01 - OOP and Functional Programming

OOP - Object-Oriented Programming

OOP is the programming paradigm that revolves around using classes or otherwise custom objects to organise a codebase, by having all data regarding a certain entity, along with functions to operate on or use that data, grouped within the same class/object.

OOP is often used because it can lead to cleaner codebases, and because it permits using abstraction, inheritance, encapsulation or polymorphism.

FP - Functional Programming

FP is the programming language paradigm that revolves around using functions to operate on data passed as arguments, rather than grouping data into a class/object.

FP is more rarely used because it's more limiting than OOP, but it also provides more readability at first sight, since it eliminates hidden behaviour of dunder methods.

Examples

An example calculator program could be:

For FP

def calculate(expression: str) -> int:
    items = expression.split(" ")
    a, b = int(items[0]), int(items[2])
    operator = items[1]

    match operator:
        case '+':
            return a + b
        case '-':
            return a - b
        case '*':
            return a * b
        case '/':
            return a // b

x = calculate('2 + 3') # 5
x = calculate(f'{x} + 2') # 7
print(x) # 7

Notice how there is no persistent state from the function? That's the core of FP.

For OOP

from typing import Self

class Calculator:
    def __init__(self, value: int = 0) -> None:
        self.value = value

    def calculate(self, expression: str) -> Self:
        expression = expression.replace("x", str(self.value))
        items = expression.split(" ")
        a, b = int(items[0]), int(items[2])
        operator = items[1]
        
        match operator:
            case '+':
                self.value = a + b
            case '-':
                self.value = a - b
            case '*':
                self.value = a * b
            case '/':
                self.value = a // b

        return self

    def __str__(self):
        return str(self.value)

calc = Calculator()
calc.calculate('2 + 3')
calc.calculate('x + 2')
print(calc)  # 7

# Or:
calc = Calculator(2)
calc.calculate('x + 3').calculate('x + 2')
print(calc)

Notice how, with OOP, the class itself implements persistence rather than requiring the user to implement it themselves via variable assignments? That gets more useful when you need multiple values.

Summary

Functional Programming lets you understand what everything does quicker at first sight, at the cost of requiring you to store data in variables and pass it through parameters.

Object-Oriented Programming lets you organise data and functions within one class/object, reducing the burden of implementation from the user, at the cost of hidden behaviour that might not be expected at first sight (such as x being replaced with the stored value, in the example above).