Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm that creates software by modeling real-world entities or concepts as objects and enables them to communicate with each other within a program.

Object-Oriented Programming involves managing data (attributes) and functions that process the data (methods) into a single unit called an object.

The key concepts are as follows:

• Object: An object combines data (attributes) and the operations on the data (methods). For instance, a Car object can have properties like color, model, and speed (attributes) and methods like accelerate and stop (functions).

• Class: A class is like the blueprint for a car, serving as a design template for creating objects. Classes define the attributes and methods that the objects created from them will share, and an object created from a class is called an instance.

• Inheritance: Inheritance allows one class (child class) to inherit the properties and methods of another class (parent class). This enhances the reusability of code.

• Encapsulation: Encapsulation refers to the practice of hiding an object's data (attributes) from external access and manipulating data only through the object's methods. This ensures data protection and security.

• Polymorphism: Polymorphism allows methods with the same name to have different implementations in different classes. This ensures that the code is more flexible and reusable.

The relationship between a class and an object can be compared to a car blueprint and a car, or a recipe and a dish.

The following code defines two classes: Animal and Dog.

The Animal class includes a name attribute and a speak method.

The Dog class is derived from the Animal class and overrides the speak method to provide a custom implementation.

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class Animal: # Define Animal class
    def __init__(self, name): # Constructor method
        self.name = name # Define name attribute

    def speak(self): # Define speak method
        pass

class Dog(Animal): # Define Dog class
    def speak(self): # Override speak method
        return f"{self.name} says woof!" # Use name attribute


# Create and use objects
my_dog = Dog("Buddy")
print(my_dog.speak())
# Output: Buddy says woof!