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Originally Posted by DrJim
After my problems with 2.2, I didn't even bother to try with Vista - just went directly to my XP machine. It loaded relatively smoothly and has been relatively bug free so far. (It is still obviously Beta software.)
As far as classroom use goes - don't want to really comment in any detail since I'm not a teacher, but I would be interested in other opinions. I note that the current summer workshops are specifically covering Alice 2.2 and 3.0.
Based on a first look, it appears that some of the "easy" things you can do in 2.x are going to require a bit higher understanding of Java in 3.0. Not a bad thing for CS majors (to claim 2.0 is a really good way to teach OOP has always seemed a bit of a stretch) - but that might also be a bit of a "turn off" for an introductory course.
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Alice 3 is object oriented, so some things are going to be a bit more difficult than the instance-based Alice 2. However, this will make the transition to an object oriented language like Java a lot smoother. It's impossible to make everyone happy, but I think most intro CS instructors will embrace this and it will hopefully bring in some new converts.
Alice 2 and 2.2 will continue to be available on our website, but we are moving full steam ahead with Alice 3.