Becoming popular in the early 1990s and the norm today, object-oriented programming (OOP) languages, such as C++ and Java, provide a formal set of rules for creating and managing objects.

You’ll notice the this keyword in the previous example. This keyword appears in many object-oriented programming languages. It essentially says: I’m referring to the current object.

The Java programming language emerged roughly 25 years ago, when Smalltalk and C++ dominated. Back then it was easy to argue that the world didn't need another object-oriented programming language.

One of the easiest ways to understand what is meant by ‘object oriented’, is to define what it is not. Before Object Oriented Programming (OOP) programs were written an imperative way ...