[Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 31, Issue 16

[Toby Donaldson]

On 3/1/06, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> > I suppose, that this is a misunderstanding. In the logo world of
> > computing with beginners, this means to decompose somewhat complex
> > tastks in tiny peaces and write functions for those, wich then
> > can be assembled to solve the complex task. This is the ordinary
> > meaning of bottum-up development.
>
>
> OK, so like test-driven development.  Write a test.  Write a function that
> passes the test.  Get a bunch of little pieces that work well.  Then (and
> only then) start using these pieces to pass other tests (more complicated
> tasks).
>
> In the world of structured programming, this meant:
>
> def f:
> def g:
> def h:
>
> def main:
>    f; g; h
>
> But today it might be more in terms of subclassing generic classes i.e. in
> place of main call sequences, we have more specialized forms of composed and
> inherited object.

I think the Scheme folks get it right when they start with functions
before moving on to OOP. I've cribbed a lot of ideas from work in
Scheme education and tried to apply it to Python.

Toby
--
Dr. Toby Donaldson
School of Computing Science
Simon Fraser University (Surrey)