Chapter 1. Introduction to Object-Oriented Concepts

Although it might be quite surprising, object-oriented (OO) software development has been around since the early 1960s. Although objects have become much more prevalent in today's software industry, many software shops have yet to venture into the OO arena. It is no secret that the software industry can be slow-moving at times. It is also true that, when working systems are in place, there has to be a compelling reason to replace them. This has hindered the propagation of OO systems. There are a lot of non-OO legacy systems (that is, older systems that are already in place) that seem to be working just fine—so why risk potential disaster by changing them? In most cases you should not change them, at least not simply for the sake of change. There is nothing inherently wrong with systems written in non–OO code. However, brand-new development definitely warrants the consideration of using OO technologies.

Although there has been a steady and significant growth in OO development in the past 10 years, an entirely new venue has helped catapult it further into the mainstream. The emergence of the Web has opened a brand-new arena, where much of the software development is new and mostly unencumbered by legacy concerns. Even when there are legacy concerns, there is a trend to wrap the legacy systems in object wrappers.