Although an interesting idea, there is a problem (?) inherent in this methodology.

The way I vizualize a concept, "see" it in my mind's eye, is greatly impacted by impressions and memories from the first time I came into contact with that concept. That said, I believe that if my first experience with OOP was through Seity, I would think of instantiations of objects as little 3D slabs with arrows pointing to each other, much the same way I still associate the Factory Pattern with a big grey M&M producing warehouse.

Is OOP such a different way of thinking from procedural programming? I personally don't think so, but perhaps I've been thinking about it all wrong up until now. At any rate, I'm sure that this type of environment would help some people -- but I still believe that it needs to be placed in more of a context. Like I said in my response to article 1, perhaps a melding of the two schools of thought is what would work the most often for the most students.

At SIGCSE I had the opportunity to watch procedural based people try to design their first OOP program and I would _definitely_ say that there is a difference in mentality behind OOP and Procedural. I have also found that many "reborn OOP people" are still stuck in their Procedural ways and that it will take a couple of generations of OOP programmers until the new methodology is actually clean and away from Procedural. Right now we are in an in-between status (tehe! a pidgen!).

In a similar vein to Danah's reaction, I have seen quite a few people (who shall remain nameless) who have only learned OOP be very confused and disconcerted when they try to program procedurally, and their "objects are taken away." I think that both paradigms are methods of problem solving, but they approach problems in somewhat different manners. The change of mindset takes a while for people to adjust to.

Hey! That is not very kind! Procedural sucks. OO is cool!