Job Ready Python

Lesson 14Incorporating Object-Oriented Programming

This lesson looks at tools that help us use Python as an object-oriented language, which allows us to create classes, objects, and methods that we can reuse in other parts of our code.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

• Explain classes in object-oriented programming.
• Create a class that includes at least three attributes appropriate for that class.
• Use a class to create two or more separate objects.
• Define and use a constructor in a class.
• Create one or more methods that describe a behavior associated with a class and implement those methods in a program.
• Include static and class methods in your classes.

OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING OVERVIEW

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on objects. OOP solves problems by carrying out all computations on objects. We use objects in code to represent real-world concepts that our code will interact with, such as employee IDs or employee types. Objects allow us to streamline development by reducing redundant code.

There are four principles that define and differentiate object-oriented programming. These principles are encapsulation, abstraction, polymorphism, and inheritance. We will discuss inheritance in detail in the next lesson.

The basic object in this approach is the class, which represents primary things or concepts we want to reuse in the overall solution. We create one class per object and include properties ...