The 'CEO singleton' - very funny. :) However, I'm all for domain modeling in the beginning, for a beginner. I learned OO the hard way - all by myself and pouri

The 'CEO singleton' - very funny. :) However, I'm all for domain modeling in the beginning, for a beginner. I learned OO the hard way - all by myself and pouring over books. I agree with the OP that a vehicle or duck was not a good model. Having worked with databases and crm's in the past (before they were 'crm's), I always dealt with people, organizations, calls, notes, etc. So when I came across an infamous car example, I was always wondering 'this has no bearing on anything I would do - why not talk about real objects like people?'. Even before hitting any kind of patterns, it's crucial (in my mind) to understand datatypes, methods, scoping, inheritance, etc. 3 Simple classes like Person, Address, Organization can go a long way. In my mind, there's no way a beginner is going to understand patterns first. They have to be shown the basics and the have to be handheld when entering the OO way of thinking. One those first few steps are taken, then it paves the way for more complex examples and patterns.