I've heard that ray tracers are an ideal example to show OOP in a good
light. Are there any other pedagogical examples?
Isn't this OT for this group? Here are my thoughts anyway though.
Depends on the context you're using them in. When teaching OOA&D in
the nineties I would always use the problem domain of the people I was
teaching. Harder work for the teacher, but more likely that they'll
find the examples useful and relevant.
I've written a couple of different ray tracers, one in Smalltalk and
one in C++. They are good, but there are a lot of distracting details
(3D maths, co-ordinate systems, physics etc.) that you'll also have to
teach. They're not really suitable for short courses because of this.
I found simple computer games to be better examples. I often used
Missile Command or other games of similar vintage.
The business examples often used to try to appear more relevant tend
to be so hopelessly naive as to be useless for teaching to anybody who
actually knows anything about business systems.
K
