I entered the world of Object-oriented programming with Smalltalk, no C++, no Java. Still it is the programming language that I like the most, even more than Java; please note that I am talking about the language and not about the surrounding environment, like the class libraries or the development tools, they are so different that I will not make justice comparing them.

To see one of the examples of its power read this two articles:

• An Introduction To Smalltalk Via "10000 factorial"
• 10000 factorial

Everything in Smalltalk is an object, big integers, decimal values, fractions, blocks of code, object messages (method calls). If I had the opportunity to teach Object-oriented programming professionally, You must be sure that I would do it using Smalltalk as the course language