What’s the Difference Between a Class and an Object?

Classes are often compared to stamps, where the class is the stamp design and the filled-out stamp is the object, each with different details (like names). This distinction is beneficial because classes can create multiple objects with different attributes but the same structure. In programming, this means you create a class once and use it to instantiate many objects, ensuring you maintain consistent properties and behaviors across those objects. It streamlines code and promotes reusability.

In simple terms, a class is the set of instructions on how to create an object, while an object is a specific instance of that class. Consider classes as plans, like an architectural drawing. An object is the actual building. This organization allows for clear differentiation between what an object is (its properties) and what it can do (its methods). In OOP, objects are grouped together with their behaviors, making the code clearer and more modular, as opposed to just mixing data and functions in a procedural way. OOP helps manage complexity in larger systems by bundling data and functions together. However, you can technically implement OOP in languages like C, but it’s often cumbersome and less efficient.

You can certainly achieve what you want in a non-OOP language too; structuring your code with structs, for instance. But OOP helps express certain ideas more conveniently, encapsulating data with the methods that operate on it. Think of it as making your code more readable and maintainable. The organizational benefits of OOP language structures reduce the effort needed to manage complex scenarios, making development easier.

A class can be thought of as a blueprint for creating objects, like how a blueprint for a house describes the design but isn't the actual house. Each object is an instance of that class with its unique characteristics. For example, you're an instance of a class called 'Human', just like your friends are. This structure allows us to organize code better. Object-oriented programming (OOP) also introduces concepts like encapsulation — where objects keep their internal states hidden and only share information through methods, inheritance — which lets new classes inherit properties from existing ones, and polymorphism — where different classes can implement the same interface in their unique ways. Structs in C are useful, but they don't provide the same level of organization and functionality that classes and objects do in OOP, especially when it comes to managing more complex behaviors.

The main difference is how we manipulate data. With OOP, objects manage their own data and behavior, allowing for object methods to perform actions automatically rather than requiring external functions to handle everything. This adds a layer of abstraction and organization. For instance, instead of calling an external function to adjust an object's properties, you’d call a method directly on that object. So, with a classic example like a 'car' class, you have methods like 'start()' or 'stop()', which belong to the car instance itself, leading to cleaner and more manageable code.