Documentation
 

Here is a spot to provide pointers to useful Alice documentation.
For example, is there a list of the common methods and properties of objects and what these do?
Is there documentation on concepts like "orientation", and how the PointOfView vectors can be manipulated at execution time?
(I do have the, now published, Learning To Program with Alice, but alias (which may be Alice spelled backwards ;) ) this book does not have such a definative list.

Enjoy
Jim

documentation
 

Excellent question. The recently published textbook has some handy "lists of common things" on the inside of the front and back covers, but you're looking for more.

There is a four-color, tri-fold, six-sided laminated "course card" available:

[url]http://www.course.com/catalog/product.cfm?isbn=1-4188-4675-9&CFID=8204466&CFTOKEN=26458695[/url]

Or, if you prefer,

[url]http://tinyurl.com/7v9h2[/url]

I believe Chuck Herbert of the Community College of Philadelphia created this, and he's allegedly been contracted to produce an Alice manual that I believe would be targetted at community college students.

You're also looking for documentation on *concepts* like "orientation", and how the PointOfView vectors can be manipulated; unfortunately, I don't know of good things for topics like that, other than the textbook which does cover many of them, often in "tips and techniques" sections.

Hope this helps!

Basic documentation request
 

Hello,

I starting to work with Alice, but I found that there isn't documentation about the basic characteristics of its language (behaviour of control structures, default methods and functions).

I've found a help file, but it seems to correspond to a previous version.

Does it exist this kind of doc?

Thank you in advance

Juan

For now, the best source of detailed documentation of the sort you're looking for is external to the system.

There's a "course card" available

[url]www.coursedirect.com[/url]

Alice 2.0 CourseCard
ISBN: 1-4188-4675-9
Retail single copy $3.60

There are also two textbooks (obviously more expensive):

1)
"Learning to Program with Alice"
Wanda Dann, Stephen Cooper, and Randy Pausch
Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN: 0-13-187289-3

NOTE: although I am an author on this book, I donate all my royalties back to Carnegie Mellon to help underwrite the software development costs.


2) (not yet available, estimated late March)

An Introduction to Programming Using Alice Charles W. Herbert
ISBN: 1-4188-3625-7

I believe both books are (will be) available through [url]www.amazon.com[/url]


I'm sorry we don't have a detailed, free "language reference" sort of thing; we have limited staffpower and haven't done that yet.

Shell worlds for use with textbook
 

I have started using Alice with the new textbook this past January for a semester intro to CS high school course. The students love it and I have to say it is nice to have seniors actually interested in doing class and homework.

We are now in Chapter 5, way beyond the basics. Today, one of the students made a comment that I thought was a good point. He enjoyed the challenge of getting the exercise programs to work. But he found building each world and getting the objects in the right places before doing the program was tedious and not really helpful for learning the material in Chapter 5.

So here was my suggestion. Is there some way that we could create a file space for "shells" of HW problems for the students? The students could download the shells with the objects in starting positions. I would be happy to contribute the ones we have built.

Paul Burgmayer
Great Valley High School

[QUOTE=PaulB]Is there some way that we could create a file space for "shells" of HW problems for the students? The students could download the shells with the objects in starting positions. I would be happy to contribute the ones we have built.[/QUOTE]

PaulB,

That is a great idea. I can create a page on Alice.org for such templates. If you would be willing to send me what you have, I can put them up. I will also ask around to see if any other instructors have similar materials they could provide.

Paul,
If you go to [url]www.aliceprogramming.net[/url], and click on the solutions to Chapter exercises and projects link, you can access not only the solutions but the "shells" as you call them -- the world with all of the objects in it correctly positioned, but without the code. You will need to contact Prentice Hall for access to this password protected area.
You are welcome to share these shells with your students, but please do so in such a way that they are not available to the general public.

Regards,
Steve

I know this thread has been dead for a while, but did any of you know that this is the first post on the Alice Forums that is still open for posting today?

wow, ive never heard of any of these users

[QUOTE=arty-fishL;31924]wow, ive never heard of any of these users[/QUOTE]

Most of them probably came, used the Alice Forums for a while, and although they are gone and no longer use the Alice Forums, their remains (there accounts) still are here.