I have to weigh in on the side of beginning with imperitive programming. After all, that's closer to what the machines are actually doing. If you don't start with the idea that the machines are taking instructions and perfoming tasks, that concept is harder to grasp later on. I had a computer science professor who used to say that nothing is automatic. If something happens "automatically," that means that someone else has already written the program to do it.
OOP is a programming design concept. It and the languages that support it should be taught after the basic concepts are learned. Would you teach an architect how to design a house, before teaching him the basic properties, adavantages, and disadvantages of different building techniques? If you did, you might get a house made out of inappropriate materials, just to satisfy a design feature. For the vast majority of applications, you want the architect to use appropriate materials. The exceptional architects will know when to "break out of the box." This is when you get a Frank Lloyd Wright.
In the same way, programmers should be taught starting with the basics. They must know the advantages and disadvantages of all programming design concepts. They should be exposed to many programming languages, so they can see how to implement different designs in different languages. They should be taught that in the "real world" there will be business considerations that will take higher priority than what they perceive as the ideal technical solution, and that they may have to work with the less than ideal solution. To do this, they need to know many ways of designing programs, and the advantages and disadvantages of each. To understand these advantages and disadvantages, they have to understand how the higher level programming is converted (compiled, interpreted) into what the machine can understand.
Slashdot Mirror
I have to weigh in on the side of beginning with imperitive programming. After all, that's closer to what the machines are actually doing. If you don't start with the idea that the machines are taking instructions and perfoming tasks, that concept is harder to grasp later on. I had a computer science professor who used to say that nothing is automatic. If something happens "automatically," that means that someone else has already written the program to do it.
OOP is a programming design concept. It and the languages that support it should be taught after the basic concepts are learned. Would you teach an architect how to design a house, before teaching him the basic properties, adavantages, and disadvantages of different building techniques? If you did, you might get a house made out of inappropriate materials, just to satisfy a design feature. For the vast majority of applications, you want the architect to use appropriate materials. The exceptional architects will know when to "break out of the box." This is when you get a Frank Lloyd Wright.
In the same way, programmers should be taught starting with the basics. They must know the advantages and disadvantages of all programming design concepts. They should be exposed to many programming languages, so they can see how to implement different designs in different languages. They should be taught that in the "real world" there will be business considerations that will take higher priority than what they perceive as the ideal technical solution, and that they may have to work with the less than ideal solution. To do this, they need to know many ways of designing programs, and the advantages and disadvantages of each. To understand these advantages and disadvantages, they have to understand how the higher level programming is converted (compiled, interpreted) into what the machine can understand.