2. Object Oriented Programming¶
Before we start thinking about computer science, I want you to imagine every English class you have ever had. Think about all the things
your English teachers have taught you over the years. I bet it was a lot! Now focus on how they taught you to write. Maybe they first
taught you how to spell simple nouns (cat, dog, apple, etc.), and how to form the shapes we call letters with a pen or pencil. Maybe
your next English teacher said that we like to write words in a specific order, and that we call this order a sentence. But then
you met your high school English teachers, who were less concerned about teaching you the
basics of writing, and more into helping you find your voice! They threw around terms like “five paragraph essay”
in an effort to help you design your writing in a way that not only lets your voice shine but makes every reader instantly
think…
This is what we are going to learn this year, except we won’t be thinking in English anymore. We’re going to start small and perfect the
fundamentals of a new language called Java. We’ll learn important new “words” like class, and we’ll perfect how to use these
words in “sentences” our computer already understands. More importantly, we will work our way up to embodying a design philosophy computer
scientists call Object Oriented Programming. Think of this as the “five paragraph essay” of computer science, except this
structure of writing is SO powerful that it is used to construct nearly every major technological system in the world (Android apps,
stock market trading, the f@%$ing Mars rover! You name it, object oriented programming was probably used). I love teaching this class because it means I get to give the power of this idea to you, and what you can do with Object Oriented Programming
can change the world (no pressure :p).
So let’s get started by learning about a few new words!