Week 2 [Mon, Aug 21st] - Topics

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm. A programming paradigm guides programmers to analyze programming problems, and structure programming solutions, in a specific way.

Programming languages have traditionally divided the world into two parts—data and operations on data. Data is static and immutable, except as the operations may change it. The procedures and functions that operate on data have no lasting state of their own; they’re useful only in their ability to affect data.

This division is, of course, grounded in the way computers work, so it’s not one that you can easily ignore or push aside. Like the equally pervasive distinctions between matter and energy and between nouns and verbs, it forms the background against which you work. At some point, all programmers—even object-oriented programmers—must lay out the data structures that their programs will use and define the functions that will act on the data.

With a procedural programming language like C, that’s about all there is to it. The language may offer various kinds of support for organizing data and functions, but it won’t divide the world any differently. Functions and data structures are the basic elements of design.

Object-oriented programming doesn’t so much dispute this view of the world as restructure it at a higher level. It groups operations and data into modular units called objects and lets you combine objects into structured networks to form a complete program. In an object-oriented programming language, objects and object interactions are the basic elements of design.

_{-- Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C, Apple}

Some other examples of programming paradigms are:

Some programming languages support multiple paradigms.

An object in Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) has state and behavior, similar to objects in the real world.

Every object has both state (data) and behavior (operations on data). In that, they’re not much different from ordinary physical objects. It’s easy to see how a mechanical device, such as a pocket watch or a piano, embodies both state and behavior. But almost anything that’s designed to do a job does, too. Even simple things with no moving parts such as an ordinary bottle combine state (how full the bottle is, whether or not it’s open, how warm its contents are) with behavior (the ability to dispense its contents at various flow rates, to be opened or closed, to withstand high or low temperatures).

It’s this resemblance to real things that gives objects much of their power and appeal. They can not only model components of real systems, but equally as well fulfill assigned roles as components in software systems.

_{-- Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C, Apple}

OOP views the world as a network of interacting objects.

OOP solutions try to create a similar object network inside the computer’s memory – a sort of virtual simulation of the corresponding real world scenario – so that a similar result can be achieved programmatically.

OOP does not demand that the virtual world object network follow the real world exactly.

Every object has both state (data) and behavior (operations on data).

Every object has an interface and an implementation.

Every real world object has,

• an interface through which other objects can interact with it, and,
• an implementation that supports the interface but may not be accessible to the other object.

Similarly, every object in the virtual world has an interface and an implementation.

Objects interact by sending messages. Both real world and virtual world object interactions can be viewed as objects sending messages to each other. The message can result in the sender object receiving a response and/or the receiver object’s state being changed. Furthermore, the result can vary based on which object received the message, even if the message is identical (see rows 1 and 2 in the example below).

The concept of Objects in OOP is an abstraction mechanism because it allows us to abstract away the lower level details and work with bigger granularity entities i.e. ignore details of data formats and the method implementation details and work at the level of objects.

Encapsulation protects an implementation from unintended actions and from inadvertent access.
_{-- Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C, Apple}

An object is an encapsulation of some data and related behavior in terms of two aspects:

1. The packaging aspect: An object packages data and related behavior together into one self-contained unit.

2. The information hiding aspect: The data in an object is hidden from the outside world and are only accessible using the object's interface.

Writing an OOP program is essentially writing instructions that the computer will use to,

1. create the virtual world of the object network, and
2. provide it the inputs to produce the outcome you want.

A class contains instructions for creating a specific kind of objects. It turns out sometimes multiple objects keep the same type of data and have the same behavior because they are of the same kind. Instructions for creating a 'kind' (or ‘class’) of objects can be done once and those same instructions can be used to objects of that kind. We call such instructions a Class.

Java is an "object-oriented" language, which means that it uses objects to represent data and provide methods related to them. Object types are called classes e.g., you can use String objects in Java and those objects belong to the String class.

importing

import java.awt.Point;

public class Main{
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Point spot = new Point(3, 4);
        int x = spot.x;
        System.out.println(x);
   }
}

    

    


    
    

new operator

Point spot = new Point(3, 4);

    

    


    
    

Variables that belong to an object are called attributes (or fields).

To access an attribute of an object, Java uses dot notation.

Point spot = new Point(3, 4);
int sum = spot.x * spot.x + spot.y * spot.y;
System.out.println(spot.x + ", " + spot.y + ", " + sum);

    

    


    
    

3, 4, 25

    

    


    
    

You can an object by assigning a different value to its attributes.

Point spot = new Point(3, 4);
spot.x = 5;
System.out.println(spot.x + ", " + spot.y);

    

    


    
    

5, 4

    

    


    
    

Java uses the dot notation to invoke methods on an object too.

Point spot = new Point(3, 4);
System.out.println(spot.x + ", " + spot.y);
spot.translate(5,5);
System.out.println(spot.x + ", " + spot.y);

    

    


    
    

3, 4
8, 9

    

    


    
    

You can pass objects as parameters to a method in the usual way.

public static void printPoint(Point p) {
    System.out.println("(" + p.x + ", " + p.y + ")");
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Point spot = new Point(3, 4);
    printPoint(spot);
}

    

    


    
    

(3, 4)

    

    


    
    

You can return an object from a method too.

public static Point findCenter(Rectangle box) {
    int x = box.x + box.width / 2;
    int y = box.y + box.height / 2;
    return new Point(x, y);
}

    

    


    
    

null and NullPointerException

Point spot = null;
int x = spot.x;          // NullPointerException
spot.translate(50, 50);  // NullPointerException

    

    


    
    

public static Point createCopy(Point p) {
    if (p == null) {
        return null; // return null if p is null
    }

    // create a new object with same x,y values
    return new Point(p.x, p.y);
}

    

    


    
    

Point result = createCopy(null);
System.out.println(result);

    

    


    
    

null

    

    


    
    

It is possible to have multiple variables that refer to the same object.

Point p1 = new Point(0,0);
Point p2 = p1;
System.out.println("p1: " + p1.x + ", " + p1.y);
System.out.println("p2: " + p2.x + ", " + p2.y);
p1.x = 1;
p2.y = 2;
System.out.println("p1: " + p1.x + ", " + p1.y);
System.out.println("p2: " + p2.x + ", " + p2.y);

    

    


    
    

p1: 0, 0
p2: 0, 0
p1: 1, 2
p2: 1, 2

    

    


    
    

Java does not have explicit pointers (and other related things such as pointer de-referencing and pointer arithmetic). When an object is passed into a method as an argument, the method gains access to the original object. If the method changes the object it received, the changes are retained in the object even after the method has completed.

public static void swapCoordinates(Point p){
    int temp = p.x;
    p.x = p.y;
    p.y = temp;
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Point p3 = new Point(2,3);
    System.out.println("p3: " + p3.x + ", " + p3.y);
    swapCoordinates(p3);
    System.out.println("p3: " + p3.x + ", " + p3.y);
}

    

    


    
    

p3: 2, 3
p3: 3, 2

    

    


    
    

What happens when no variables refer to an object?

Point spot = new Point(3, 4);
spot = null;

    

    


    
    

The first line creates a new Point object and makes spot refer to it. The second line changes spot so that instead of referring to the object, it refers to nothing. If there are no references to an object, there is no way to access its attributes or invoke a method on it. From the programmer’s view, it ceases to exist. However, it’s still present in the computer’s memory, taking up space.

In Java, you don’t have to delete objects you create when they are no longer needed. As your program runs, the system automatically looks for stranded objects and reclaims them; then the space can be reused for new objects. This process is called garbage collection. You don’t have to do anything to make garbage collection happen, and in general don’t have to be aware of it. But in high-performance applications, you may notice a slight delay every now and then when Java reclaims space from discarded objects.

As you know,

• Defining a class introduces a new object type.
• Every object belongs to some object type; that is, it is an instance of some class.
• A class definition is like a template for objects: it specifies what attributes the objects have and what methods they have.
• The new operator instantiates objects, that is, it creates new instances of a class.
• The methods that operate on an object type are defined in the class for that object.

public class Time {
    private int hour;
    private int minute;
    private int second;
}

    

    


    
    

You can give a class any name you like. The Java convention is to use format for class names.

The code is placed in a file whose name matches the class e.g., the Time class should be in a file named Time.java.

When a class is public (e.g., the Time class in the above example) it can be used in other classes. But the that are private (e.g., the hour, minute and second attributes of the Time class) can only be accessed from inside the Time class.

Constructors

public Time() {
    hour = 0;
    minute = 0;
    second = 0;
}

    

    


    
    

public Time(int h, int m, int s) {
    hour = h;
    minute = m;
    second = s;
}

    

    


    
    

this keyword

public Time(int hour, int minute, int second) {
    this.hour = hour;
    this.minute = minute;
    this.second = second;
}

    

    


    
    

public Time() {
    this(0, 0, 0); // call the overloaded constructor
}

public Time(int hour, int minute, int second) {
    // ...
}


    

    


    
    

public int secondsSinceMidnight() {
    return hour*60*60 + minute*60 + second;
}

    

    


    
    

Time t = new Time(0, 2, 5);
System.out.println(t.secondsSinceMidnight() + " seconds since midnight!");

    

    


    
    

As the instance variables of Time are private, you can access them from within the Time class only. To compensate, you can provide methods to access attributes:

public int getHour() {
    return hour;
}

public int getMinute() {
    return minute;
}

public int getSecond() {
    return second;
}

    

    


    
    

Methods like these are formally called “accessors”, but more commonly referred to as getters. By convention, the method that gets a variable named something is called getSomething.

Similarly, you can provide setter methods to modify attributes of a Time object:

public void setHour(int hour) {
    this.hour = hour;
}

public void setMinute(int minute) {
    this.minute = minute;
}

public void setSecond(int second) {
    this.second = second;
}

    

    


    
    

While all objects of a class have the same attributes, each object has its own copy of the attribute value.

However, some attributes are not suitable to be maintained by individual objects. Instead, they should be maintained centrally, shared by all objects of the class. They are like ‘global variables’ but attached to a specific class. Such variables whose value is shared by all instances of a class are called class-level attributes.

Similarly, when a normal method is being called, a message is being sent to the receiving object and the result may depend on the receiving object.

However, there can be methods related to a specific class but not suitable for sending messages to a specific object of that class. Such methods that are called using the class instead of a specific instance are called class-level methods.

Class-level attributes and methods are collectively called class-level members (also called static members sometimes because some programming languages use the keyword static to identify class-level members). They are to be accessed using the class name rather than an instance of the class.

The content below is an extract from -- Java Tutorial, with slight adaptations.

public class Bicycle {

    private int gear;
    private int speed;

    // an instance variable for the object ID
    private int id;

    // a class variable for the number of Bicycle
    //   objects instantiated
    private static int numberOfBicycles = 0;
        ...
}

    

    


    
    

public class Bicycle {

    private int gear;
    private int speed;

    private int id;

    private static int numberOfBicycles = 0;


    public Bicycle(int startSpeed, int startGear) {
        gear = startGear;
        speed = startSpeed;

        numberOfBicycles++;
        id = numberOfBicycles;
    }

    public int getID() {
        return id;
    }

    public static int getNumberOfBicycles() {
        return numberOfBicycles;
    }

    public int getGear(){
        return gear;
    }

    public void setGear(int newValue) {
        gear = newValue;
    }

    public int getSpeed() {
        return speed;
    }

    // ...

}

    

    


    
    

Revision control software are also known as Version Control Software (VCS), and by a few other names.

Git is the most widely used RCS today. Other RCS tools include Mercurial, Subversion (SVN), Perforce, CVS (Concurrent Versions System), Bazaar, TFS (Team Foundation Server), and Clearcase.

Github is a web-based project hosting platform for projects using Git for revision control. Other similar services include GitLab, BitBucket, and SourceForge.

Let's take your first few steps in your Git journey.

1. First, install Sourcetree (installation instructions), which is Git + a GUI for Git. If you prefer to use Git via the command line (i.e., without a GUI), you can install Git instead.

2. Next, create a directory for the repo (e.g., a directory named things).

3. Then, initialize a repository in that directory.

Sourcetree

Windows: Click File → Clone/New…. Click on Create button.
Mac: New... → Create New Repository.

Enter the location of the directory (Windows version shown below) and click Create.

Go to the things folder and observe how a hidden folder .git has been created.

Windows: you might have to configure Windows Explorer to show hidden files.

---

CLI

Open a Git Bash Terminal.

If you installed Sourcetree, you can click the Terminal button to open a GitBash terminal (on a Linux/Mac environment, even a regular terminal should do).

Navigate to the things directory.
Use the command git init which should initialize the repo.

$ cd /c/repos/things
$ git init

    

    


    
    

Initialized empty Git repository in c:/repos/things/.git/

    

    


    
    

You can use the list all command ls -a to view all files, which should show the .git directory that was created by the previous command.

$ ls -a
.  ..  .git

    

    


    
    

You can also use the git status command to check the status of the newly-created repo. It should respond with something like the following:

$ git status

    

    


    
    

# On branch master
#
# No commits yet
#
nothing to commit (create/copy files and use "git add" to track)

    

    


    
    

---

Tracking and ignoring

In a repo, you can specify which files to track and which files to ignore. Some files such as temporary log files created during the build/test process should not be revision-controlled.

Staging and committing

After initializing a repository, Git can help you with revision controlling files inside the working directory. However, it is not automatic. You need to tell Git which of your changes (aka revisions) should be committed to its memory for later use. Saving changes into Git's memory in that way is called committing and a change saved to the revision history is called a commit.

Here are the steps you can follow to learn how to create Git commits:

1. Do some changes to the content inside the working directory e.g., create a file named fruits.txt in the things directory and add some dummy text to it.

2. Observe how the file is detected by Git.

Sourcetree

The file is shown as ‘unstaged’.

---

CLI

You can use the git status command to check the status of the working directory.

$ git status

    

    


    
    

# On branch master
#
# No commits yet
#
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#   a.txt
nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

    

    


    
    

---

3. Stage the changes to commit: Although Git has detected the file in the working directory, it will not do anything with the file unless you tell it to. Suppose you want to commit the current changes to the file. First, you should stage the file, which is how you tell Git which changes you want to include in the next commit.

Sourcetree

Select the fruits.txt and click on the Stage Selected button.

fruits.txt should appear in the Staged files panel now.

If Sourcetree shows a \ No newline at the end of the file message below the staged lines (i.e., below the cherries line in the above screenshot), that is because you did not hit enter after entering the last line of the file (hence, Git is not sure if that line is complete). To rectify, move the cursor to end of the last line in that file and hit enter (like you are adding a blank line below it). This new change will now appear as an 'unstaged' change. Stage it as well.

---

CLI

You can use the stage or the add command (they are synonyms, add is the more popular choice) to stage files.

$ git add fruits.txt
$ git status

    

    


    
    

# On branch master
#
# No commits yet
#
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git rm --cached <file>..." to unstage)
#
#       new file:   fruits.txt
#

    

    


    
    

---

4. Commit the staged version of fruits.txt.

Sourcetree

Click the Commit button, enter a commit message e.g. add fruits.txt into the text box, and click Commit.

---

CLI

Use the commit command to commit. The -m switch is used to specify the commit message.

$ git commit -m "Add fruits.txt"

    

    


    
    

You can use the log command to see the commit history.

$ git log

    

    


    
    

commit 8fd30a6910efb28bb258cd01be93e481caeab846
Author: … < … @... >
Date:   Wed Jul 5 16:06:28 2017 +0800

  Add fruits.txt

    

    


    
    

---

Note the existence of something called the master branch. Git uses a mechanism called branches to facilitate evolving file content in parallel (we'll learn git branching in a later topic). Furthermore, Git auto-creates a branch named master on which the commits go on by default.

Sourcetree

Expand the BRANCHES menu and click on the master to view the history graph, which contains only one node at the moment, representing the commit you just added. Also note a label master attached to the commit.

This label points to the latest commit on the master branch.

---

CLI

Run the git status command and note how the output contains the phrase on branch master.

---

5. Do a few more commits.

1. Make some changes to fruits.txt (e.g. add some text and delete some text). Stage the changes, and commit the changes using the same steps you followed before. You should end up with something like this.

   

2. Next, add two more files colors.txt and shapes.txt to the same working directory. Add a third commit to record the current state of the working directory.

   
   You can decide what to stage and what to leave unstaged. When staging changes to commit, you can leave some files unstaged, if you wish to not include them in the next commit. In fact, Git even allows some changes in a file to be staged, while others changes in the same file to be unstaged. This flexibility is particularly useful when you want to put all related changes into a commit while leaving out unrelated changes.

6. See the revision graph: Note how commits form a path-like structure aka the revision tree/graph. In the revision graph, each commit is shown as linked to its 'parent' commit (i.e., the commit before it).

Sourcetree

To see the revision graph, click on the History item (listed under the WORKSPACE section) on the menu on the right edge of Sourcetree.

---

CLI

The gitk command opens a rudimentary graphical view of the revision graph.

---

How do undo/delete a commit?

Sourcetree

To undo the last commit, right-click on the commit just before it, and choose Reset current branch to this commit.

In the next dialog, choose the mode Mixed - keep working copy but reset index option. This will make the offending commit disappear but will keep the changes that you included in that commit intact.

If you use the Soft - ... mode instead, the last commit will be undone as before, but the changes included in that commit will stay in the staging area.

To delete the last commit entirely (i.e., undo the commit and also discard the changes included in that commit), do as above but choose the Hard - ... mode instead.

To undo/delete last n commits, right-click on the commit just before the last n commits, and do as above.

---

CLI

To undo the last commit, but keep the changes in the staging area, use the following command.

$ git reset --soft HEAD~1

    

    


    
    

To undo the last commit, and remove the changes from the staging area (but not discard the changes), used --mixed instead of --soft.

$ git reset --mixed HEAD~1

    

    


    
    

To delete the last commit entirely (i.e., undo the commit and also discard the changes included in that commit), do as above but use the --hard flag instead (i.e., do a hard reset).

$ git reset --hard HEAD~1

    

    


    
    

To undo/delete last n commits: HEAD~1 is used to tell get you are targeting the commit one position before the latest commit -- in this case the target commit is the one we want to reset to, not the one we want to undo (as the command used is reset). To undo/delete two last commits, you can use HEAD~2, and so on.

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Often, there are files inside the Git working folder that you don't want to revision-control e.g., temporary log files. Follow the steps below to learn how to configure Git to ignore such files.

1. Add a file into your repo's working folder that you supposedly don't want to revision-control e.g., a file named temp.txt. Observe how Git has detected the new file.

2. Configure Git to ignore that file:

temp.txt

    

    


    
    

temp.txt

    

    


    
    

Files recommended to be omitted from version control

• Binary files generated when building your project e.g., *.class, *.jar, *.exe (reasons: 1. no need to version control these files as they can be generated again from the source code 2. Revision control systems are optimized for tracking text-based files, not binary files.
• Temporary files e.g., log files generated while testing the product
• Local files i.e., files specific to your own computer e.g., local settings of your IDE
• Sensitive content i.e., files containing sensitive/personal information e.g., credential files, personal identification data (especially, if there is a possibility of those files getting leaked via the revision control system).

RCS tools store the history of the working directory as a series of commits. This means you should commit after each change that you want the RCS to 'remember'.

Each commit in a repo is a recorded point in the history of the project that is uniquely identified by an auto-generated hash e.g. a16043703f28e5b3dab95915f5c5e5bf4fdc5fc1.

You can tag a specific commit with a more easily identifiable name e.g. v1.0.2.

To see what changed between two points of the history, you can ask the RCS tool to diff the two commits in concern.

To restore the state of the working directory at a point in the past, you can checkout the commit in concern. i.e., you can traverse the history of the working directory simply by checking out the commits you are interested in.

Each Git commit is uniquely identified by a hash e.g., d670460b4b4aece5915caf5c68d12f560a9fe3e4. As you can imagine, using such an identifier is not very convenient for our day-to-day use. As a solution, Git allows adding a more human-readable tag to a commit e.g., v1.0-beta.

Here's how you can tag a commit in a local repo:

Sourcetree

Right-click on the commit (in the graphical revision graph) you want to tag and choose Tag….

Specify the tag name e.g. v1.0 and click Add Tag.

The added tag will appear in the revision graph view.

---

CLI

To add a tag to the current commit as v1.0:

$ git tag –a v1.0

    

    


    
    

To view tags:

$ git tag

    

    


    
    

To learn how to add a tag to a past commit, go to the ‘Git Basics – Tagging’ page of the git-scm book and refer the ‘Tagging Later’ section.

---

After adding a tag to a commit, you can use the tag to refer to that commit, as an alternative to using the hash.

Git can show you what changed in each commit.

Sourcetree

To see which files changed in a commit, click on the commit. To see what changed in a specific file in that commit, click on the file name.

---

CLI

$ git show < part-of-commit-hash >

    

    


    
    

Example:

$ git show 5bc0e306

    

    


    
    

commit 5bc0e30635a754908dbdd3d2d833756cc4b52ef3
Author: … < … >
Date:   Sat Jul 8 16:50:27 2017 +0800

    fruits.txt: replace banana with berries

diff --git a/fruits.txt b/fruits.txt
index 15b57f7..17f4528 100644
--- a/fruits.txt
+++ b/fruits.txt
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 apples
-bananas
+berries
 cherries

    

    


    
    

---

Git can also show you the difference between two points in the history of the repo.

Sourcetree

Select the two points you want to compare using Ctrl+Click. The differences between the two selected versions will show up in the bottom half of Sourcetree, as shown in the screenshot below.

The same method can be used to compare the current state of the working directory (which might have uncommitted changes) to a point in the history.

---

CLI

The diff command can be used to view the differences between two points of the history.

• git diff: shows the changes (uncommitted) since the last commit.
• git diff 0023cdd..fcd6199: shows the changes between the points indicated by commit hashes.
  Note that when using a commit hash in a Git command, you can use only the first few characters (e.g., first 7-10 chars) as that's usually enough for Git to locate the commit.
• git diff v1.0..HEAD: shows changes that happened from the commit tagged as v1.0 to the most recent commit.

Resources

• Git-Tower Tutorial: Inspecting Changes with Diffs
• How to view the next page of a git command result

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---

Git can load a specific version of the history to the working directory. Note that if you have uncommitted changes in the working directory, you need to stash them first to prevent them from being overwritten.

Sourcetree

Double-click the commit you want to load to the working directory, or right-click on that commit and choose Checkout....

Click OK to the warning about ‘detached HEAD’ (similar to below).

The specified version is now loaded to the working folder, as indicated by the HEAD label. HEAD is a reference to the currently checked out commit.

If you checkout a commit that comes before the commit in which you added the .gitignore file, Git will now show ignored files as ‘unstaged modifications’ because at that stage Git hasn’t been told to ignore those files.

To go back to the latest commit, double-click it.

---

CLI

Use the checkout <commit-identifier> command to change the working directory to the state it was in at a specific past commit.

• git checkout v1.0: loads the state as at commit tagged v1.0
• git checkout 0023cdd: loads the state as at commit with the hash 0023cdd
• git checkout HEAD~2: loads the state that is 2 commits behind the most recent commit

For now, you can ignore the warning about ‘detached HEAD’.

---