<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 12:01 PM, Nathan Lane <<a href="mailto:nathamberlane@gmail.com">nathamberlane@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">So, as a beginner, I have noted the many things people have told me about Squeak, but one thing is really bugging me, and I can't break free of it. In my experience programming is a linear task, not object-based, so how do I program using Squeak which uses "active objects"? I don't understand.<br clear="all">
</blockquote>
<div>I've seen this happen a lot when I see new programmers. They'll write single method programs that simply make library calls or implement (inline) all the functionality they need. My brother took a "learn to program" course in college (in C yuk!) and all his programming assignments looked like this. I *tried* to teach him to look for patterns and to remove dupplication but he never got the hang of it. Writing functions that could be reused was a difficult thing for him to comprehend.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I find that a lot of new programmers learn to program in a procedural style and then continue to apply that style with other languages they use even if they should use a different style. I think that working through an example to show how to think about objects would be very helpful for beginners. I would recommend David West's book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0735619654/">Object Thinking</a>, but a lot of people didn't like the book. I really enjoyed the book but perhaps there are better ways to teach how to think about objects...</div>
<div> </div>
<div>--</div>
<div>Edwin</div></div>