Learning object-oriented programming

So, what's object-oriented programming all about?

Let's step back for a moment and inspect how a clock works. The clock has three hands: hours, minutes and seconds. The second-hand grows once every second, the minute hand every sixty seconds, and the hour hand every sixty minutes. When the value of the second hand is 60, its value is set to zero, and the value of the minute hand grows by one. When the minute hand's value is 60, its value is set to zero, and the hour hand's value grows by one. When the hour hand's value is 24, it's set to zero.

The time is always printed in the form hours: minutes: seconds, where two digits are used to represent the hour (e.g., 01 or 12) as well as the minutes and seconds.

The clock has been implemented below using integer variables (the printing could be in a separate method, but that has not been done here).

int hours = 0;
int minutes = 0;
int seconds = 0;

while (true) {
    // 1. Printing the time
    if (hours < 10) {
        System.out.print("0");
    }
    System.out.print(hours);

    System.out.print(":");

    if (minutes < 10) {
        System.out.print("0");
    }
    System.out.print(minutes);

    System.out.print(":");

    if (seconds < 10) {
        System.out.print("0");
    }
    System.out.print(seconds);
    System.out.println();

    // 2. The second hand's progress
    seconds = seconds + 1;

    // 3. The other hand's progress when necessary
    if (seconds > 59) {
        minutes = minutes + 1;
        seconds = 0;

        if (minutes > 59) {
            hours = hours + 1;
            minutes = 0;

            if (hours > 23) {
                hours = 0;
            }
        }
    }
}

Our aim is to make the program more understandable.

Since a clock hand is a clear concept in its own right, a good way to improve the program's clarity would be to turn it into a class. Let's create a ClockHand class that describes a clock hand, which contains information about its value, upper limit (i.e., the point at which the value of the hand returns to zero), and provides methods for advancing the hand, viewing its value, and also printing the value in string form.

public class ClockHand {
    private int value;
    private int limit;

    public ClockHand(int limit) {
        this.limit = limit;
        this.value = 0;
    }

    public void advance() {
        this.value = this.value + 1;

        if (this.value >= this.limit) {
            this.value = 0;
        }
    }

    public int value() {
        return this.value;
    }

    public String toString() {
        if (this.value < 10) {
            return "0" + this.value;
        }

        return "" + this.value;
    }
}

Once we've created the ClockHand class, our clock has become clearer. It's now straightforward to print the clock, i.e., the clock hand, and the hand's progression is hidden away in the ClockHand class. Since the the hand returns to the beginning automatically with the help of the upper-limit variable defined by the ClockHand class, the way the hands work together is slightly different than in the implementation that used integers. That one looked at whether the value of the integer that represented the clock hand exceeded the upper limit, after which its value was set to zero and the value of the integer representing the next clock hand was incremented. Using clock-hand objects, the minute hand advances when the second hand's value is zero, and the hour hand advances when the minute hand's value is zero.

ClockHand hours = new ClockHand(24);
ClockHand minutes = new ClockHand(60);
ClockHand seconds = new ClockHand(60);

while (true) {
    // 1. Printing the time
    System.out.println(hours + ":" + minutes + ":" + seconds);

    // 2. Advancing the second hand
    seconds.advance();

    // 3. Advancing the other hands when required
    if (seconds.value() == 0) {
        minutes.advance();

        if (minutes.value() == 0) {
            hours.advance();
        }
    }
}

Object-oriented programming is primarily about isolating concepts into their own entities or, in other words, creating abstractions. Despite the previous example, one might deem it pointless to create an object containing only a number since the same could be done directly with int variables. However, that is not always the case.

Separating a concept into its own class is a good idea for many reasons. Firstly, certain details (such as the rotation of a hand) can be hidden inside the class (i.e., abstracted). Instead of typing an if-statement and an assignment operation, it's enough for the one using the clock hand to call a clearly-named method advance(). The resulting clock hand may be used as a building block for other programs as well - the class could be named CounterLimitedFromTop, for instance. That is, a class created from a distinct concept can serve multiple purposes. Another massive advantage is that since the details of the implementation of the clock hand are not visible to its user, they can be changed if desired.

We realized that the clock contains three hands, i.e., it consists of three concepts. The clock is a concept in and of itself. As such, we can create a class for it too. Next, we create a class called "Clock" that hides the hands inside of it.

public class Clock {
    private ClockHand hours;
    private ClockHand minutes;
    private ClockHand seconds;

    public Clock() {
        this.hours = new ClockHand(24);
        this.minutes = new ClockHand(60);
        this.seconds = new ClockHand(60);
    }

    public void advance() {
        this.seconds.advance();

        if (this.seconds.value() == 0) {
            this.minutes.advance();

            if (this.minutes.value() == 0) {
                this.hours.advance();
            }
        }
    }

    public String toString() {
        return hours + ":" + minutes + ":" + seconds;
    }
}

The way the program functions has become increasingly clearer. When you compare our program below to the original one that was made up of integers, you'll find that the program's readability is superior.

Clock clock = new Clock();

while (true) {
    System.out.println(clock);
    clock.advance();
}

The clock we implemented above is an object whose functionality is based on "simpler" objects, i.e., its hands. This is precisely the great idea behind ​​object-oriented programming: a program is built from small and distinct objects that work together

Next, let's review topic terminology.

Object

An Object refers to an independent entity that contains both data (instance variables) and behavior (methods). Objects may come in lots of different forms: some may describe problem-domain concepts, others are used to coordinate the interaction that happens between objects. Objects interact with one another through method calls — these method calls are used to both request information from objects and give instructions to them.

Generally, each object has clearly defined boundaries and behaviors and is only aware of the objects that it needs to perform its task. In other words, the object hides its internal operations, providing access to its functionality through clearly defined methods. Moreover, the object is independent of any other object that it doesn't require to accomplish its task.

In the previous section, we dealt with objects that represented people whose structure was defined in a "Person" class. It's a good idea to remind ourselves of what a class does: a class contains the blueprint needed to create objects, and also defines the objects' variables and methods. An object is created on the basis of the class constructor.

Our person objects had a name, age, weight and height property, along with a few methods. If we were to think about the structure of our person object some more, we could surely come up with more variables related to a person, such as a personal ID number, telephone number, address and eye color.

In reality, we can relate all kinds of different information and things to a person. However, when building an application that deals with people, the functionality and features related to a person are gathered based on the application's use case. For example, an application focused on personal health and well-being would probably keep track of the variables mentioned earlier, such as age, weight, and height, and also provide the ability to calculate a body mass index and a maximum heart rate. On the other hand, an application focused on communication could store people's email addresses and phone numbers, but would have no need for information such as weight or height.

The state of an object is the value of its internal variables at any given point in time.

In the Java programming language, a Person object that keeps track of name, age, weight, and height, and provides the ability to calculate body mass index and maximum heart rate would look like the following. Below, the height and weight are expressed as doubles - the unit of length is one meter.

public class Person {
    private String name;
    private int age;
    private double weight;
    private double height;

    public Person(String name, int age, double weight, double height) {
        this.name = name;
        this.age = age;
        this.weight = weight;
        this.height = height;
    }

    public double bodyMassIndex() {
        return this.weight / (this.height * this.height);
    }

    public double maximumHeartRate() {
        return 206.3 - (0.711 * this.age);
    }

    public String toString() {
        return this.name + ", BMI: " + this.bodyMassIndex()
            + ", maximum heart rate: " + this.maximumHeartRate();
    }
}

Determining the maximum heart rate and body mass index of a given person is straightforward using the Person class described above.

Scanner reader = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("What's your name?");
String name = reader.nextLine();
System.out.println("What's your age?");
int age = Integer.valueOf(reader.nextLine());
System.out.println("What's your weight?");
double weight = Double.valueOf(reader.nextLine());
System.out.println("What's your height?");
double height = Double.valueOf(reader.nextLine());

Person person = new Person(name, age, weight, height);
System.out.println(person);

Class

A class defines the types of objects that can be created from it. It contains instance variables describing the object's data, a constructor or constructors used to create it, and methods that define its behavior. A rectangle class is detailed below which defines the functionality of a rectangle.

// class
public class Rectangle {

    // instance variables
    private int width;
    private int height;

    // constructor
    public Rectangle(int width, int height) {
        this.width = width;
        this.height = height;
    }

    // methods
    public void widen() {
        this.width = this.width + 1;
    }

    public void narrow() {
        if (this.width > 0) {
            this.width = this.width - 1;
        }
    }

    public int surfaceArea() {
        return this.width * this.height;
    }

    public String toString() {
        return "(" + this.width + ", " + this.height + ")";
    }
}

Some of the methods defined above do not return a value (methods that have the keyword void in their definition), while others do (methods that specify the type of variable to be returned). The class above also defines the toString method, which returns the string used to print the object.

Objects are created from the class through constructors by using the new command. Below, we'll create two rectangles and print information related to them.

Rectangle first = new Rectangle(40, 80);
Rectangle rectangle = new Rectangle(10, 10);
System.out.println(first);
System.out.println(rectangle);

first.narrow();
System.out.println(first);
System.out.println(first.surfaceArea());

Remember to check your points from the ball on the bottom-right corner of the material!