From: Michael Campbell <michael_s_campbell@...>
Date: 2002-04-11T06:51:18+09:00
Subject: RE: OO/Ruby Terminology

> > I'm not sure this is germane in an introductory OO course.  I
> tend to
> > think not.
> 
> Interesting.  I would think that this distinction should be made
> early on,
> so that mental habits don't need to be undone later on.  Sun's OO
> tutorial
> discuses messages early on...


I certainly see your point. 

My idea here was that in an *intro* OO course, there's bigger, more
important, larger grained ideas to really "get" before this, which I
would consider more subtle and largely uninteresting; it's one of
those things that you won't need to know early.  (IMO, of course)

I see it akin to something like teaching the difference between "by
reference" variable passing in C, vs. passing the variable address by
value.  I'm not sure that I knew the difference for a good portion of
my C programming life, and I'm not convinced knowing it would have
made any difference.

This may be a bad analogy.

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