[ Kirby ] ----------- | > >OO really is a different world. I think it still makes sense to teach | > >the subject historically, even though we *can* start with objects at | > >the same time.
+1, did that in practice and worked really well. [ Laura ]: ------------ | > This may make sense for people who already know procedureal programming, | > but I don't think that it is a good idea for the rest of the world. I | > think that you need to learn about exception handling _early_ I couldn't agree more. Even though I did not planned to teach exceptions in an introductory undergraduate programming course, that came as a natural result of adopting Python. While exploring the interactive prompt, sooner or later the students have to face something like: >>> x Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in ? NameError: name 'x' is not defined There had to be an explanation for that, and a way to deal with it. So I had to squeeze the unplanned topic of exception handling into the course plan ;o). | > right after you learn how to write a loop, and unit testing, and test | > driven design from the moment you get out of the 'how to play with the | > interpreter' stage. I agree with you on the importance of TDD. Nevertheless, I'm not sure on the feasibility of introducing this practice during introductory courses. Perhaps, is not a matter of feasibility, but a conscious choice of cutting the red tape a bit, and allow a more free and joyfull first encounter with programming. | The average beginner isn't going to know any programming, so why not start | with class/object right from the top? Time permitting <wink>. OTOH, a bottom level approach has the advantage of introducing a mechanism after the need for it is felt. | Yet the procedural model requires less setup I think, less background. | There's no "class hierarchy" to discuss. Indeed. | Having listened to more than a couple CS teachers describe their curricula, | I'm seeing the procedural-first, OO-next approach is fairly widespread. That is also true here in Brazil. best regards, Senra -- Rodrigo Senra <rsenra |at| acm.org> ------------------------------------------------ GPr Sistemas http://www.gpr.com.br Blog http://rodsenra.blogspot.com IC - Unicamp http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~921234 ------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig