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0 pointsvoidhorse3y ago0 comments

I doubt you're the only one, and I actually feel that a lot of people that find themselves having to program in an OOP language don't really understand OOP fully or what its motivations are. I personally don't think it's possible to really grok OOP without first understanding the motivations for its origins and how it compares to doing everything in a purely imperative fashion. The best way to actually understand its purpose (and flaws) is to implement an OOP system in an imperative language (e.g. implement a basic OOP class system in C, etc.)

It's common for a lot of online resources (I don't know about university) to provide introductions to programming using OOP, which I think is a terrible mistake. It fills beginners' heads with all sorts of incorrect, fanciful ideas about how computers work and what happens when a program is executed. It's also difficult to know how to use OOP concepts and structures correctly without knowing why they're convenient. I strongly believe you need a good understanding of the technical motivations for such constructs before you can actually use them with good effect--otherwise you're simply relying on imitating patterns or taking certain things as foundational when in fact they are not. I think functional languages and strictly imperative languages are far more appropriate for a first programming language.

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rolenthedeep3y ago

Very much agreed. My main problem with school was being told "how" and not "why".

If I were to teach programming, I'd start with straight up assembly. Give people a taste of what the cpu is actually doing under all your abstractions. Probably a few weeks, enough for hello world, fibonacci numbers, and an intro to branching. Then introduce C, get used to pointers and basic high-level language concepts. Really hammer in the idea of thinking like the CPU and being mindful of the resources you're using.

From there, guide them towards building a real application in imperative C or C++. After that the overarching theme is rewriting the application in an object oriented language, with attention to why and when you should and shouldn't use these new tools.

IMO, understanding the fundamentals of how a cpu works is absolutely essential for writing good code at any level of abstraction, and it seems a lot of new programmers are missing that.

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rolenthedeep3y ago

Very much agreed. My main problem with school was being told "how" and not "why".

IMO, understanding the fundamentals of how a cpu works is absolutely essential for writing good code at any level of abstraction, and it seems a lot of new programmers are missing that.

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