Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Getting Started:
Object-oriented Programming

Procedure-based model

Procedure-based objects support a programming model where you design and instantiate (create) objects based on persistent procedures. These persistent procedures maintain a run-time context that can be accessed by other objects, which includes various types of data and internal procedures and user-defined functions that provide the object’s behavior.

With procedure-based objects, the state and behavior in one object has no well-defined relationship to the state and behavior in another. You establish any such relationships at run time by invoking 4GL statements to access the state and behavior in another object. You can set up object hierarchies, but again, these relationships depend entirely on statements at run time to maintain these relationships. As a result, you must organize these procedure-based objects using interfaces that can, without care, easily become inconsistent, and you must manage the lifetimes of these objects individually. You must account for any relationships that you design between them any time that you invoke code to access state or behavior between them.