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To be truly considered "object oriented", a programming language should support at a minimum four characteristics:

• Encapsulation--implements information hiding and modularity (abstraction)

• Polymorphism--the same message sent to different objects results in behavior that's dependent on the nature of the object receiving the message

• Inheritance--you define new classes and behavior based on existing classes to obtain code re-use and code organization

• Dynamic binding--objects could come from anywhere, possibly across the network. You need to be able to send messages to objects without having to know their specific type at the time you write your code. Dynamic binding provides maximum flexibility while a program is executing

Java meets these requirements nicely, and adds considerable run-time support to make your software development job easier.