Introducing object-oriented programming into the computer science curriculum

In recent years, object-oriented programming languages and object-oriented program design have become increasingly popular. Dialects of many popular programming languages are now available which support the major concepts of object-oriented programming; namely message-passing, classes, generic operations and inheritance. Experience in the paradigm is increasingly supporting the view that object-oriented programming may be to the 80's what structured programming was to the 70's in terms of its influence on software development. After reviewing the notions of object-oriented programming, we describe our experiences in introducing the object-oriented paradigm into the Computer Science curriculum. The impact was felt in four courses dealing with data types and data structures, programming languages, software engineering, and compiler construction. In addition, we describe the use of the Smalltalk environment in advanced course and project work. We chronicle our experiences in the expectation that they will be of benefit to other educators considering adopting the object-oriented paradigm. Finally, we review the potential benefits of introducing object-oriented programming into the computer science curriculum.