Object-Oriented Software Engineering

Chapter 2:
Review of Object Orientation
 What is Object Orientation?
•Procedural paradigm: pa·ruh·dime
– Software is organized around the notion of procedures
– Procedural abstraction
• Works as long as the data is simple

•Adding data abstractions groups together the pieces

of data that describe some entity
• Helps reduce the system’s complexity.
– Such as Records and structures

•Object oriented paradigm:

– Organizing procedural abstractions in the context of data
abstractions
Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 2
 Object Oriented paradigm
•All computations are performed in the context of
objects.

– The objects are instances of classes, which:

• are data abstractions
• contain procedural abstractions that operate on the objects

– A running program can be seen as a collection of

objects collaborating to perform a given task

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 3

A View of the Two paradigms

See in Umple

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 4

 Classes and Objects
•Object group
– A chunk of structured data in a running software system

– Has properties
• Represent its state

– Has behaviour
• How it acts and reacts
• May simulate the behaviour of an object in the real world

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 5

Objects: Shown as a UML instance diagram

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 6

 Classes
•A class:
– A unit of abstraction in an object oriented (OO) program

– Represents similar objects

• Its instances

– A kind of software module

• Describes its instances’ structure (properties)
• Contains methods to implement their behavior

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 7

 Is Something a Class or an Instance?
– Something should be a class if it could have instances
– Something should be an instance if it is clearly a single member of the
set defined by a class
•Film
– Class; instances are individual films.
•Reel of Film:
– Class; instances are physical reels
•Film reel with serial number SW19876
– Instance of ReelOfFilm
•Science Fiction
– Instance of the class Genre.
•Science Fiction Film
– Class; instances include ‘Star Wars’
•Showing of ‘Star Wars’ in the Phoenix Cinema at 7 p.m.:
– Instance of ShowingOfFilm
Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 8
 Naming classes
– Use capital letters
• E.g. BankAccount not bankAccount

– Use singular nouns

– Use the right level of generality

• E.g. Municipality, not City

– Make sure the name has only one meaning

• E.g. ‘bus’ has several meanings

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 9

 Instance Variables
•Variables defined inside a class corresponding to data
present in each instance
– Also called fields or member variables

– Attributes
• Simple data
• E.g. name, dateOfBirth

– Associations
• Relationships to other important classes
• E.g. supervisor, coursesTaken
• More on these in Chapter 5

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 10

 Variables vs. Objects
•A variable
– Refers to an object
– May refer to different objects at different points in time

•An object can be referred to by several different

variables at the same time

•Type of a variable
– Determines what classes of objects it may contain

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 11

 Class variables
•A class variable’s value is shared by all instances of a
class.
– Also called a static variable

– If one instance sets the value of a class variable, then all

the other instances see the same changed value.

– Class variables are useful for:

• Default or ‘constant’ values (e.g. PI)
• Lookup tables and similar structures

Caution: do not over-use class variables

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 12

 Methods, Operations and Polymorphism

•Operation
– A higher-level procedural abstraction that specifies
a type of behaviour

– Independent of any code which implements that

behaviour
• E.g. calculating area (in general)

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 14

 Methods, Operations and Polymorphism

•Method
– A procedural abstraction used to implement the
behaviour of a class

– Several different classes can have methods with the

same name
• They implement the same abstract operation in ways
suitable to each class
• E.g. calculating area in a rectangle is done differently
from in a circle
Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 15
 Polymorphism
•A property of object oriented software by
which an abstract operation may be performed
in different ways in different classes.
– Requires that there be multiple methods of the
same name
– The choice of which one to execute depends on
the object that is in a variable
– Reduces the need for programmers to code many
if-else or switch statements

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 16

Polymorphism
 Organizing Classes into Inheritance
Hierarchies
•Superclasses
– Contain features common to a set of subclasses

•Inheritance hierarchies
– Show the relationships among superclasses and
subclasses
– A triangle shows a generalization

•Inheritance
– The implicit possession by all subclasses of features
defined in its superclasses

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 18

An Example Inheritance Hierarchy

See in Umple

•Inheritance
– The implicit possession by all subclasses of
features defined in its superclasses
Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 19
 The Isa Rule
•Always check generalizations to ensure they
obey the isa rule
– “A checking account is an account”
– “A village is a municipality”

•Should ‘Province’ be a subclass of ‘Country’?

– No, it violates the isa rule
• “A province is a country” is invalid!

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 20

A possible inheritance hierarchy of
mathematical objects

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 21

Make Sure all Inherited Features Make Sense
in Subclasses

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 22

Inheritance, Polymorphism and Variables

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 23

Some Operations in the Shape Example

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 24

Abstract Classes and Methods
•An operation should be declared to exist at the
highest class in the hierarchy where it makes sense
– The operation may be abstract (lacking
implementation) at that level
– If so, the class also must be abstract
• No instances can be created
• The opposite of an abstract class is a concrete class
– If a superclass has an abstract operation then its
subclasses at some level must have a concrete
method for the operation
• Leaf classes must have or inherit concrete methods for all
operations
• Leaf classes must be concrete
Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 25
 Abstract Classes and Methods e.g.
• Say you have a three printers that you would need to write a
driver for, Lexmark, Canon, and HP.
• All three printers will have
the print() and getSystemResource() methods.
• However, only print() will be different for each
printer. getSystemResource() remains the same throughout the
three printers. You also have another concern, you would like to
apply polymorphism.
• So since getSystemResource() is the same for all three printers,
so this can be pushed up to the super class to be implemented.
 Abstract Classes and Methods e.g.
public abstract class Printer
{ public void getSystemResource()
{ // real implementation of getting system resources }
public abstract void print();
}
public class Canon extends Printer
{ public void print()
{ // here you will provide the implementation of print pertaining to Canon } }
public class HP extends Printer
{ public void print()
{ // here you will provide the implementation of print pertaining to HP } }
public class Lexmark extends Printer
{ public void print()
{ // here you will provide the implementation of print pertaining to Lexmark } }
 Abstract Classes and Methods e.g.
• Notice that HP, Canon and Lexmark classes do not
provide the implementation
of getSystemResource().
• Finally, in your main class, you can do the following:

public static void main(String args[])

{
Printer printer = new HP();
printer.getSystemResource();
printer.print();
}
 Abstract Classes and Methods e.g.
• The abstract methods merely define a contract that derived
classes must implement. It's is the way how you ensure that
they actually always will.
• So let's take another example of an abstract class Shape. It
would have an abstract method draw() that should draw it.
(Shape is abstract, because we do not know how to draw a
general shape)
• By having abstract method draw in Shape we guarantee that all
derived classed, that actually can be drawn, for
example Circle do implement draw.
• Later if we forget to implement draw in some class, that is
derived from Shape, compiler will actually help as giving an
error.
 Overriding
•A method would be inherited, but a subclass contains a
new version instead

– For extension
• E.g. SavingsAccount might charge an extra fee following every
debit
– For optimization
• E.g. The getPerimeterLength method in Circle is much simpler
than the one in Ellipse
– For restriction (best to avoid)
• E.g. scale(x,y) would not work in Circle

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 30

 Overriding e.g.
class Animal
{ public void move()
{ System.out.println("Animals can move"); } }
class Dog extends Animal
{ public void move()
{ System.out.println("Dogs can walk and run"); } }
public class TestDog
{
public static void main(String args[])
{ Animal a = new Animal(); // Animal reference and object
Animal b = new Dog(); // Animal reference but Dog object
a.move();// runs the method in Animal class
b.move();//Runs the method in Dog class } }

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 31

How a decision is made about which method
to run
1. If there is a concrete method for the operation
in the current class, run that method.
2. Otherwise, check in the immediate superclass
to see if there is a method there; if so, run it.
3. Repeat step 2, looking in successively higher
superclasses until a concrete method is found
and run.
4. If no method is found, then there is an error
– In Java and C++ the program would not have
compiled

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 32

 Dynamic binding
•Occurs when decision about which method to
run can only be made at run time
– Needed when:
• A variable is declared to have a superclass as its type,
and
• There is more than one possible polymorphic method
that could be run among the type of the variable and
its subclasses

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 33

 Key Terminology
•Abstraction
– Object -> something in the world
– Class -> objects
– Superclass -> subclasses
– Operation -> methods
– Attributes and associations -> instance variables
•Modularity
– Code is divided into classes, and classes into methods
• Encapsulation
– Details can be hidden in classes
– This gives rise to information hiding:
• Programmers do not need to know all the details of a
class

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 34

•History
The Basics of Java
– The first object oriented programming language was Simula-67
• designed to allow programmers to write simulation
programs
– In the early 1980’s, Smalltalk was developed at Xerox PARC
• New syntax, large open-source library of reusable code,
bytecode, platform independence, garbage collection.
– late 1980’s, C++ was developed by B. Stroustrup,
• Recognized the advantages of OO but also recognized that
there were tremendous numbers of C programmers
– In 1991, engineers at Sun Microsystems started a project to
design a language that could be used in consumer ‘smart
devices’: Oak
• When the Internet gained popularity, Sun saw an
opportunity to exploit the technology.
• The new language, renamed Java, was formally presented in
1995 at the SunWorld ’95 conference.
Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 35
 Java documentation
•Looking up classes and methods is an essential
skill
– Looking up unknown classes and methods will get
you a long way towards understanding code

•Java documentation can be automatically

generated by a program called Javadoc
– Documentation is generated from the code and its
comments.
Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 36
 Overview of Java
•The next few slides will remind you of several key Java
features
– Not in the book

References:
1. http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/index.html
2. http://www.java2s.com/
3. http://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/
4. http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2013/01/15-online-
learning-websites-that-you-should-check-out.html

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 37

 Characters and Strings
•Character is a class representing Unicode characters
– More than a byte each
– Represent any world language

•char is a primitive data type containing a Unicode

character

•String is a class containing collections of characters

– + is the operator used to concatenate strings

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 38

 Arrays and Collections
•Arrays are of fixed size and lack methods to manipulate them

•ArrayList is the most widely used class to hold a collection of other objects
– More powerful than arrays, but less efficient

•Iterators are used to access members of Vectors

– Enumerations were formally used, but were more complex
a = new ArrayList();
Iterator i = a.iterator();
while(i.hasNext())
{
aMethod(i.next());
}
Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 39
 Casting
•Java is very strict about types
– If variable v is declared to have type X, you can only invoke
operations on v that are defined in X or its superclasses
• Even though an instance of a subclass of X may be actually stored
in the variable
– If you know an instance of a subclass is stored, then you can
cast the variable to the subclass
• E.g. if I know a Vector contains instances of String, I can get the next element
of its Iterator using:
(String)i.next();
• To avoid casting you could also have used templates::
a = ArrayList<String>; i=a.iterator(); i.next()
using

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 40

 Exceptions
“What ever can happen, will happen."
•Anything that can go wrong should result in the raising of an
Exception
– Exception is a class with many subclasses for specific things that
can go wrong
•Use a try - catch block to trap an exception
try
{
// some code
}
catch (ArithmeticException e)
{
// code to handle division by zero
}

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 41

 Interfaces
•Like abstract classes, but cannot have executable
statements
– Define a set of operations that make sense in several classes
– Abstract Data Types
•A class can implement any number of interfaces
– It must have concrete methods for the operations
•You can declare the type of a variable to be an interface
– This is just like declaring the type to be an abstract class
•Important interfaces in Java’s library include
– Runnable, Collection, Iterator, Comparable, Cloneable

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 42

 Packages and importing
•A package combines related classes into subsystems
– All the classes in a particular directory

•Classes in different packages can have the same

name
– Although not recommended

•Importing a package is done as follows:

import finance.banking.accounts.*;
Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 43
 Access control
•Applies to methods and variables
– public
• Any class can access
– protected
• Only code in the package, or subclasses can access
– (blank)
• Only code in the package can access
– private
• Only code written in the class can access
• Inheritance still occurs!

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 44

 Threads and concurrency
•Thread:
– Sequence of executing statements that can be running
concurrently with other threads
•To create a thread in Java:
– 1. Create a class implementing Runnable or extending
Thread
– 2. Implement the run method as a loop that does
something for a period of time
– 3. Create an instance of this class
– 4. Invoke the start operation, which calls run
Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 45
 Programming Style Guidelines
•Remember that programs are for people to read
– Always choose the simpler alternative
– Reject clever code that is hard to understand
– Shorter code is not necessarily better

•Choose good names

– Make them highly descriptive
– Do not worry about using long names

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 46

 Programming style …
•Comment extensively
– Comment whatever is non-obvious
– Do not comment the obvious
– Comments should be 25-50% of the code

•Organize class elements consistently

– Variables, constructors, public methods then private
methods

•Be consistent regarding layout of code

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 47
 Programming style …
•Avoid duplication of code
– Do not ‘clone’ if possible
• Create a new method and call it
• Cloning results in two copies that may both have bugs
– When one copy of the bug is fixed, the other may
be forgotten

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 48

 Programming style ...
•Adhere to good object oriented principles
– E.g. the ‘isa rule’

•Prefer private as opposed to public

•Do not mix user interface code with non-user

interface code
– Interact with the user in separate classes
• This makes non-UI classes more reusable

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 49

 Difficulties and Risks in Programming

•Language evolution and deprecated features:

– Java is evolving, so some features are ‘deprecated’
at every release
•Efficiency can be a concern in some object
oriented systems
– Java can be less efficient than other languages
• VM-based
• Dynamic binding

Chapter 2: Review of Object Orientation 50