Using object-orientation as a common basis for system development education

Abstract

Object-orientation has a long tradition at the Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, starting with Simula in the early seventies. For more than 20 years there have been courses in object-oriented programming, including BETA, Smalltalk, Self and others. Recently object-orientation has started to be integrated in other parts of the curriculum such as in software engineering, distributed systems and databases. In this paper we report on this approach to teaching object-orientation. One of the advantages of object-orientation is that it provides an integrating perspective on the various areas to be taught. Besides providing a common conceptual framework, it also makes it possible to use common languages and tools that have a profound influence on the integration. Especially in the software engineering course, it has been possible to let the students experience an iterative software development method where they make a number of iterations through analysis, design and implementation. To do these iterations, it is necessary with good development tools like a CASE tool that supports code generation and reverse engineering. The Mjølner BETA System is used in the various courses as a common platform, but the students are also introduced to other object-oriented environments like Smalltalk, Self, Eiffel, and C++. The Mjølner BETA System that is a software development environment for object-oriented development based on the BETA programming language.