On 8/21/07, Ian Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 8/21/07, Steven Sacks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > If we take two students and you teach them OOP for 1 month and I teach > > them procedural for two weeks and then OOP for two weeks, my student > > will be further along than your student.s. > > I really don't agree -- and I'd like to see you back that assertion up with > some hard data.
I actually wonder how much of us are qualified to judge. Most of us probably learned procedural programming first, so that seems natural to us. When I taught myself BASIC on my family's TI 99/4A back in the early '80s (and later on our Commodore 64 circa 1990), OOP didn't even exist. Of course, it laid out the fundamentals so that, by the time I was in high school and OOP was gaining impetus, I was ready to learn it--with a bit of initial struggling. So that route worked, in the end. But was it the best route? Some of the "basics" I learned early on, like GOTO and line numbers, are barely present in programming anymore (assembly language excepted). And would it have been easier to segue into OOP if I had been used to dealing with variables that had fields and methods? Would it have been that much harder to learn to use Math.abs() rather than ABS(), or bitmapData.getPixel(row, col) rather than peek offset + screenwidth * row + col? I feel like it might have been beneficial to start using objects, even without understanding everything about them, shortly after learning about simple variables. But, then again, I don't really know. When I taught children how to program in the late '90s, some of the languages I taught required using objects (Visual Basic) and others didn't (LOGO). I really don't recall there being much difference in the difficulty. Of course I didn't go very deeply into OOP, just how to use existing APIs. But maybe that was a better approach, ultimately. I don't know--I haven't kept in touch with any of the kids. Is there any younger person or latecomer out there who started using OOP basics when learning to program for the first time? What are your thoughts? -- Mike Keesey _______________________________________________ Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com To change your subscription options or search the archive: http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders Brought to you by Fig Leaf Software Premier Authorized Adobe Consulting and Training http://www.figleaf.com http://training.figleaf.com
