Don Firesmith, Ivar Jacobson (a UML founder), Steve Mellor, Bertrand Meyer, Jim Rumbaugh (a UML founder) and Rebecca Wirfs-Brock among others. Each of these perspectives are outlined in the following sections.

References

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Additional Reading

• Flexible,Reliable Software using Patterns and Agile Development