Understanding Classification

Understanding Classification

Class is the root word of classification. When you design a class, you systematically arrange information into a meaningful entity. This arranging is an act of classification and is something that everyone does—not just programmers. For example, all cars share common behaviors (they can be steered, stopped, accelerated, and so on) and common attributes (they have a steering wheel, an engine, and so on). People use the word car to mean objects that share these common behaviors and attributes. As long as everyone agrees on what a word means, it all works well; you can express complex but precise ideas in a concise form. Without classification, it's hard to imagine how people could think or communicate at all.

Given that classification is so deeply ingrained into the way we think and communicate, it makes sense to try to write programs by classifying the different concepts inherent in a problem and its solution, and then modeling these classes in a programming language. This is exactly what modern object-oriented programming languages, such as Microsoft Visual C#, allow you to do.