Fwd: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

[matt westerburg]

I also come from a low level background (assembly and c) and I struggled
with object oriented programming.  People talk about procedural languages or
designs and object oriented languages or designs.  But after the interpreter
or compiler runs the byte or machine code is procedural always.  Object
oriented code changes the structure of how the code is designed.  Its merely
a convenient way to logically group similar functions and variables.  This
is done in C via header and implementation files.  Classes provide a simple
syntax normally for associating many variables and functions inside which
generally achieve a common goal.  This class becomes an object that is
manipulatable.

For example one might want to make a class to centralize their file
operations in a particular program.  For instance a logger class for keeping
track of execution.

class logger:
   file = None
   def __init__(self):
       #code first executed on instantiation of the object
       #you must make an instance of a class otherwise its a template
       file = open('programx.log', 'w')

   def write_to_log(self, message):
       #self is the instance of the class you made its used to internally
reference those variables contained within
       #
       self.file.write(message)
   def close_log(self):
       self.file.close()

The class allows for internal referencing of variables so that the variables
are global to all methods or functions.  Like the for example the
file handle to write to.

OOP is merely an organizational structure that can only be grasped
appropriately by repeated use.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/attachments/20070713/ec454e4d/attachment.html>