Chapter 4. Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming with PHP 5
Object-oriented programming is a
several-decades-old concept that has spread to almost every aspect of
modern programming languages and practices. The reason is clear as
soon as you start to use a convenience such as the powerful
PHP-related packages. We introduce PEAR packages in Chapter 7; many operate by defining objects,
providing a wealth of useful features in a simple form. You should
understand the basics of object-oriented programming in order to make
use of packages and an error-recovery feature called exceptions. You
may also find object-oriented programming a useful practice in your
own code. We'll give you an introduction in this
chapter, and present some advanced features in Chapter 14.
While many of the concepts and techniques presented in this chapter
work in PHP 4, support is greatly enhanced in PHP 5. In this chapter
we describe what you can and can't do in each
version of PHP.
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