Object oriented programming without objects

 

The python programming language provides a seldom explained feature which is the ability to use modules. A module is different from the class concept and has much in common with header files in the c language. The idea is to avoid classes in pyton at all and destribute the coder over many files which are included with the import statement.

From a python perspective the advantage is low.. But a python script which is using only modular programming is much easier to convert into normal c code. That means the written program or game can be made faster in the future by translating the python code into c code. The interesting situation is, that using modules instead of classes is working surprisingly well. What the programmer can is to create small files with less than 100 lines of code. Each file consists of some functions and some variables on top. The variables are only getting accessed from the python module but not from the outside.

What modules doesn't allow is inheritance. Also it is not possible to put different modules into the same file. Each module is stored in a different file. This will increase the amount of files drastically. But thanks the ability to import modules hierarchically it is possible to create very complex applications. With dozends of modules which are combined into submodules.

The chance is high that python programmers are using a same technique. The c language has the disadvantage that it is more complicated to create such modules. Because in addition a header file is needed which is an interface to the outside. But in theory, this concept can replace object oriented classes. That means, there is no need to convert c code into c++ classes.

Modular programming has felt out of fashion since the advent of C++. Today the situation is that more complicated programs are mostly realized with the OOP paradigm. Also the UML notation knows only of classes but not of modules. But in theory both ideas allowing to create larger projects with thousands lines of code.

The only thing what is not working is to avoid classes and modules as well. If somebody writes down 20 variables and 40 functions into the same file it is hard to determine which functions gets access to which variable. Such code can't be maintained. So it is important to divide the code into smaller chunks with less than 100 lines of code. Such a file can be analyzed easily by a human programmer.