The term object-oriented (OO) has been around since the 70s, when it was coined by computer scientist, Alan Kay. The term stood for a programming paradigm based on the concept of objects. At that time, Simula was the first language to exhibit OO features, such as objects, classes, inheritance, subtyping, and so on. Standardized as Simula 67 in 1977, it became an inspiration for later languages. One such inspired language is Smalltalk, created as a product of research led by Alan Kay at Xerox. Compared to Simula, Smalltalk greatly improved the overall OO concept. Over time, Smalltalk became one of the most influential OO programming language.Â
While there is much more to be said about these early days, the takeaway is that OOP was born out of specific need. Where Simula used static objects for modeling real-world entities, Smalltalk used dynamic...