Illustrating the cognitive consequences of object-oriented systems development

Abstract

The purported “naturalness” of object-oriented (OO) approaches refers to the assertion that an alignment exists among the innate cognitive activities of system designers and the characteristics of OO system development approaches. That is, designers can think about the objects that make up the system in the same way they think about objects in the world. This fit of cognitive activities and OO characteristics appeals to many system developers. Contrary to the claim of naturalness, many students and practitioners report difficulties learning and using OO techniques. To understand why OO approaches seem to be difficult to learn and use, we illustrate the consistency of common characteristics of OO techniques and the cognitive activities of systems designers. A group of graduate students identified 148 beliefs, facts, and ideas pertaining to OO complexity. Researchers classified each item in terms of the abstraction, communication, problem-orientation, and shared behavior characteristics common to OO approaches. Then classified each item in terms of the problem understanding, problem decomposition, and design solution cognitive activities. The consistency of the two classifications confirms that claims are supported by usage. However, it seems that methodology and project management are part of the task of developing information systems (ISs) that are not adequately addressed by OO approaches.