I just read a blog complaining about the systematic abuse of object-oriented programming and it reminds me of my complaint about the teaching of object-oriented programming. The typical object-oriented tutorial will define a vehicle class then create two or three derived classes such as a car, truck, and/or motorcycle (example 1 and example 2). This instruction is useful purely on the theoretical level but fails to actually teach the student how to use polymorphism, inheritance, and encapsulation. The issue is far more than object-oriented programming, but rather code structure and layout and design patterns. The most useful exercises in learning...