What is object-oriented programming?

The meaning of the term 'object oriented' is examined in the context of the general-purpose programming language C++. This choice is made partly to introduce C++ and partly because C++ is one of the few languages that supports data abstraction, object-oriented programming, and traditional programming techniques. The support of programming paradigms by languages is discussed and four paradigms are examined: procedural, data hiding, data abstraction, and object-oriented programming. The support of the latter two by C++ is discussed in some detail.<>