A Quick and Dirty Introduction to OOP with PHP

Most PHP programs are written in the traditional style (old school) of programming. You create functions to manipulate different pieces of data, and you call those functions during the "main" execution phase of your program.

PHP also offers object-oriented programming (OOP), which is now the preferred method of creating large programs. Java and C++ are object-oriented programming languages. OOP takes data and treats it like a "think."

Think of a car. A car is an object that has properties (color, make, model) and various states (parked, in reverse, going X miles an hour). Using OOP, you can manage your data more easily if your data mimics "objects."

Objects are created and managed through structures called classes. The data is manipulated within these classes with structures called methods. In reality, methods are nothing more than functions, yet they can work only within the confines of the class in which they are contained.

Chris Charlton

Chris CharltonChris, Los Angeles' CSS & ActionScript guru, successfully cannonballed into web development in the late 90's. Always caught up with the latest in Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and XML, Chris authored premium articles for the largest Dreamweaver/Flash community (www.DMXzone.com) and produced WebDevDesign (iTunes featured), a popular Web Design & Development Podcast. Somewhere, Chris finds time to run an authorized Adobe user group focused around open source and Adobe technologies. Being a big community leader, Chris Charlton remains a resident faculty member of the Rich Media Insitute and lends himself to speak at large industry events, like JobStock, NAB, and FITC Hollywood.

Brain cycles from Chris are always Web Standards, Flash Platform, and accessibility.

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