Think Perl 6

Chapter 12. Classes and Objects

At this point you know how to use functions to organize code and built-in types to organize data. The next step is to learn “object-oriented programming,” which uses programmer-defined types to organize both code and data.

When software applications start to grow large, the number of details to be handled becomes overwhelming. The only way to manage this complexity is to use abstraction and encapsulation. Object orientation is a very popular and efficient way to implement abstraction and encapsulation.

Perl 6 is an object-oriented programming language, which means that it provides features that support object-oriented programming, which has these defining characteristics:

• Programs include class and method definitions.

• Most of the computation is expressed in terms of operations on objects.

• Objects often represent things in the real world, and methods often correspond to the ways things in the real world interact.

Object-oriented programming in Perl 6 is a big topic that may be worth a book by itself (and there will probably be a book or two on the subject at some point). This chapter will hopefully do more than just skim the surface and enable you to create and use objects, but will not cover some of the details and more advanced features.

Objects, Methods, and Object-Oriented Programming

Let us start with a high-level nontechnical overview of object-oriented programming in general and a brief introduction to the jargon associated with it.

In computer ...