[Edu-sig] Transition to OOP

[David MacQuigg]

csev wrote:
> On Feb 5, 2010, at 9:31 PM, kirby urner wrote:
>   
>> What I'm not seeing here is any plans to venture into user-defined types
>> i.e. rolling your own classes.
>>     
>
> I am indeed tempted into user-defined types.  I actually teach OO Python in my App Engine course because it is necessary there.  And Think Python has a nice chapter.  But my problem is find a use case that drives me there in "exploring data" - I see using objects all over the place - but making your own does not yet feel part of the data narrative.
>   

Unless the course is *about* programming, I would delay user-defined 
classes until you really feel the need.  Then there is no need to 
motivate the extra complexity.  The benefits will be apparent.  I see 
that Mathematics for the Digital Age does show an example of a class on 
page 88, but I note that this is anecdotal information, not something 
the students are expected to learn.

Fast forward six years.  I'm helping with a graduate course on 
cryptography, and for the first time this semester felt the need for a 
class definition.  I wrote a function to model an LFSR.  Then it became 
apparent that I need more that just this one function, so I wrote a 
class definition.  You can see the two side-by-side at 
http://ece.arizona.edu/~edatools/ece596c/LFSR.html.

Even if the class will now do everything the function does and more, it 
is still nice to study the function first, understand how the LFSR 
works, then look at the more complex class definition.

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