Gift List Part 1 - OOP

Object Oriented Programming - What is it? We've all heard it bandied about in our tech circles. Some of us have even had the opportunity to use it. According to Wikipedia:

"Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm that uses "objects" and their interactions to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as encapsulation, modularity, polymorphism, and inheritance. It was not commonly used in mainstream software application development until the early 1990s. Many modern programming languages now support OOP."

Okay, so what does that mean to someone just starting out? It means you find the most generic "thingy" that will be used in your application and build on that, ie if you're writing a banking system, the two most basic items are accounts and customers. You may have checking, savings, certificates of deposits, etc for the types of accounts while the customers may be businesses or personal, senior or student, and so on.

For the sample application I'm going to be writing, I'm using a gift list used by my wife and I to keep track of all the gifts we give and receive. The two basic items will be gifts and people. The gifts will have various properties and there may be additional types that extend the basic structure, same for the people. If they're not family, we probably don't care about anniversaries.

So much for OOP. Next will be TDD, followed by the first class.

Cheers,
Chris