On understanding the statics and dynamics of object-oriented programs

This paper describes research into the influence of using static (class and object) visualization on understanding program flow in object-oriented programming. We found that the advantages of using the static visualization in the first stages of learning could become disadvantages in the advanced stages. The teacher must be aware of these pitfalls and plan the learning sequence accordingly. We think that the BlueJ learning environment that we used should be augmented with dynamic visualization so that students can coordinate the static and dynamic aspects of object-oriented programs.