Using simulation to teach object-oriented analysis

摘要

Within the sotware engineering and information systems (IS) development communities, there has been a great deal of interest in the application of object-oriented modeling to the analysis and design stages of software and IS development. Many progenitors of these new objected-oriented development methodologies believe that an object-oriented approach to the development of software and IS systems will migrate many of the problems now associated with software and IS system development. However recent research has shown that learning these new object-oriented (OO) methodologies can be difficult and that effective pedagogy for teaching these has yet to be developed. This paper will address this issue and will argue that simulation can be used as an effective teaching methodology for teaching OO concepts and OO analysis techniques. In addition, this paper will review the basic purpose and importance of the requirements phase of software and IS development; identify the basic concepts of object-orientation as they are applied to the requirements analysis; and illustrate the idea that simulations packages can be used to provide a robust paradigm for teaching object-roiented concepts and OOA analysis.