What's the difference between a method and a function?

Question

Can someone provide a simple explanation of methods vs. functions in OOP context?

Answer 1

In OO world, the two are commonly used to mean the same thing.

From a pure Math and CS perspective, a function will always return the same result when called with the same arguments ( f(x,y) = (x + y) ). A method on the other hand, is typically associated with an instance of a class. Again though, most modern OO languages no longer use the term "function" for the most part. Many static methods can be quite like functions, as they typically have no state (not always true).