On Mar 16, 6:58 pm, Glenn <bagsm...@frontiernet.netwrote:
Searching the "How Do I.." pages.. I don't see anything about
functions like classic C/C++. If I want to do even a one-time
operation, I _have_ to create a class? Seems weird to have to define
an "object" when I will never use it, just would be creating it to run
something one time.
Take a look at the Math class in the .NET Framework. Most of the
functions there will be familiar. They're static: they don't require
you to create an instance in order to use them. The class merely
provides a grouping mechanism.
However, I'll warn you: what you're likely experiencing is a problem
with the paradigm shift. When I moved from C to OOP I, too, thought,
"Is there no way to just make a simple function?" My mistaken
assumption was that I would often need to make simple functions, or,
once I figured out that I could create static methods, that I would
often have need of static methods that weren't associated with any
class. After all, I'd been programming that way for years. How could I
program without writing stand-alone functions?
The truth of it is that you need them far, far less than you think.
Once you get the hang of designing software for OOP, you'll discover
that what you once wrote as stand-alone functions really do belong in
objects. Until you've designed quite a few classes, you can't really
see how to organize things effectively in an OOP language. However, I
predict that once you get the hang of it, you'll almost never need to
write a function that isn't connected to anything else.
