Alice Source Code?

Originally Posted by DrJim

And for those who want to "participate" in the development process, I will note that - to date - the contributions to the bug reporting page have largely been just those of the Alice team.

A fair point. Is it possible to see the list of bugs for Alice 3? I'm failing to find the relevant page. Submission is possible from within the program, but it would be nice to confirm that it worked by external means. Do you have to sign up for the Kenai project in order to see it?

Thank you.

[gabe]

Originally Posted by hgs

Is it possible to see the list of bugs for Alice 3? I'm failing to find the relevant page. Submission is possible from within the program, but it would be nice to confirm that it worked by external means. Do you have to sign up for the Kenai project in order to see it?

Bugs can be viewed at http://bugs.alice.org:8080/. Note that currently there are 2 bug databases -- one public and one private. The public one contains all bugs that are submitted through the web interface or through Alice 3's help menu > report bug option. The private one contains bugs that are submitted through the actual trigger of a bug within Alice. This is to encourage people to submit bugs without them worrying about their data being posted online for all to see.

Thank you. Can you edit the "Sticky" on the Alice 3 forum to that effect? Thank you for the privacy feature as well.

After writing this, I found the login button with its message that it is not yet implemented, so this next paragraph can be safely ignored. Left in for completeness (some will have read this post already):

If I wish to see what happened to bugs that I submitted which are private, is there a way to do that? Given that I don't get to supply a password at submission time I doubt it, but if there's time to implement something like that it may be good to have.


Thanks again.

There are a few other nice features on the site that Gabe didn't mention.

First you can use a variety of filters to selectively search for things that are of specific interest to you. Very handy, since - as with all such sites, at least (IMO) the good ones - there are a lot of highly specialized postings that probably won't interest the average user. (They probably will be of major interest to a few, however. )

Second, you can add a comment to any bug report (at least the public ones). This can be very useful if there is a workaround for a specific problem (such as the default mouse move) and the problem itself hasn't been fixed. I really hope the community starts to use this feature more - I'm sure there are lots of opportunities here.

Finally, in addition to reporting bugs, you can also request specific enhancements for Alice 3 - or comment on other people's requests. I find just what the Alice team is proposing in these to be very interesting - and again would personally like to see wider participation here.

One of the difficulties with any site like this is the sheer volume of postings - it has to be computerized efficiently. It looks to me like the Sun/Alice 3 team has done a really nice job in that respect.

A final note re participation. The Kenai site has the start of a Wiki page but the only content is some (very useful, but hardware specific) postings from Dennis Cosgrove. Seems like this is an opportunity for someone to expand on.

Originally Posted by satovey

Programming requires three specific skill sets above the reading, writing and arithmetic basics: Knowledge ...Imagination: ... Determination ... you give him or her a chance.

Three comments.

First, I strongly agree with the comment that a degree may or may not idicate the quality of programming an individual is capable of. One of the best programmers that ever worked for me had only a high school education - and one of the worst had a Ph.D.

Second, I believe there are two additional things that good programmers nearly always have - good judgement (an imaginative and determined programmer with poor judgement is usually a disaster) and experience with the problems being addressed. Regarding the second, I'll note that you don't drive a car well the first time you get behind the wheel and rarely hit a home run the first time you pick up a bat.

Finally, it might be nice to "give everyone a chance" - but in the real world this is seldom possible, or even desirable. (Do you really want me to do open heart surgery on you?) Thus, since when you hire someone, you usually have a job for him to do in mind - and need to "start somewhere" in choosing between candidates. Degrees, grades, personal impressions, experience, etc. are all good places to start.

Note - minor correction: On thinking back - make that "two of the best programmers that worked for me had only high school degrees ..."

[gabe]

Originally Posted by DrJim

There are a few other nice features on the site that Gabe didn't mention.

Sometime soon I will make a post about how important the bug database is to improving Alice, but for now I welcome everyone to explore our bug database and make reports on bugs, as well as new things you'd like to see in Alice. We are using Jira as as our bug tracking software, so if there's something it offers that we have not enabled or implemented, point me towards some documentation and I'll try and set it up.

I love the forums, but it's easy for things to get lost due to the lack of organization. With our swanky bug database, nothing should get lost.

Originally Posted by DrJim

Three comments.

First, I strongly agree with the comment that a degree may or may not idicate the quality of programming an individual is capable of. One of the best programmers that ever worked for me had only a high school education - and one of the worst had a Ph.D.

I am aware of an individual who declared his expertise in network administration. He did not have college education. His answer to the "what's wrong? and why is it doing that?" questions were: "It could be anything."

Conversely, the Phd they had before and subsequently rehired would always respond:
"I don't know, lets find out."

So what's the real difference? Those who excel in their field strive to do good job. They take pride and ownership in what they do.

I don't envy those who have to interview potential employees. It is very difficult to know who is underselling their skills, those who are exaggerating them, and those who are telling it like it is.

Perhaps the one thing programming has that other fields do not have that can benefit those who lack "experience", is participation in an open source project.

I quoted experience because to some, if you
have not been paid to do it, you do not have
experience no matter how long you've been
doing it. That attitude is just as dishonest as
the person who claims they can program and
do not know what a variable is.

Originally Posted by DrJim

Second, I believe there are two additional things that good programmers nearly always have - good judgement (an imaginative and determined programmer with poor judgement is usually a disaster) and experience with the problems being addressed. Regarding the second, I'll note that you don't drive a car well the first time you get behind the wheel and rarely hit a home run the first time you pick up a bat.

I agree.

Originally Posted by DrJim

Finally, it might be nice to "give everyone a chance" - but in the real world this is seldom possible, or even desirable.

Programming has open source communities
where people can hone their skills.

Originally Posted by DrJim

(Do you really want me to do open heart surgery on you?)

I have heard that same argument when
it comes to being a preacher and it doesn't
apply to the preacher nor does it apply here.

In the matter of the preacher, those same
individuals who make that arguement will
act contrary to what the Bible they claim
to be highly skilled in teaching, teaches.
(I speak from experience on this matter).

We all know that it takes years of education
and years of on the job training for an
individual to become a medical doctor let
alone a surgeon.

It does not take that many years for an
individual to become a preacher or a
programmer.

Take two individuals.

The first goes to college, learns programming
yet does not spend a whole lot of time writing programs.

The second doesn't go to college, yet spends
eight hours a day learning how to code and
write programs.

The one who will be highly skilled is obvious.
It is the individual who spends the most time
writing the code and honing the skill whether
he goes to college or not.

While we can gain much knowledge from
reading, the fact is, regardless the skill, if
it is not used, it is not honed.

Originally Posted by DrJim

Thus, since when you hire someone, you usually have a job for him to do in mind - and need to "start somewhere" in choosing between candidates. Degrees, grades, personal impressions, experience, etc. are all good places to start.

I agree that when you hire someone you need
a goal for filling the position with the best
qualified individual possible. And while a
degree can be in some cases beneficial
to that end, a valid skill test would be more
apt to determine the individuals skill level
than those prerequisites.

Getting back on track:
I do vaguely recall, unless I'm mistaken,
that this conversation began regarding students providing unpaid assistance to the development of Alice.

Alice: An open source project project that asks
for unpaid volunteers. A project that declares
itself to exist for educational purposes.

Just imagine the look on an employers face
if a potential employee fresh out of high
school dropped a resume on his desk with
three years of open source experience and
a verifiable list of code that said individual
wrote. That would be priceless.

It's thoughts like these that make me wish I
was a multimillionaire.

OK, back to reality.

Originally Posted by satovey

Getting back on track:

I agree - this track should probably be moved to another section, probably "The Lounge." But I have to say you brought up some very interesting issues, which for a real education need to be addressed.

As far as the employer's reaction - been there / done that, complete with URLs which checked out well. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no need for another web designer at that point - so still no go.

How is it possible to run the source code? What I'm interested in is dumping some output from Alice runs to a file or to standard output (which I'll redirect to a file) for further investigation. Is it possible to do so?
- S

[gabe]

Alice 2.2 source code is now online.