[Edu-sig] Re: Best approach to teaching OOP and graphics

[ajsiegel at optonline.net]

----- Original Message -----
From: "urnerk at qwest.net" <urnerk at qwest.net>
>But here's the thing, the question I think we're asking in this 
> thread: 
> how do we make it clear to students that OOP is NOT *just* about 
> graphicalprogramming?   You can write highly object oriented code 
> that has no GUI

That's where I am being confused.

Graphical programming has nothing necessarily to do with a GUI, so
I am confused why we are discussing them in any way together.

VPython and Povray being 2 examples that immediately 
come to mind.

I don't see GUI programming as a necessarily appropriate 
environment to introudce OOP.

But using the metaphor of geometric objects already *is* the
canonical way of introducing OOP.  

What VPython, for example, allows is pursuit of the canonical 
methodology, but cutting directly to an actual implementation,
rather than working on "as-if" basis.  We wee the triangle, derived
from our more general geometric object, rather than (or in addition to) 
only seeing a prompt message saying "I am now a triangle".

Hard for me to see anything but upside in this approach.

Art