Object-Oriented Modeling

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Object-Oriented Modeling, or OOM, is a modeling paradigm mainly used in computer programming.

This paradigm assists the programmer to address the complexity of a problem domain by considering it as a set of related Objects. Modeling task then is specifying, for a specific context, those Objects (or the Class the Objects belongs to), there respective set of Properties and Methods, shared by all Objects members of the Class. For more discussion, see Object-oriented analysis and design and Object-oriented programming. The description of these Objects is a Schema.

As an example, in a Payroll System, a Company is an Object. An Employee is another Object. Employment is a Relationship or Association. An Employee Class (or Object for simplicity) has Attributes like Name, Birthdate, etc. The Association itself may be considered as an Object, having Attributes, or Qualifiers like Position, etc. An Employee Method may be Promote, Raise, etc. The Model description or Schema may grow in complexity to require a Notation. Many notations has been proposed, based on different paradigms, diverged, and converged in a more popular one known as UML.

An informal description or a Schema notation is translated by the programmer or a Computer-Aided Software Engineering tool in the case of Schema notation (created using a Module specific to the CASE tool application) into a specific programming language that supports Object-Oriented Programming (or a Class Type), a Declarative Language or into a Database schema.