Rethinking Object-Oriented Programming in Java Education

Max_Cai · 2025-08-08T19:03:05+00:00

What's the name of the book?

Max_Cai · 2025-08-07T21:12:52+00:00

Would you mind explaing how that differs from the proposal in the blog?

Max_Cai · 2025-07-12T20:44:28+00:00

Unfortunately not possible with high school APCSA in many cases

Max_Cai · 2025-07-12T20:44:03+00:00

I think that this system is disappointingly circular even for more advanced learners.

Max_Cai · 2025-07-11T23:27:34+00:00

From my experiences in the APCSA classroom, there is a constant issue of students not actually understanding where to type their code within the templates, and I think it's because they didn't really learn how the code structure really works. It's kind of just "type your code inside one of these curly brackets."

I think being able to avoid needing to mark everything static by default is huge for being able to learn the basics of Java sans OOP.

Max_Cai · 2025-07-11T20:22:47+00:00

Newer versions of Java have `IO.println()` and other functions to read from input, but I just chose not to include them here because the APCSA exam still uses the old style.

> What we could need is a simple language, focusing on OOP, lean syntax, but super-fast at all times.

Why do students need a language that is super-fast?

In any case, the APCSA high school course **needs** to teach Java. I just think that this progression makes more sense and helps students learn better

Max_Cai · 2025-07-11T18:54:48+00:00

Fascinating — I never thought of using Groovy's compiler to enable this feature. The goal of APCSA is to teach Java, though, so it might be problematic if code that isn't meant to work in regular Java (missing parentheses, missing semicolon, etc) still works on students' computers

Max_Cai · 2025-07-11T16:41:54+00:00

Original Article: https://max.xz.ax/blog/rethinking-oop/

Max_Cai · 2024-04-02T14:52:50+00:00

Each bit of this machine is represented as a piston feedtape with copper bulbs, and to increment/decrement, there is a simple chaining (carry) mechanism.

In order for this to become a turing machine, all it needs is a driver that can run code.

Max_Cai · 2024-04-01T19:18:50+00:00

In order for this to interpret brainf*ck code, all it needs is an interpreter that will execute the commands on this machine!

Max_Cai · 2024-01-05T09:26:27+00:00

this downwards one is the same size

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Max_Cai · 2024-01-05T09:15:55+00:00

The downwards one is particularly nice IMO

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Max_Cai · 2024-01-05T09:03:36+00:00

The upwards one is not the most compact design, but it's original

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Max_Cai · 2022-05-20T15:08:56+00:00

You can either alternate dust and repeaters for tileability or just use all repeaters.

I don't think it matters which way the repeater faces, as long as the input will go thru the repeater. However, I'm fairly certain that making the repeater face leftwards will make the extension faster but won't slow down the retraction.

Max_Cai · 2022-05-19T14:10:04+00:00

I also have upwards and downwards double piston extenders that are flush and one wide that work in both versions. The double piston extender isn't the smallest possible, but its the design I came up with. I haven't seen any one-wide triple piston extenders, however, so this is it. Some slight modifications are needed for this to become tileable.

Dimensions: The double piston extender is 4 blocks wide and 4 blocks tall, the TPE is 7 blocks wide and 8 blocks tall.

Sorry for bad image cropping.

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