Wollok: Language + IDE for a gentle and industry-aware introduction to OOP

Students often have difficulties in learning how to program in an object-oriented style. One of the causes of this problem is that object-oriented languages require the programmer to be familiarized with a big amount of non-trivial concepts, to write even the simplest programs. For several years we have been teaching introductory OOP courses using an incremental learning path, which starts with a simplified OOP model consisting only of objects, messages and references. We observed that the use of programming languages and tools that differ greatly from those used in the IT industry weakens student interest, and also hampers the application of the learned concepts and techniques in subsequent labor experiences. In this work we describe Wollok, which encompasses both an educative language and a specialized integrated development environment (IDE) conceived for learning OOP in a way that supports our pedagogical approach, and facilitates at the same time the transition to industrial environments. Equally important, we describe our teaching experience with these tools and the motivations for their design.