Yeah, potato similes are great and all, but my problem here is this: is component-based programming simply a different style of programming in current languages, or is it an alternative syntactic sugar to classes that relies on it being written in particular "component based" languages?

Because "often bigger" isn't helpful, since there's no standard for the size of objects. "Can be replaced" isn't helpful, because as with ADTs in imperative programming languages, abstract classes are common in OO as well (you might replace an array list with a linked list, but it will make no difference to the rest of your program if you are only interacting with it through an abstract "list" class or interface). "It has a predefined interface" doesn't differentiate it from an object (except that this is perhaps enforced in component based programming [as you implied], but an OO language may also have that requirement and still be useful in a strictly OO paradigm).

Basically, what AlbertoT and I appear to have come down to in our discussion is his position that the phrase "its own methods" does not apply to component based programming, and I fail to see how that can be the case, particularly given the short code example Liam gave in the original post and Unity's documentation regarding Transforms.

It appears to me that component based programming is simply a style you might use when writing in C++, Python, Go, or any number of other OO languages, but you'll still have instances of classes and call their methods.

Jibb