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From: fhadsell@csm9a.UUCP ( GP)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.edu,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: What to know
Summary: Object-oriented education
Message-ID: <1821@csm9a.UUCP>
Date: 27 Aug 89 16:20:23 GMT
References: <56543@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Organization: Colorado School of Mines
Lines: 22

In article <56543@aerospace.AERO.ORG>, abbott@aerospace.aero.org (Russell J. Abbott) writes:
> In this world of instantly accessible information that we are
> constructing I'm beginning to wonder what one should actually bother to
> learn.  That is, why know something when one can look it up using an
> information locator service?  I also wonder what the difference is
> between knowing something and knowing where to find out about something.
>
Being a professor at a specialized engineering school, just recently exposed to
the terms SCOOPS, OOPS, LOOPS, etc., I find myself applying object orientation
in the strangest places.  For example:

In Academe should we do away with specialized studies (Geophysical
Engineering?) and devote our energies to the more generally applicable
objects.

Thus instead of teaching XYZ, which inherits from XY, which inherits from
X we would teach all variables and methods of X and then look at a few
instance variables and instance methods of XY and XYZ.

I know that my good friends in the Oil Business usually disagree with me on
this point, but let's follow the lead of Mr. Abbott and talk about it.