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2004

Teaching Java First: Experiments with a Pigs-Early Pedagogy

13 years 5 months ago
Teaching Java First: Experiments with a Pigs-Early Pedagogy
This paper introduces PigWorld, a tool for teaching Java to novice programmers, via the objects-early style. Three design guidelines forobject-early assignments are discussed: (1) emphasize message passing between instances of the same class; (2) use only simple loops that search for smallest or largest values in a sequence; (3) teach linked lists before collections and collections before arrays. The paper offers a first step to resolving the dilemma over whether procedural programming must be taught before objects , via the following principle: in the procedural style, algorithms are encoded explicitly within the methods of an object, but in the object oriented style, algorithms emerge implicitly from the interactions between objects .1
Raymond Lister
Added 30 Oct 2010
Updated 30 Oct 2010
Type Conference
Year 2004
Where ACE
Authors Raymond Lister
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