ALICE 3.0 Release Date

Given that some of us were unable to go to SIGCSE and hear the latest, it would be really, really nice for the team to provide some official update on the progress and intended release milestones for all to hear/see. I've heard a variety of things form those returning from SIGCSE, but as this thread points out, there's a very, very old press release on the front of the site that really could stand someone's time to refresh it.

Please please please consider updating us all and not burying it in forum post or other blog. Thank you.

[MrMoke]

I'm currently scheduled to attend the presentation to be held at Texas A&M Corpus, and would like to know a few things in advance, or at least get these questions out for the presenters to address in the meeting. Maybe we should start another thread to contain specific questions that need to be answered during the conferences.

1) Has anyone addressed the need for updated textbooks that address the differences between 2.x and 3.x versions?

2) Are Alice 2.x worlds going to be backward compatible with Alice 3.x worlds, or will we have to start over and recreate all of our teaching examples from scratch? (I only ask because this would be a mandatory requirement in the business world)

3) Will Alice 3.x only work with NetBeans, or will we also be able to utilize other IDE's like Eclipse (which I presently use for all coding).

Any other questions that need to be addressed for the Summer meetings?

I really like the idea of a separate thread as you suggest . However you or someone else who is actually going to the meeting should probably start it.

Re your questions:

1. There has been a new book by Dann, et al announced (http://www.alice.org/community/showthread.php?t=2387) that almost certainly will have to use Alice 3.0. What is a bit confusing is that I have also seen some material which implies that the recommended approach is to also continue to use Alice 2.0/2.2 for the more basic courses.

2. Just a comment - if backward compatibility is a "requirement" in the business world, somebody should tell Microsoft and Apple. Several of my favorite programs will no longer run under Vista and, while I'm not a Mac person, I understand OSX is fundamentally incompatible in some ways with OS9.

3. I hope you do get a answer to this question and the response is that Alice 3.0 is not tied into a specific IDE. Any other situation would certainly limit the programs usefulness - especially if the single IDE was NetBeans, which is NOT a tool for beginners.

On the other hand, I suspect that since Alice 3.0 seems to be being developed using NetBeans and with Sun's help - Net Beans will probably also be the tool of choice for "experts." (Of course, with the talk of IBM buying Sun - that situation may also change. My open suggestion - if they do merge - is to also merge Eclipse and NetBeans and call it "Big Blue Beans." )

[MrMoke]

Thanks for the response. I understand that some work has been done to create a convertor, but it has a low priority. Would seem a shame to let the work of all of those CM contributors go by the wayside, but I haven't used 3.0 yet.

I'm taking Eclipse Ganymede to Corpus on my Laptop. For the basics, it has a one or two day learning curve for most of my high school students that can read, slightly longer for the others.

As far as the Eclipse/NetBeans combo thing; not such a good idea. Blue Beans give me CyberGas and KiloBloat.

Originally Posted by MrMoke

As far as the Eclipse/NetBeans combo thing; not such a good idea. Blue Beans give me CyberGas and KiloBloat.

Sorry - but I'm basically a hardware guy, who's done some marketing. Thus, unfortuately, CyberGas/KiloBloat does have a nice ring to it.

I do think a separate thread for questions is a good idea. I'd really rather have someone else do it, but I'm willing to start one - can't say it's really hard.

Also, for what it's worth, Alice 2.0 did fairly nicely with importing stuff from Alice 1.0 - at least while the older formats were still supported. I don't think they will really abandon all the good stuff from 2.0 - though it may take a few tricks to import it.

Is there any word on a new release schedule?

[jediaction]

They dont even have tutorials, Alice is ruined because of ALice 3. Its so different, its just like learning Alice ALL OVER AGAIN!

[jediaction]

Thats very good

[x2495iiii]

Guy was just copying and pasting other peoples' posts as an excuse to advertise cigars!

[jediaction]

Wow, thats BAD!