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Nearly all modern programming languages support object-oriented programming. Unfortunately, figuring out object-oriented programming can be difficult, especially for beginners who already have enough trouble just figuring out how to program a computer.

To help beginners understand object-oriented programming, Carnegie Mellon University created a free programming language dubbed Alice (www.alice.org). To make programming fun and teach object-oriented principles at the same time, Alice lets beginners write simple programs to animate characters onscreen, as shown in Figure 3-3.

FIGURE 3-3: An Alice program creates an animated character onscreen and moves it around.

When you write an Alice program, your commands create an animated character onscreen. Then you need to write additional commands to tell that animated character how to move to create a simple story. In the process of telling the animated character how to move, you wind up discovering both how to program and how to use object-oriented principles, while having fun in the process.

Like most instructional programming languages, Alice programming uses plain English commands, like move forward or play sound. By using simple commands, Alice lets you focus on understanding the principles of object-oriented programming without getting bogged down in understanding the peculiar syntax of a specific programming language.