Lecture 1 Summary

The first two OO principles

Abstraction

• Implementor defines the abstraction using lower-level data and processes.
• Client uses the high-level data-type and methods.

Data Abstraction

Let information be intelligent/meaningful.

Functional Abstraction

If you can extract out a meaningful function within another function, do it.

Encapsulation

• Package related data and behaviour in a self-contained unit.
• Hide information/data from the client and allow access only through methods provided.

Packaging

Code of different functionalities should reside in different classes/places.

Information Hiding

The use of private access modifiers. This prevents client access to lower-level details of the implementer.

Good OOP design

Tell-Don't-Ask!

Tell an object what to do, don't ask an object for data and act on it.

Immutability of objects

Void methods that mutate states should be avoided. Declaring all instance fields as private final helps to ensure both encapsulation and immutability.

Bottom-up testing to avoid cyclic dependencies

Avoid two classes requiring each other to be tested.

• Hard dependencies: Instance field/variable references.
• Soft dependencies: Method references.

Java Memory Model

Stack

• LIFO for storing method call records

Heap

• Storing all the new invocations
• Garbage collection

Non-heap

• Metascape, to be discussed later

Illustrations can be found in the lecture slides.