Teaching programming in the OOP era

Abstract

This paper argues in favor of teaching a course in Procedural Programming first before a course in Object Oriented Programming. The basis of the argument is that considered as a paradigm, Object Oriented Programming comes in addition to the Procedural Programming paradigm and not as a replacement for it. In addition, we discuss the mathematics prerequisites required for programming and argue that Information Science departments should insist that students receive a firm foundation in traditional mathematical skills and that the use of instructional technology should reinforce these skills and not detract from them.