Object
Noun · Development
Definitions
Object in programming is a fundamental concept in object-oriented programming (OOP) representing a self-contained unit that bundles related data (called properties, attributes, or fields) and behavior (called methods) into a single entity. Objects are instances of classes, which serve as blueprints defining the structure and behavior that all objects of that type will have. For example, a Car class might define properties like color, speed, and fuel level, along with methods like accelerate(), brake(), and refuel(). Creating a specific car with color=red is instantiating an object from that class. The four pillars of OOP built on the object concept are encapsulation (hiding internal state behind methods), inheritance (deriving new classes from existing ones), polymorphism (objects of different types responding to the same interface), and abstraction (exposing only relevant details). Objects are central to languages like Java, C++, Python, C#, and Ruby. JavaScript uses a prototype-based object system rather than classical classes. Understanding objects is fundamental to most modern software design.
In plain English: A self-contained bundle of data and the functions that work on that data — like a real-world thing represented in code.
Example: "In OOP, a Dog object has properties like name and breed, and methods like bark() and fetch()."
Etymology
- 1960s
- The Simula language (1962-67), developed by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard in Norway, introduced the concept of 'objects' as instances of classes with encapsulated state and behavior.
- 1972
- Alan Kay coined 'object-oriented programming' at Xerox PARC while developing Smalltalk. Objects communicated via message passing, a paradigm shift from procedural programming.
- 1980s-1990s
- C++ (1985) and Java (1995) brought objects to mainstream software development. 'Object' became the fundamental unit of organization in most commercial software.
- 2000s-Present
- JavaScript's prototype-based objects, Python's 'everything is an object' philosophy, and OOP design patterns made the concept universal across virtually all modern programming.
Origin Story
The Idea That Organized Software Around Things Instead of Actions
In programming, an object is a data structure that bundles together state (data fields, also called attributes or properties) and behavior (functions, called methods) that operate on that state. The concept is the foundation of object-oriented programming (OOP), which was first conceived by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard in Norway during the 1960s. Their language Simula (1967), originally designed for simulation modeling, introduced the concepts of classes and objects, allowing programmers to model real-world entities as software constructs. Alan Kay later expanded on these ideas at Xerox PARC in the 1970s with Smalltalk, which treated everything as an object (even numbers and booleans) and introduced message passing as the primary interaction mechanism. Kay coined the term 'object-oriented programming,' though he later said the emphasis should have been on 'messaging' rather than 'objects.' The paradigm gained mainstream adoption through C++ (Bjarne Stroustrup, 1985) and exploded commercially with Java (James Gosling, 1995). Today, objects are so fundamental to programming that most developers encounter them as the default way to organize code, often without considering the decades of language design that made the concept possible.
Coined by: Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard (concept); Alan Kay (coined OOP terminology)
Context: Objects and classes were introduced in Simula (1967); the paradigm was expanded by Kay's Smalltalk in the 1970s.
Fun fact: Alan Kay once said, 'I made up the term object-oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.' He believed the essence of OOP was message passing between autonomous entities, not the class hierarchies and inheritance that came to dominate mainstream OOP languages.