Introduction

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Dynamic polymorphism enables object-oriented programming. Understanding how to properly implement dynamic polymorphic behavior leads to clean, flexible, and robust software design. Most importantly, understanding dynamic polymorphism results in a fundamental programming-thought-process paradigm shift. When the concepts associated with achieving dynamic polymorphic behavior come together in your mind in that sudden spark of understanding it will be as if the proverbial light bulb suddenly turns on. You will begin to think differently about the structure of programs. You will think in terms of objects.

The material presented in this chapter builds upon and reinforces material introduced in chapter 13. I will begin by presenting good working definitions of abstraction, object-oriented programming, and dynamic polymorphism. I will then discuss the language features used to implement dynamic polymorphic behavior. The concepts of abstract base classes, pure virtual member functions, function overriding, base class pointers, and derived class objects will be discussed in the context of dynamic polymorphism.

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