inheritance?
 

the textbook (page 101) talks about adding methods to a class and then using this to create a new "enhanced" class. This process is described using the term "inheritance". Isn't this a mis-use of the term? any changes to the original class will not be reflected in the second class. True inheritance is much more powerful. won't this careless use of terminology lead to confusion for students?

cheers, Joan

You can save the object as a new 2nd generation object(class) then use the new and improved version to create more 3rd generation objects, thereby implementing inheritance.

Another way of looking at it Joan, is to say that ALICE is a 'means to an end' - ALICE provides a visual means of teaching students the BASIC effects of Java's (OOPs) Inheritance mechanisms. It is NOT true inheritance, but it is the beginning concept that might help students to later move more easily into polymorphism, etc. Once the student has a good understanding of the basics they will possibly be better prepared should they need to learn about "a pointer to a pointer to a variable".

ALICE is a beginning teaching mechinism - I don't recommend it be used for satellite guidance systems. :o

Good luck.