I think both sides of this debate have some valid points, although I'd
lean a lot more strongly toward the "teach OOP later" approach. But
it's still possible to create OOP code from the start in AS2 or AS3.
The fundamentals of programming are variables, expressions, control
structures, and methods/functions/subroutines. In theory, you could
start teaching about variables with a pretty simple class like so:
package {
class MyProgram {
function MyProgram() {
var text:String = "Hello, world!";
trace(text);
}
}
}
At this stage there'd be no point in explaining what the package,
class, or function lines actually do--just say, "Don't worry about it;
we'll get to that later." I think it would be pretty easy to just
focus on the lines within the constructor. Once they have variables,
expressions, and control structures down, you can introduce the idea
of adding other functions. Once that's ingrained (maybe by the
beginning of an intermediate class) you can start to show how code can
be divided into classes and packages, how functions can have different
scopes, etc., and they won't be totally weirded out by the new
structure.
Just my thoughts. In the end it probably doesn't make much difference
whether you introduce the concepts via timeline code or simple, single
classes, as above. The core concepts being presented would be the
same, it's just a matter of whether you want to introduce them to the
environment of OOP earlier or later. In either case, the concepts of
OOP should come later.
--
T. Michael Keesey
Director of Technology
Exopolis, Inc.
2894 Rowena Avenue Ste. B
Los Angeles, California 90039
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