Notions

• binding, early: non-OOP function calls
• binding, late: function address calculation at run-tim, the virtual keyword specifies that a member function is dynamically bound.
• composition == aggregation: the new class is composed of objects of other classes
• heap: memory area used for dynamic memory allocation. Objects on the stack are automatically destroyed, heap objects have to be destroyed by the programmmer (or by the garbage collector which deletes objects that are no longer used).
• inheritance: base class == super class == parent class, derived class
• polymorphism: the ability of objects belonging to different types to respond to method calls in a type-specific way, e.g. the shape interface can be used by circles, squares, polygons.
• upcasting: treating a derived class object as if it were a base class object