Computer Science Fundamentals | Computer Science Fundamental Concepts Every ISC Student Should Know About. | ISC Computer Science | ICSE Computer Applications

Many students enter class 11 in ISC without attending the computer application lectures in class 9 and 10 in ICSE. It is very likely that you would struggle to keep up with the various new concepts without having a clear understanding of the basics of Computer Science. Don't worry though because we are here to give you a quick look at the main concepts one should know to be comfortable with the studies of ISC Computer Science.

Java is an Object Oriented Programming Language.

Object Oriented Prgramming

Object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data, in the form of fields, and code, in the form of procedures. A feature of objects is an object's procedures that can access and often modify the data fields of the object with which they are associated.

Object-oriented programming uses objects, but not all of the associated techniques and structures are supported directly in languages that claim to support OOP. 

• Variables that can store information formatted in a small number of built-in data types like integers and alphanumeric characters. This may include data structures like strings, lists, and hash tables that are either built-in or result from combining variables using memory pointers.
• Procedures – also known as functions, methods, routines, or subroutines – that take input, generate output, and manipulate data. Modern languages include structured programming constructs like loops and conditionals.

Objects and Classes 

Languages that support object-oriented programming (OOP) typically use inheritance for code reuse and extensibility in the form of either classes or prototypes. Those that use classes support two main concepts:

• Classes – the definitions for the data format and available procedures for a given type or class of object; may also contain data and procedures (known as class methods) themselves, i.e. classes contain the data members and member functions
• Objects – instances of classes

Objects sometimes correspond to things found in the real world. For example, a graphics program may have objects such as "circle", "square", "menu". An online shopping system might have objects such as "shopping cart", "customer", and "product". Sometimes objects represent more abstract entities, like an object that represents an open file, or an object that provides the service of translating measurements from U.S. customary to metric.

Each object is said to be an instance of a particular class (for example, an object with its name field set to "Mary" might be an instance of class Employee). Procedures in object-oriented programming are known as methods; variables are also known as fields, members, attributes, or properties. This leads to the following terms:

• Class variables – belong to the class as a whole; there is only one copy of each one
• Instance variables or attributes – data that belongs to individual objects; every object has its own copy of each one
• Member variables – refers to both the class and instance variables that are defined by a particular class
• Class methods – belong to the class as a whole and have access only to class variables and inputs from the procedure call
• Instance methods – belong to individual objects, and have access to instance variables for the specific object they are called on, inputs, and class variables

Objects are accessed somewhat like variables with complex internal structure, and in many languages are effectively pointers, serving as actual references to a single instance of said object in memory within a heap or stack. They provide a layer of abstraction which can be used to separate internal from external code. External code can use an object by calling a specific instance method with a certain set of input parameters, read an instance variable, or write to an instance variable. Objects are created by calling a special type of method in the class known as a constructor. A program may create many instances of the same class as it runs, which operate independently. This is an easy way for the same procedures to be used on different sets of data.

Important Terms

Abstraction

The essence of abstractions is preserving information that is relevant in a given context, and forgetting information that is irrelevant in that context.

In software engineering and computer science, abstraction is:

• the process of removing physical, spatial, or temporal details or attributes in the study of objects or systems to focus attention on details of greater importance; it is similar in nature to the process of generalization;
• the creation of abstract concept-objects by mirroring common features or attributes of various non-abstract objects or systems of study – the result of the process of abstraction.

Data Abstraction

Data abstraction enforces a clear separation between the abstract properties of a data type and the concrete details of its implementation. The abstract properties are those that are visible to client code that makes use of the data type—the interface to the data type—while the concrete implementation is kept entirely private, and indeed can change, for example to incorporate efficiency improvements over time. The idea is that such changes are not supposed to have any impact on client code, since they involve no difference in the abstract behaviour.

For example, one could define an abstract data type called lookup table which uniquely associates keys with values, and in which values may be retrieved by specifying their corresponding keys. Such a lookup table may be implemented in various ways: as a hash table, a binary search tree, or even a simple linear list of (key:value) pairs. As far as client code is concerned, the abstract properties of the type are the same in each case.

Of course, this all relies on getting the details of the interface right in the first place, since any changes there can have major impacts on client code. As one way to look at this: the interface forms a contract on agreed behaviour between the data type and client code; anything not spelled out in the contract is subject to change without notice.

Consider for example a sample Java fragment to represent some common farm "animals" to a level of abstraction suitable to model simple aspects of their hunger and feeding. It defines an Animal class to represent both the state of the animal and its functions:

public class Animal extends LivingThing
{
     private Location loc;
     private double energyReserves;

     public boolean isHungry() {
         return energyReserves < 2.5;
     }
     public void eat(Food food) {
         // Consume food
         energyReserves += food.getCalories();
     }
     public void moveTo(Location location) {
         // Move to new location
         this.loc = location;
     }
}

With the above definition, one could create objects of type Animal and call their methods like this:

thePig = new Animal();
theCow = new Animal();
if (thePig.isHungry()) {
    thePig.eat(tableScraps);
}
if (theCow.isHungry()) {
    theCow.eat(grass);
}
theCow.moveTo(theBarn);

In the above example, the class Animal is an abstraction used in place of an actual animal, LivingThing is a further abstraction (in this case a generalisation) of Animal.

If one requires a more differentiated hierarchy of animals – to differentiate, say, those who provide milk from those who provide nothing except meat at the end of their lives – that is an intermediary level of abstraction, probably DairyAnimal (cows, goats) who would eat foods suitable to giving good milk, and MeatAnimal (pigs, steers) who would eat foods to give the best meat-quality.

Such an abstraction could remove the need for the application coder to specify the type of food, so s/he could concentrate instead on the feeding schedule. The two classes could be related using inheritance or stand alone, and the programmer could define varying degrees of polymorphism between the two types. 

Constructor

In class-based object-oriented programming, a constructor (abbreviation: ctor) is a special type of subroutine called to create an object. It prepares the new object for use, often accepting arguments that the constructor uses to set required member variables.

A constructor resembles an instance method, but it differs from a method in that it has no explicit return type, it is not implicitly inherited and it usually has different rules for scope modifiers. Constructors often have the same name as the declaring class. They have the task of initializing the object's data members and of establishing the invariant of the class, failing if the invariant is invalid. A properly written constructor leaves the resulting object in a valid state. Immutable objects must be initialized in a constructor.

Parameterised Constructor

Constructors that can take at least one argument are termed as parameterized constructors. When an object is declared in a parameterized constructor, the initial values have to be passed as arguments to the constructor function. The normal way of object declaration may not work. The constructors can be called explicitly or implicitly. The method of calling the constructor implicitly is also called the shorthand method. If we want to initialize fields of the class with your own values, then use a parameterized constructor.

class Example {
 public:
  Example();
  Example(int a, int b);  // Parameterized constructor.

 private:
  int x_;
  int y_;
};

Example::Example() = default;

Example::Example(int x, int y) : x_(x), y_(y) {}

Example e = Example(0, 50);  // Explicit call.
Example e2(0, 50);  // Implicit call.

Default Constructor 

If the programmer does not supply a constructor for an instantiable class, Java compiler inserts a default constructor into your code on your behalf. This constructor is known as default constructor. You would not find it in your source code (the java file) as it would be inserted into the code during compilation and exists in .class file. The behavior of the default constructor is language dependent. It may initialize data members to zero or other same values, or it may do nothing at all. In Java, a "default constructor" refer to a nullary constructor that is automatically generated by the compiler if no constructors have been defined for the class or in the absence of any programmer-defined constructors (e.g. in Java, the default constructor implicitly calls the superclass's nullary constructor, then executes an empty body). All fields are left at their initial value of 0 (integer types), 0.0 (floating-point types), false (boolean type), or null (reference types).

#include <iostream>

class Student {
 public:
  Student(int a = 0, int b = 0);  // Default constructor.

  int a;
  int b;
};

Constructor in Java

In Java, constructors differ from other methods in that:

• Constructors never have an explicit return type.
• Constructors cannot be directly invoked (the keyword “new” invokes them).
• Constructors cannot be synchronized, final, abstract, native, or static.
• It should not contain modifiers

Java constructors perform the following tasks in the following order:

1. Call the default constructor of the superclass if no constructor is defined.
2. Initialize member variables to the specified values.
3. Executes the body of the constructor.

Java permit users to call one constructor in another constructor using this() keyword. But this() must be first statement. 

class Example
{ 
    Example() // Non-parameterized constructor
    {
        this(1);  // Calling of constructor
        System.out.println("0-arg-cons");
    }
    Example(int a) // Parameterized constructor
    {
        System.out.println("1-arg-cons");
    }
}
public static void main(String[] args)
{
  Example e = new Example();
}

Java provides access to the superclass's constructor through the super keyword.

public class Example
{
    // Definition of the constructor.
    public Example()
    {
        this(1);
    }

    // Overloading a constructor
    public Example(int input)
    {
        data = input; // This is an assignment
    }

    // Declaration of instance variable(s).
    private int data;
}

// Code somewhere else
// Instantiating an object with the above constructor
Example e = new Example(42);

A constructor taking zero number of arguments is called a "no-arguments" or "no-arg" constructor.

Encapsulation

In object-oriented programming (OOP), encapsulation refers to the bundling of data with the methods that operate on that data, or the restricting of direct access to some of an object's components. Encapsulation is used to hide the values or state of a structured data object inside a class, preventing unauthorized parties' direct access to them. Publicly accessible methods are generally provided in the class (so-called "getters" and "setters") to access the values, and other client classes call these methods to retrieve and modify the values within the object.

Inheritance

In object-oriented programming, inheritance is the mechanism of basing an object or class upon another object (prototype-based inheritance) or class (class-based inheritance), retaining similar implementation. Also defined as deriving new classes (sub classes) from existing ones such as super class or base class and then forming them into a hierarchy of classes. In most class-based object-oriented languages, an object created through inheritance, a "child object", acquires all the properties and behaviors of the "parent object" , with the exception of: constructors, destructor, overloaded operators and friend functions of the base class. Inheritance allows programmers to create classes that are built upon existing classes, to specify a new implementation while maintaining the same behaviors (realizing an interface), to reuse code and to independently extend original software via public classes and interfaces. The relationships of objects or classes through inheritance give rise to a directed graph.

Inheritance was invented in 1969 for Simula and is now used throughout many object-oriented programming languages such as Java, C++ or Python.

An inherited class is called a subclass of its parent class or super class. The term "inheritance" is loosely used for both class-based and prototype-based programming, but in narrow use the term is reserved for class-based programming (one class inherits from another), with the corresponding technique in prototype-based programming being instead called delegation (one object delegates to another).

Inheritance should not be confused with subtyping. In some languages inheritance and subtyping agree, whereas in others they differ; in general, subtyping establishes an is-a relationship, whereas inheritance only reuses implementation and establishes a syntactic relationship, not necessarily a semantic relationship (inheritance does not ensure behavioral subtyping). To distinguish these concepts, subtyping is also known as interface inheritance, whereas inheritance as defined here is known as implementation inheritance or code inheritance.Still, inheritance is a commonly used mechanism for establishing subtype relationships.

Base class visibility	Derived class visibility
	Public derivation	Private derivation	Protected derivation
Private → Protected → Public →	Not inherited Protected Public	Not inherited Private Private	Not inherited Protected Protected

Overriding

Many object-oriented programming languages permit a class or object to replace the implementation of an aspect—typically a behavior—that it has inherited. This process is called overriding. Overriding introduces a complication: which version of the behavior does an instance of the inherited class use—the one that is part of its own class, or the one from the parent (base) class? The answer varies between programming languages, and some languages provide the ability to indicate that a particular behavior is not to be overridden and should behave as defined by the base class. For instance, in C#, the base method or property can only be overridden in a subclass if it is marked with the virtual, abstract, or override modifier, while in programming languages such as Java, different methods can be called to override other methods. An alternative to overriding is hiding the inherited code.

Code Reuse

Implementation inheritance is the mechanism whereby a subclass re-uses code in a base class. By default the subclass retains all of the operations of the base class, but the subclass may override some or all operations, replacing the base-class implementation with its own.

In the following Python example, subclasses SquareSumComputer and CubeSumComputer override the transform() method of the base class SumComputer. The base class comprises operations to compute the sum of the squares between two integers. The subclass re-uses all of the functionality of the base class with the exception of the operation that transforms a number into its square, replacing it with an operation that transforms a number into its square and cube respectively. The subclasses therefore compute the sum of the squares/cubes between two integers.

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