When it is necessary to use Classes in PHP

Question

I am a wordpress plugin developer. I saw the source of many pluginsand many plugin use "classes" in them and some without classes.

Many huge coded plugins like "wp-postratings" does not use Classes and some small plugins use Classes.

edit: Since classes have private, public and protected access specifiers, i feel a taste of security Does it increase security?

Other than PHP does other languages require classes ?

Is it compulsory to use Classes ?

I need some suggestions.

Answer 1

No, it's not compulsory, nor does it increase security per-se. it's just a different style of programming.

Most programmers would agree that object-oriented programming (classes) has many advantages over modular programming (functions). But that's more of a religious debate that I'd rather not get into :)

Answer 2

You should read about Object Oriented Programming. It is not compulsory to use classes but it can make code organization and maintenance of your code easier.

Answer 3

It's obviously not a technical requirement, but if the code structure of your plugin can be described in 2 or more classes, I'd say go OO. It doesn't have anything to do with security but it might make your code cleaner and easier to maintain.