Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!decwrl!labrea!navajo!billw From: billw@navajo.STANFORD.EDU (William E. Westfield) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Teaching object-oriented paradigm to beginners? Message-ID: <1285@navajo.STANFORD.EDU> Date: Sun, 11-Jan-87 01:06:54 EST Article-I.D.: navajo.1285 Posted: Sun Jan 11 01:06:54 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 13-Jan-87 01:06:13 EST References: <4000001@nucsrl.UUCP> <746@drivax.UUCP> Organization: Stanford University Lines: 15 Summary: I don't understand... One problem with languages that directly implment high level abstractions is that they require the user to understand high level abstractions too. MACSYMA is a wonderful system for doing calculus, for exmaple, but it won't help someone who doesn't know calculus find the area under a curve. Indeed, they would probably be better off knowing basic, and having a picture with rectangles and what not. In a similar way, object oriented programming seems to take for granted a lot of things that are just as meaningless to beginning CS types as TDZA 1,1 (inheritance of properties? Properties? local storage ? temporary variables? (all from the first 50 pages of smalltalk-80...)) BillW