Classes. What's the Point

Classes. What's the point?

Classes are a notion of object-oriented design (and programming and analysis, respectively), where they are used to encapsulate data and methods.

Other object-oriented programming techniques may include features such as

information hiding,
data abstraction,
encapsulation,
modularity,
polymorphism and
inheritance

From an article .. top-15-best-practices-for-writing-super-readable-code:

Object oriented programming can help you create well structured code. But that does not mean you need to abandon procedural programming completely. Actually creating a mix of both styles can be good.

From http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/java/concepts/class.html:

In the real world, you'll often find many individual objects all of the same kind. There may be thousands of other bicycles in existence, all of the same make and model. Each bicycle was built from the same set of blueprints and therefore contains the same components. In object-oriented terms, we say that your bicycle is an instance of the class of objects known as bicycles. A class is the blueprint from which individual objects are created.

Finally, a short youtube video about the differences between the procedural and object-oriented programming paradigm ...

What's the point of creating classes and self in python?

It becomes necessary to pass self argument to the functions of your class. however, your code has several problems like the initialization of var variable. You need a constructor __init__ to create the variable, after that, you will be able to modify it:

class ThisIsClass:
  def __init__(self, value=0):
    self.var = value

  def Func(self):
      self.var+=1

c = ThisIsClass()
c.Func()
print(c.var)

In the above code, the class is instantiated as an object and stored in the variable c. You can assign an initial value to var by passing an argument to the object creation, like: c = ThisIsClass(89)
Output:

When should I be using classes in Python?

Classes are the pillar of Object Oriented Programming. OOP is highly concerned with code organization, reusability, and encapsulation.

First, a disclaimer: OOP is partially in contrast to Functional Programming, which is a different paradigm used a lot in Python. Not everyone who programs in Python (or surely most languages) uses OOP. You can do a lot in Java 8 that isn't very Object Oriented. If you don't want to use OOP, then don't. If you're just writing one-off scripts to process data that you'll never use again, then keep writing the way you are.

However, there are a lot of reasons to use OOP.

Some reasons:

Organization:
OOP defines well known and standard ways of describing and defining both data and procedure in code. Both data and procedure can be stored at varying levels of definition (in different classes), and there are standard ways about talking about these definitions. That is, if you use OOP in a standard way, it will help your later self and others understand, edit, and use your code. Also, instead of using a complex, arbitrary data storage mechanism (dicts of dicts or lists or dicts or lists of dicts of sets, or whatever), you can name pieces of data structures and conveniently refer to them.
State: OOP helps you define and keep track of state. For instance, in a classic example, if you're creating a program that processes students (for instance, a grade program), you can keep all the info you need about them in one spot (name, age, gender, grade level, courses, grades, teachers, peers, diet, special needs, etc.), and this data is persisted as long as the object is alive, and is easily accessible. In contrast, in pure functional programming, state is never mutated in place.
Encapsulation:
With encapsulation, procedure and data are stored together. Methods (an OOP term for functions) are defined right alongside the data that they operate on and produce. In a language like Java that allows for access control, or in Python, depending upon how you describe your public API, this means that methods and data can be hidden from the user. What this means is that if you need or want to change code, you can do whatever you want to the implementation of the code, but keep the public APIs the same.
Inheritance:
Inheritance allows you to define data and procedure in one place (in one class), and then override or extend that functionality later. For instance, in Python, I often see people creating subclasses of the dict class in order to add additional functionality. A common change is overriding the method that throws an exception when a key is requested from a dictionary that doesn't exist to give a default value based on an unknown key. This allows you to extend your own code now or later, allow others to extend your code, and allows you to extend other people's code.
Reusability: All of these reasons and others allow for greater reusability of code. Object oriented code allows you to write solid (tested) code once, and then reuse over and over. If you need to tweak something for your specific use case, you can inherit from an existing class and overwrite the existing behavior. If you need to change something, you can change it all while maintaining the existing public method signatures, and no one is the wiser (hopefully).

Again, there are several reasons not to use OOP, and you don't need to. But luckily with a language like Python, you can use just a little bit or a lot, it's up to you.

An example of the student use case (no guarantee on code quality, just an example):

Object Oriented

class Student(object):
    def __init__(self, name, age, gender, level, grades=None):
        self.name = name
        self.age = age
        self.gender = gender
        self.level = level
        self.grades = grades or {}

    def setGrade(self, course, grade):
        self.grades[course] = grade

    def getGrade(self, course):
        return self.grades[course]

    def getGPA(self):
        return sum(self.grades.values())/len(self.grades)

# Define some students
john = Student("John", 12, "male", 6, {"math":3.3})
jane = Student("Jane", 12, "female", 6, {"math":3.5})

# Now we can get to the grades easily
print(john.getGPA())
print(jane.getGPA())

Standard Dict

def calculateGPA(gradeDict):
    return sum(gradeDict.values())/len(gradeDict)

students = {}
# We can set the keys to variables so we might minimize typos
name, age, gender, level, grades = "name", "age", "gender", "level", "grades"
john, jane = "john", "jane"
math = "math"
students[john] = {}
students[john][age] = 12
students[john][gender] = "male"
students[john][level] = 6
students[john][grades] = {math:3.3}

students[jane] = {}
students[jane][age] = 12
students[jane][gender] = "female"
students[jane][level] = 6
students[jane][grades] = {math:3.5}

# At this point, we need to remember who the students are and where the grades are stored. Not a huge deal, but avoided by OOP.
print(calculateGPA(students[john][grades]))
print(calculateGPA(students[jane][grades]))

C++ - What's the point of nested classes?

I'm studying a little of C++ and now I'm fighting against it's similitudes with Java.

First of all be aware that C++ nested classes are similar to what in Java you call static nested classes. There isn't anything in C++ syntax to reproduce Java nested classes.

I discover that private attributes of "container" class are not visible by inner class...

C++ 98

In C++ inner classes aren't different to normal classes, they're not class members then they can't access container class' private members (unlike other languages like Java or C#).

C++ 03

Nested classes are class members but restrictions on what they can access still applies (see also section Weird things at the end of this answer). It has been considered a standard defect (see DR45) then some compilers earlier implemented C++0x access rule earlier even when compiling for C++03 (notably GCC, thanks to Jonathan Wakely to spot this out).

C++ 11

This rule changed in C++ 11, now nested classes can access private member of container class. From §11.7:

A nested class is a member and as such has the same access rights as any other member.

Of course you still need an instance to access non static members.

...so why I should use them?

They're then an implementation detail to group related classes and they have same issues about their usage that you may have in other languages (clarity for newbies, primary). Their greatest benefit IMO is encapsulation, if for example you have this:

class stream {
    virtual void write(const std::string text) = 0;
};

class channel {
public:
    virtual stream* get_stream() = 0;

    // Other methods...
};

class tcp_channel : public channel {
public:
    virtual stream* get_stream() {
        return new tcp_stream(this);
    }

private:
    class tcp_stream : public stream { /* implementation */ };
};

They're also helpful in some circumstances to substitute nested namespaces:

class protocol {
public:
    virtual void create_connection() = 0;

    class tcp : public protocol { /* implementation */ };
    class shared_memory : public protocol { /* implementation */ };
    class named_pipes: public protocol { /* implementation */ };
};

auto media = protocol::tcp();

Or to hide implementation details:

class file_system_entry {
public:
    class file : public file_system_entry { };
    class directory : public file_system_entry { };

    std::time_t get_last_modified() { ... }

    void remove() { ... }
    virtual void copy_to(std::string path) = 0;

private:
    class local_handle {
        // Implementation details
    } _handle;
};

There are many others usage patterns (see also Why would one use nested classes in C++? for a much better discussion), just remember not everyone will correctly understand (and use!) them. See also Pros and cons of using nested C++ classes and enumerations?

Also, is there a way to make visible those attributes?

Before C++ 11 you can't (of course unless you declare them as friends but see next paragraph), if you need this feature just use a C++ 11 compiler (that supports this feature). GCC does (from long time ago) and also MSVC does, I don't know about other compilers.

Nested Friends

Is there any difference between C++ 11 access rules and friend classes? In general they're almost equivalent (automatic access is just less verbose):

class container {
public:
    class nested;
    friend class nested;

    class nested { };
};

Compared to:

class container {
public:
    class nested { };
};

However with forward declaration you have some side effects. Also remember that from accessibility point of view they're equivalent (access, like friendship, is not inherited nor transitive). These examples don't compile:

class external : public container::nested {
public:
    // No: only class declared inside "container"
    // has access to private members, we do not inherit that 
    void foo(container obj) { /* access a private member of obj*/ }
};

// No, "container" has not access to "nested" private members,
// visibility isn't reciprocal
void container::foo(container::nested obj) {
    // Access some private member of obj
}

// No, we don't have anything to do with container,
// visibility isn't transitive
void friendOfNested(container obj) {
    // Access some private member of obj
}

Are then completely equivalent? No, because private members of container's friends are accessible in nested if it's a nested class in C++ 11 but they're not if nested is a friend of container. Given this outlined structure:

class container;

class another {
    friend class container;     
};

class container {
public:
    class nested { };   
};

nested can access another's private members:

void container::nested::foo(another obj) {
    obj.somePrivateMember = 0;
}

It works because nested is a member of container then transitive restriction of friendship doesn't apply. Before C++ 11, declaring nested as friend of container, that code won't compile because friendship isn't transitive.

Weird things

We'd assume we can always declare a nested class as friend of its container? Actually standard said (SO/IEC 14822:2003(E), 11.8):

A friend of a class is a function or class that is not a member of the class...

Then we shouldn't be able to declare nested as friend of container: in C++ 03 nested classes are class members (but standard explicitly said they have no access to container privates and also they can't be friends of container class). It seems there was no hope, fortunately most compilers allowed us to do so (regardless to what standard said).

What's the point of repeating the class named when defining a new class instance?

There is no point, since Java 10, for local variables. For local variables you can instead write:

var springfield = new City();

Also, you can create an object without introducing an object reference, if you create an object in an expression. Typically this is done in a method call:

settlements.add(new City());

You must still repeat the class name for attributes (fields).

But, there is an exception to this. If you want to program to an interface, you must indicate the type of object you are constructing and the interface class you want the object reference to have:

Settlement springfield = new City();

What is the point of final class in Java?

First of all, I recommend this article: Java: When to create a final class

If they do, when do they use it so I can understand it better and know when to use it.

A final class is simply a class that can't be extended.

(It does not mean that all references to objects of the class would act as if they were declared as final.)

When it's useful to declare a class as final is covered in the answers of this question:

Good reasons to prohibit inheritance in Java?

If Java is object oriented, and you declare a class final, doesn't it stop the idea of class having the characteristics of objects?

In some sense yes.

By marking a class as final you disable a powerful and flexible feature of the language for that part of the code. Some classes however, should not (and in certain cases can not) be designed to take subclassing into account in a good way. In these cases it makes sense to mark the class as final, even though it limits OOP. (Remember however that a final class can still extend another non-final class.)

Classes. What's the Point