Object-oriented programming for flexible software: example of a load flow

The basic elements of object-oriented programming (OOP) are introduced. The advantages of this software approach for energy management systems are demonstrated with an implementation of the load flow function as a concrete example. Object-oriented software is shown to be very flexible. Object-oriented class libraries enable the programmer to reuse the code efficiently. OOP emphasizes programming on a higher, conceptual level. The message passing algorithm of OOP supports descriptive programming. The object-oriented model is very similar to the frame-based knowledge representation used in artificial intelligence