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As computer scientists started using object-oriented programming techniques, they noticed the same limitations. Object-oriented programming encapsulates variables (properties) and functions (methods) that manipulate that data to model real-life objects like an engine. Object-oriented programming made it easy to copy and reuse code, but it also added complexity by creating objects that inherited more and more code that often wasn’t needed.

To help minimize the needless copying of code that would ultimately be ignored or modified, computer scientists created protocol-oriented programming. The main difference is that when you use object-oriented programming, you must define the method names and code to make that method work. With protocol-oriented programming, you can simply define the method name without writing any code within that method at all.

The purpose of simply defining the method name without writing any actual code is to create uniform method names that can be reused by your code just like objects. However, the advantage is that each class can adopt or conform to a protocol but write its own code for a particular method. Where object-oriented programming forces you to copy method names and the code that you may not need, protocol-oriented programming lets you just copy method names and customize the code to make it work the way you want. This reduces complexity and increases flexibility.

Protocol-oriented programming isn’t meant to replace object-oriented programming; it’s meant to work with it. Sometimes you may want to use object-oriented programming, and sometimes you may want to use protocol-oriented programming. Protocol-oriented programming is simply a way to reduce the complexity inherent in object-oriented programming.