Teaching Object-Oriented Programming Concepts Using Visual Basic .NET

This paper presents an object-oriented approach to Visual Basic .NET instruction to be delivered in a traditional academic semester for information system curricula. The paper first discusses some of the inherent problems with Visual Basic .NET instruction and then proposes an object-oriented approach. This approach includes a systematic set of programming projects to take students on a journey that traces the principles of the object-oriented, the event-driven, and the procedural paradigms into a coherent framework. The Unified Modeling Language Class Diagram notation is used to model an object-oriented system that is developed and enhanced throughout the duration of the course. Practical recommendations and programming exercises are provided and evaluated in the discussion. This course is intended to be at minimum a second programming course for information system students to satisfy IS 2002 guidelines

Strategic Directions in Object-Oriented Programming

This paper has provided an overview of the field of object-oriented programming. After presenting a historical perspective and some major achievements in the field, four research directions were introduced: technologies integration, software components, distributed programming, and new paradigms. In general there is a need to continue research in traditional areas:\ud (1) as computer systems become more and more complex, there is a need to further develop the work on architecture and design; \ud (2) to support the development of complex systems, there is a need for better languages, environments, and tools; \ud (3) foundations in the form of the conceptual framework and other theories must be extended to enhance the means for modeling and formal analysis, as well as for understanding future computer systems

αRby—An Embedding of Alloy in Ruby

We present αRby—an embedding of the Alloy language in Ruby—and demonstrate the benefits of having a declarative modeling language (backed by an automated solver) embedded in a traditional object-oriented imperative programming language. This approach aims to bring these two distinct paradigms (imperative and declarative) together in a novel way. We argue that having the other paradigm available within the same language is beneficial to both the modeling community of Alloy users and the object-oriented community of Ruby programmers. In this paper, we primarily focus on the benefits for the Alloy community, namely, how αRby provides elegant solutions to several well-known, outstanding problems: (1) mixed execution, (2) specifying partial instances, (3) staged model finding

Reusability in software engineering

This paper surveys recent work concerning reusability in software engineering. The current directions in software reusability are discussed, and the two major approaches of reusable building blocks and reusable patterns studied. An extensive bibliography, parts of which are annotated, is included