A Comparative Analysis of Structured and Object-Or (2)
ASAGBA, PRINCE OGHENEKARO; OGHENEOVO, EDWARD E. CPN, MNCS. Department of Computer Science, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. pasagba@yahoo.com, edward_ogheneovo@yahoo.com. 08056023566 ABSTRACT: The concepts of structured and object-oriented programming methods are not relatively new but
these approaches are still very much useful and relevant in today’s programming paradigm. In this paper, we
distinguish the features of structured programs from that of object oriented programs. Structured programming is a
method of organizing and coding programs that can provide easy understanding and modification, whereas object-
oriented programming (OOP) consists of a set of objects, which can vary dynamically, and which can execute by
acting and reacting to each other, in much the same way that a real-world process proceeds (the interaction of real-
world objects). An object-oriented approach makes programs more intuitive to design, faster to develop, more
amenable to modifications, and easier to understand. With the traditional, procedural-oriented/structured
programming, a program describes a series of steps to be performed (an algorithm). In the object-oriented view of
programming, instead of programs consisting of sets of data loosely coupled to many different procedures, object-
oriented programs consist of software modules called objects that encapsulate both data and processing while hiding
their inner complexities from programmers and hence from other objects. @ JASEM
Structured programming can be viewed as the pulling
together, or synthesization of such ideas as program
modularity and top down design, and the concrete
representation of them at the program-coding level. It
is a manner of coding and organizing programs that
makes them easier to understand, to test and to
modify. Results have demonstrated that employed
together with other improved programming
technologies, can lead to spectacular increases in
programmer productivity and correspondingly
spectacular decreases in the error rate of resultant
code (Champeaux, 1990), and (Istatkova, 2001).
Structured programming methodology tries to resolve
the issues associated with unconditional transfers to
enable programmers follow the logic of programs.
Much of a program’s complexity arises from the fact
that the program contains many jumps to other parts
of the programs - jumps both forward and backward
in the code. Furthermore, as a program undergoes
change during its development period, as it gets
further debugged during its maintenance period, and
as it gets modified in subsequent new projects, the
complexity of the program grows alarmingly. New
jumps are inserted, thus increasing the complexity. In
some cases, new code is added because the
programmer cannot find existing code that performs
the desired function, or is not sure how the existing
code works, or is afraid to disturb the existing code
for fear of undoing another desirable function, and
the result, after many modifications, is a program that
is nearly unintelligible. This is the software
equivalent of being shop-worn, the time when it is
better to throw the whole thing out and start over
(Louden, 1993), and (Owolabi, et al, 2005).
Indeed, structured programming concepts discourage
the use of ‘GO TO’ statements and encourage
program blocks, modularity, top-down design
approach and reusability amongst others. Programs
written with the structured approach are more
readable and more reliable. Also, the cost and time of
developing software is less when structured
programming is adopted since smaller units of
programs can be written independently (sometimes
by different, individuals or groups) and then
combined to achieve the desired end product. The art
of programming is made flexible by structured
programming especially in the area of program or
software maintenance. Programs can easily be
modified and updated to suit prevailing circumstances
(Louden, 1993).
In structured programs, any function can be
performed using one or a collection of three control
structures: sequence, selection, and repetition as
shown in Fig. 1.
Fig 1. (a) Simple sequence
(b) Selection
(c) Repetition
OR
A Comparative Analysis of Structured and Object-Oriented Programming Methods * Corresponding Author: Asagba, Prince Oghenekaro
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These control structures are quite adequate for any
kind of processing, or any combination of decisions,
or any type of logic manipulations without exhibiting
back-tracking.
Pascal, PL/I, Ada, and
ALGOL are
perhaps some of the better known structured
programming languages.
Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a
programming paradigm that uses "
objects " and their
interactions to design applications and computer
programs. Programming techniques may include
features such as
information hiding, data abstraction, encapsulation, modularity, polymorphism , and
inheritance . It was not commonly used in mainstream
software application development until the early
1990s. Many modern
programming languages now
support OOP (Wikipedia, 2008). Some of the better
known OOP languages are C++, Object Pascal, and,
Java.