Blue - A Language for Teaching Object-Oriented Programming

Teaching object-oriented programming has clearly become an important part of computer science education. We agree with many others that the best place to teach it is in the CS1 introductory course. Many problems with this have been reported in the literature. These mainly result from inadequate languages and environments. Blue is a new language and integrated programming environment, currently under development explicitly for object-oriented teaching. We expect clear advantages from the use of Blue for first year teaching compared to using other available languages. This paper describes the design principles on which the language was based and the most important aspects of the language itself

Testing Object-Oriented Programs: Making it Simple

One of the major difficulties facing anyone trying to teach the first programming course is how to encourage students to thoroughly test their programs. We would argue that the main reasons for this are the lack of suitable tools for testing and the need to write extra "debug" code in order to verify correct operation. We further argue that the problem is even worse with object-oriented languages because of multiple classes and encapsulation. In this paper we describe the testing tools within the Blue programming environment which allow object-oriented programs to be thoroughly tested without writing a single line of new code

I/O Considered Harmful (At least for the first few weeks)

One of the major difficulties with teaching the first programming course is input/output. It is desirable to show students how to input data and output results early in the course in order to motivate the students and so that they can see the results of their programs. Output is also a useful tool for testing programs. However, in most programming languages input and output are esoteric and the techniques for performing input and output must be learnt by the students at an early stage, precisely when they are trying to understand the basics of programming. We argue that input/output operations need not be taught in the early stages of a course if the language environment provides appropriate tools for testing programs. This assertion is demonstrated by reference to the Blue objectoriented language and environment

Galaxy Formation: Was There A Big Bang Shell?

The tight correlation of galactic velocity distribution to both luminosity and its black hole mass and the relation of halo parameters to luminous mass distribution, can not be due to collapse dynamics. A big bang shell can solve galaxy formation problems by forming the supermassive black holes necessary to capture the initial blast wave in a coordinated pattern.Comment: 7 pages late

Carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectra and mechanism of bridge–terminal carbonyl exchange in di-µ-carbonyl-bis[carbonyl(η-cyclopentadienyl)iron](Fe–Fe)[{(η-C5H5)Fe(CO)2}2]; cd-di-µ-carbonyl-f-carbonyl-ae-di(η-cyclopentadienyl)-b-(triethyl -phosphite)di-iron(Fe–Fe)[(η-C5H5)2Fe2(CO)3P(OEt)3], and some related complexes

A mechanism involving carbonyl-bridge breaking, rotation about the Fe–Fe bond, and bridge reformation is shown to account qualitatively for changes in the carbonyl region of the 13C n.m.r spectrum of the complex [(cp)(OC)[graphic omitted]e(cp){P(OEt)3}] and quantitatively for [(cp)(OC)[graphic omitted]e(CO)(cp)](cp =η-cyclopentadienyl).The activation energy for this process, 49.0 ± 4 kJ mol^–1(11.7 ± 1 kcal mol^–1), is close to that reported for cis–trans-isomerization of the cp groups, in accord with this mechanism. Variable-temperature 13C n.m.r. spectra of the complexes [(cp)(OC)[graphic omitted]u(CO)(cp)] and [(cp)(OC)[graphic omitted]i(cp)] are also reported

Guidelines for Teaching Object Orientation with Java

How to best teach object orientation to first year students is currently a topic of much debate. One of the tools suggested to aid in this task is BlueJ, an integrated development environment specifically designed for teaching. BlueJ supports a unique style of introduction of OO concepts. In this paper we discuss a set of problems with OO teaching, present some guidelines for better course design and show how BlueJ can be used to make significant improvements to introductory OO courses. We end by esenting a description of a possible project sequence using this teaching approach