Object Oriented Programming (OOP)¶
The Idea¶
OOP takes structured programming to the next level. Structured programming encapsulates local data in a function. The user does not need to know anything about the function other than the interface (inputs and outputs).
OOP recognizes that some groups of functions “hang together” because they operate on the same object. One idea is to group these functions together.
The second idea is that certain persistent data “belong to” an object. They should only be manipulated by functions that also “belong to” the object.
OOP therefore bundles data (called properties) and functions (called methods) together.
Example: Utility function¶
\(u(c,l) = c ^ (1-\sigma) / (1-\sigma) + \phi \log(l)\)
Persistent data include: parameters (\(\sigma, \phi\)).
Methods include: compute \(u_{c}, u(c,l)\), inverse marginal utility, indifference curves.
Benefits¶
There is nothing that OOP can do that could not be done without OOP. The benefits lie in code organization.
The programmer sees all methods that operate on the object in one place. That makes it easier to
- test the code
- modify the code
- ensure consistency
Since all code is in one place, it is easy to swap out.
Imagine you want to compute a model with different utility functions. With OOP, all you need to do is swap out the utility function object. Ideally, the other code remains unchanged.