Everything ... is ... so terrible!

[x2495iiii]

That really doesn't have a place here...

Did you misread the title of this thread or was that just a random post?

[BenMcLean]

Originally Posted by Lorenesf3

All of a sudden, soy products cause cancer. They're not safe unless they're super-processed, and even then, they can mess up your hormones. What?? I thought people in other countries had been eating soy products for thousands of years?!?!

I think what he's saying is other people have thought Alice was fine in the past and I'm being like the people who show up later saying soy products cause cancer.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if "May cause cancer" was one of the bugs in this thing because just about everything else seems to have something broken. In Alice 2.2, I can add objects to a list but can't remove them ... I have to switch to 2.0 in order to remove objects from lists, but I can't execute my world in 2.0 on this windows 7 machine for some unknown reason because it comes up with an error message.

[x2495iiii]

Now that's a consideration you just have to make when mixing the newest products with older software. For example, I prefer using Google Chrome as my browser instead of IE because it's much faster, but my online college classes don't work well with it because it came out after they created their site. Who's fault is that? No one's because this is a situation which can't be avoided without knowing the future.

Tell me, BenMcLean, do you enjoy ANYTHING about Alice? Or do you seriously believe that it's the worst program in the world and are basically just going to keep saying so until Alice 3 comes out?

[KaiChang]

I'm not so good at alice myself, but I'm LEARNING. Part of the experience. If you don't like it, try to. Maybe you'll like it later. Anyways, if you really don't like it, use another program.

Good Luck
Kai

I am getting better.

[BenMcLean]

Originally Posted by x2495iiii

Now that's a consideration you just have to make when mixing the newest products with older software. For example, I prefer using Google Chrome as my browser instead of IE because it's much faster, but my online college classes don't work well with it because it came out after they created their site. Who's fault is that?

MICROSOFT'S! Open web standards existed long before the release of Intenet Explorer 8 and Microsoft deliberately refused to support them and has instead made up their own alternative specs (which they've basically made sure nobody's browser will be able to support except theirs) in a futile attempt to regain market share against other, better featured, more secure more open browsers NOT through better features and innovation but simply through monopoly! This has led to the development of technologies such as Google Chrome Frame and IE Tab that work around Microsoft's stupidity. There is no valid reason any web site shouldn't work whether you're on Chrome, FireFox, Safari or any other modern browser, regardless of whether you're using Windows, Linux, Mac, Google Chrome OS or some other yet-to-be-invented platform. There are perfectly legitimate reasons why many web developers (the Google Wave team as an example) are dropping IE support as a goal in their sites/projects entirely. The only reason sites don't work on Chrome, FireFox or Safari is because of bad design on the part of the site designer, such as only testing with Internet Explorer.

My guess is your college is probably using BlackBoard. I suggest you get on the dev channel of Google Chrome which recently came out with extension support. An IE Tab extension (similar to the FireFox version) has already been developed for Chrome which will allow you to access your course web sites inside Chrome. I am still an avid FireFox user but can see why people like Chrome. Not sure I understand why people like Safari so much but it's standards-compliant so that's not a problem either. But it doesn't make sense for anyone to use or support IE. The only legitimate uses of IE (any version) are updating fresh windows XP installs to service pack 3 and downloading modern browsers such as Chrome, FireFox and/or Safari.

Originally Posted by x2495iiii

Tell me, BenMcLean, do you enjoy ANYTHING about Alice?

I like the ability to make quick little movies with a fairly nice gallery of simple 3D models that are fairly easy to animate with. I would really like to be able to make some Sims 2 machinima sometime when Alice 3 gets finished.

But my beef is with Carnegie Mellon who have sold me a textbook that describes a product that 1. is not stable/working, 2. is missing obvious features so as to make it useless for any practical purpose 3. tries to teach programming in a drag-and-drop GUI interface (a fundamentally bad idea) and 4. teaches bad design principles, both directly and by example.

Originally Posted by x2495iiii

Or do you seriously believe that it's the worst program in the world and are basically just going to keep saying so until Alice 3 comes out?

Nope. Today, I hit "save" on my last Alice 2 project - the final project in this class I'm taking. Now that I'm not required to use Alice for a class anymore, I'm not using it ever again - unless Alice 3 comes out as a seriously usable set of Sims 2 machinima tools which I can easily sync up with audio and export in an open video format. Then I'll be back and saying how great Alice 3 is and probably using it to make movies.

[x2495iiii]

Though I still believe that the existence of complex games and videos made with Alice disprove many of your statements, I sincerely hope you're not disappointed with Alice 3.

[BenMcLean]

Originally Posted by x2495iiii

Though I still believe that the existence of complex games and videos made with Alice disprove many of your statements, I sincerely hope you're not disappointed with Alice 3.

I myself have made a game, here: http://alice.org/community/showthread.php?t=3546

There's no way I could redistribute it, even in theory, as a stand-alone program without building a package myself in Java ... which at that point would not be "Alice" anymore. That's what I meant when I said "Alice" wasn't a real programming langauge or actually useful.

[x2495iiii]

Remember, it's primary purpose is to TEACH, to help beginners to understand and get used to the ideas and concepts of programming, not to produce full-scale, standalone games or movies. Alice is just the first step on the programming staircase, you can't call it useless just because it isn't identical to the others or because it's lower than the others. It serves its purpose, just as they do.

[BenMcLean]

Originally Posted by x2495iiii

Remember, it's primary purpose is to TEACH, to help beginners to understand and get used to the ideas and concepts of programming,

It seems to be teaching, by example, that it's OK to release buggy code. Why not teach using a real programming language such as BASIC?

Originally Posted by x2495iiii

not to produce full-scale, standalone games or movies.

I hope that philosophy changes or expands into new areas in Alice 3, because machinima artists could use a good full-scale Sims 2 animation scripting language.

Originally Posted by x2495iiii

Alice is just the first step on the programming staircase, you can't call it useless just because it isn't identical to the others or because it's lower than the others. It serves its purpose, just as they do.

If it was stable and performed as described in the textbook, you would have a point. But it doesn't, and you don't.

[rockstar442]

You know your wasting your life complaining -and our time- but seriously go outside join a team quit complaining get a date live on the edge
just do stuff to enjoy your life because while you stay here complaining life will continue to move on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!