An assessment of object-oriented methods and C++

This article examines the benefits of employing object-oriented (O-O) techniques with C++ as the implementation language. The choice of C++ emerges from the fact that C++ compilers produce acceptably expeditious executable code. In fact, C++ exhibits only a slight performance penalty when compared to C code. When both O-O methods and C++ are employed, programs exhibit exceptional data/code cohesiveness and a high degree of modularity. Two problems linger concerning object-oriented programming and C++. First, programmers who are competent in procedural programming languages experience a large learning curve while becoming proficient in O-O methods and advanced C++ concepts. Second, attempts to show that O-O methods create a high degree of code reuse fail. Incorporating objects from a class library consumed much higher amounts of programmer time than expected, and creating generic reusable objects embraced by all programmers may be impossible.