[Tutor] Re: what is an object?

[Sandip Bhattacharya]

Christopher Spears wrote:
> fundamental question to ask.  What exactly is an
> object?  A part of my understands what an object is,
> but I cannot articulate this to another person.
> 

There is a general Object-Oriented answer, and then there is a python 
answer. ;)

Fundamentally, an object is a distinct entity or an instance of a class 
of types. So if humans are a class of living beings, Christopher Spears 
is an instance of the human class and can therefore be considered an 
"object". ;)

Similarly, if you have a class named AClass then the following creates 
two instances/objects of the same class.
                   a = AClass()
                   b = AClass()

This is how most OO based programming languages like C++/Java define 
objects.

However, python extends the term "object" further - in Python even the 
types are considered objects! So in the above example, even AClass is 
condered an object! Even string literals ("String"), lists ([]), etc are 
called as objects!


- Sandip

-- 
Sandip Bhattacharya
sandip (at) puroga.com
Puroga Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
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