NOTE

This is an ALPHA Early Release of this site.

Why Another Book

An "Objects-First" Introduction to Programming

For a long time, most instructors and teachers who've taken up the challenge of teaching programming have done so with a focus on the manipulations and less concern with the things the program represents. This procedural mindset has been the way many of us (myself included) learned programming in the first place. The problem with this mindset, however, is that "real" programs haven't been written that way for decades now.

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) has been around for a long time, but it can be hard to adjust one's approach from a procedural mindset to become comfortable with OOP. This book aims at offering a way to teach programming starting with OOP, rather than tacking it on at the end. Through numerous simple examples, and a focus on the things first, this book will guide the student (and the teacher) through all the concepts needed to get started in programming with Objects.

The essence of this OOP-First approach are seen in what I call the "ABCs of Classes and Objects". From these first three topics I move to the "traditional" concerns of programming, all the while placing them within their most natural context: Objects.

Procedural code gets information then makes decisions. Object-oriented code tells objects to do things. - Alec Sharp, "Smalltalk by Example"

The Author

My name is Dan Gilleland, and I've been teaching computer programming full time since January 2000. I became serious about IT as a career in the mid '90s, but my foundations in programming go back to the late 1970's where I started dabbling with it in high school. I also run a part-time side business called Dynamic Generation offering software consulting services.