Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
INTRODUCTION
Object-oriented technology (OOT) is becoming increasingly prevalent throughout the
system development process (Jordan, Smilan, & Wilkinson, 1994). Students must be
knowledgeable in OOT in order to adequately prepare for their future careers. The ACM/AIS
2000 model curriculum includes object-oriented concepts within several courses, including
analysis and design, software engineering methodologies, databases, and programming
(Gorgone & Gray, 2000). The Java™ programming language, which became generally
available in 1995, has achieved a high level of adoption in industry and in the classroom.
Information systems programs have also begun to integrate OOT in general, and Java in
particular, into their course offerings (Lim, 1998).
The Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) at Bentley College, intro-
duced in the fall of 2001, is built upon the object-oriented paradigm, with Sun's Java platform
providing the technical foundation. Formerly, the first programming course was taught in
Microsoft® Visual Basic® 6.0, an object-based language. This paper focuses on the
transition to teaching the first programming course in Java.
Many of our students have little or no programming experience. Java can be a difficult
language to learn for several reasons, including the complexity of its extensive class libraries;
the instability of the Java platform, which is updated on a regular basis, often with significant
changes to the language itself; the lack of standard methods for reading keyboard input; and
a hard-to-use graphics model (Roberts, 2001). Yet, Java is in many ways less complex than
C and C++, to which it bears a strong surface resemblance. This is largely due to the lack of
pointers, which is a major stumbling block for students (Mehic & Hasan, 2001). Advantages
for students learning Java include automatic garbage collection and the use of String objects
rather than the null-terminated arrays of characters found in C/C++. In addition, Java was
designed from the start as an object-oriented language and has all of the advantages inherent
to this paradigm, including the reusability of objects, flexibility and extensibility from
inheritance and polymorphism, and enhanced reliability and modifiability from encapsula-
tion.
Proactive ways were sought to combat the anticipated high level of frustration for
novice programmers enrolled in this course. Choices made concerning the course Web site,
the student support structure, course content, how to deal with increasingly complex topics,
and the frequency and difficulty of programming assignments, were critical to the success
of this course.
This chapter describes the choices that were made and presents their effects. The next
section describes key issues associated with introducing Java to the curriculum and
summarizes related research on this topic. This is followed by a description of the object-
oriented programming course introduced at Bentley College in the fall of 2001. Results of a
survey given to all the students in this course were presented and compared to results from
a similar survey given to students in the predecessor course taught in Visual Basic. Survey
results are then discussed, followed by concluding remarks on the successful transition to
Java in a first programming course.
BACKGROUND
The Java object-oriented programming language was developed at Sun Microsystems
in 1991 for use in consumer electronics devices, such as television sets and VCRs (Lemay
