How to Teach Object-Oriented Programming for Well-Trained Cobol Programmers

Markus Knasmüller
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Institute for Practical Computer Science
Altenbergerstraße 69, A-4040 Linz

Abstract

Introducing object-oriented programming to old-style programmers is a rather hard task. This paper shows how this job was done at BMD Steyr, Austrians leading producer of accountancy software. A special course for former Cobol programmers was offered. This course is based on the principle that one should first learn data abstraction before one starts with object-oriented programming. Its structure is rather similar to a lecture which was given by the author together with Hanspeter Mössenböck at the University of Linz. The main differences are the removal of academic terms and the focus on Delphi.

Paper at the ECOOP Workshop on Learning and Teaching Objects Successfully, Brussels, July 1998

Published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1543 (pp. 359-362), Springer-Verlag,1998.

You can download the paper in postscript or in compressed postscript.