Is Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) an important part of PHP web development?

Sup guys, I'm reading through a book on PHP to re-affirm the stuff I've already learned and pick up the more complex stuff.

I've just finished a chapter on OOP and I think I sort of understand how it works, but I was thinking; is OOP really an important part of PHP web development? I just don't see why you wouldn't just create functions and include-files that do the same job.

Am I missing something very important here, or is it really just the same thing?

TIA;

Smiths
=]

Yes. It's a crucial part of programming in any object-oriented programming language — and PHP is one.

• If you want people to be able to read, reuse, and improve your code easily, OOP is a must.
• If you want to be able to use libraries and edit open source programs from the internet, OOP is a must.
• If you attempt to write any serious web application without using any OOP features, people will laugh at you, your programs will be disorganized, and you'll struggle to maintain it as your code base grows.

You're not missing anything important. Stick to what you know. The shortest route is the one best known. With that said, OOP is a great concept to use when developing console games, since all objects stay alive during the life of the program. In web development, objects are created and completely destroyed on each page load. Some just prefer to use OOP because they don't know how to program procedurally.

From my 10+ years of experience in web development, I still have to see a better written OOP PHP website than what I've seen here for example: http://okmaya.com

If procedural was used for decades in web development, why fix something that's not broken?

Just because something is cool and popular, doesn't mean it's the right thing later down the road. Just look at how smoking turned out.