In general, the questions of whether O-O techniques are just hype have been replaced by questions of how to get the benefits with the least amount of pain. Object oriented techniques have been around for some time, but this explosion popularity seems a bit unusual. Why the sudden interest? All kinds of explanations have been offered.

The final goal of any engineering activity is to make some kind of documentation. When a design effort is complete, the design documentation is given to the manufacturing team. This is a different set of people with a different set of skills from those of the design team.

If the design documents truly represent a complete design, the manufacturing team can proceed to build the product. In fact, they can proceed to build much of the product with no more assistance from the designers.

After reviewing the software development life cycle today, it appears that the only software documentation that actually seems to satisfy the criteria of an engineering design are the source code listings.

Object oriented techniques have been around for some time, but this explosion popularity seems a bit unusual. Why the sudden interest? All kinds of explanations have been offered. In truth, there is most likely no single reason.

Probably, a combination of factors has finally reached critical mass and things are taking off. Nevertheless, it seems that C++ itself is a major factor in this latest phase of the software revolution. Again, there are probably a number of reasons why, but I want to suggest an answer from a slightly different perspective: C++ has become popular because it makes it easier to design software and program at the same time.