The Department of Computer Science at Rice University offers a unique introductory course sequence on programming. The first course introduces program design via design recipes. A design recipe is a general tool for approach problems, laying out data definitions, and deriving programs. Most of the programming in this course uses Scheme to avoid the overhead of class notation.
The second course is a bridge from the design recipes to the GoF object-oriented design patterns. The course first introduces those patterns that students recognize as specific instances of design recipes. Then it exposes students to additional design patterns as needed.
My talk will present the concepts of the introductory sequence, the context, and some specific examples. I will report on Rice's experienecs with this sequence.