Ayah's inspiration is not just LEGO, but object oriented programing languages that simplify building code, allowing developers to focus on the more creative aspects of software making.

ENGADGET

Some of his inventions from that time, including an object-oriented programming language called Smalltalk, went into Croquet.

FORBES: Croquet, Everyone?

At the time of the interview, Jobs had been 10 years at NeXT, an object-oriented software firm that he had founded.

FORBES: The Lost Interview: Steve Jobs Tells Us What Really Matters

The glue that melds Applixware Office's features together into coherent applications is an object-oriented macro programming language called ELF (Extension Language Facility).

CNN: Review: Applixware Office 5.0 for Linux

Inheritance and encapsulation are features typically associated with object-oriented programming tools.

CNN: Technology - Gates offers developers glimpse of Next Generation Windows

Like fixing any jumble, software gets organized by putting like things in boxes--a process called "abstraction"--and it flourished in the coming years through techniques like object-oriented programming, which shapes the Internet's Java language.

FORBES: The Biggest Damn Opportunity

It's difficult for results-oriented American sports fans to grasp, but for many soccer fans, the object of the game is never simply to win but to win beautifully and to play a role in the evolution of the game as an organic work of art.

WSJ: La Roja: How Spain Became the World's Best Soccer Team