On 6/27/05, Guido van Rossum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I have second thoughts about Alice too (and not just because Pausch
apparently rewrote it in Java :-).
See for yourself about Pausch's IMO cocky, self-serving attitude:
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/v6i20_pausch.html
Carnegie Mellon University\ Entertainment Technology Center \
Design Director Randy Pausch:
"(
. The essence of a being a researcher is
knowing the answer to a question that nobody else has even asked yet
. It's really a kind of illusion,
and I love the creation of illusion, which is why as a kid
I was fascinated by theme parks,
particularly the stuff that Imagineering has built,
because they they're so much better at creating an illusion than almost anybody else
...
I don't focus as much on entertainment as you might think
. So, for example, ...
. The longest-running research project I have is called Alice, ...
that is able to provide a better, first exposure to computer programming ...
. But this is much more advanced than Logo was,
to the point where it can be used for a full semester course at the college level.
...
We've demonstrated that with at-risk students
we can both improve retention and grade point average
. And so, when people say,
well, how do you feel having a career doing all this frivolity,
I hasten to point out that
the number of computer science majors in America last year
declined by 23 percent
. { educators call Alice frivolous if students can't
type Java by the end of the 14 weeks }
But what I find fascinating
is that,
{ if a business's profits were down 23 percent,
that be all they could think about,
wouldn't it ? }
[ Alice is not so trivial ]
)-Paush
. it is obvious from that interview,
that Paush is not telling us
what he is really feeling critical toward;
his concern about low enrollments in CS
just doesnt make sense:
. a field like computer science is not something
one goes into for it's value as a liberal arts education:
you get a technical skill for a particular vocation;
thus,
CS enrollment is naturally going to be
a function of the market's perceived need for
programmers and system analysts
. indeed,
it is a tribute to the RAD technologies such as Pausch's own Alice system
-- serving the same cp4e spirit as van Rossum's Python language --
that
programming is seen as
something that all employees are expected to do;
because, machines are getting intelligent enough
to be treated like fellow employees !
. I imagine that part of Pausch's frustration
has to do with the hurt feelings that were generated
when he moved Alice's scripting language from Python to Java;
ironically,
this is just the niche that Alice needs
to prove it's [/]unique value:
while Python is the Basic language of the new age,
and is so easy to write
that Alice's enforced menu interface would only slow a student down
Java, on the other hand,
is that most-favored assembly language of the new age,
having such a quarrelsome syntax,
that Alice's menu interface can provide most of us with a
much-needed relief from semicolon-itis !
. when I read that Pausch had trouble with Python's case-sensitivity;
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alice.org/advancedtutorial/ConwayDissertation.PDF
I wondered why he did not see this as a hint to
complete his system:
. the obvious goal of a menu system is to
help you find the syntax
by building the command string as you compose by pointing
. after that,
Alice should be inserting command strings into a normal text window
thereby allowing us
to
use both keyboard-typing and menu-pointing
at either the command line
or the current project window
. it could further assist us
by throwing in the usual RAD perks:
structuring our code with an outliner mode,
and running a syntax checker in the background
Pausch:
"(
. we had to wrap a textbook around it,
because one of the things I learned painfully is that you can have
the best software in the world,
but if there isn't the educational infrastructure called the textbook,
no one will start using the software
. Once the textbook was in beta we were in 25 schools.
)-Pausch
. if Pausch wants respect for a system without a textbook,
he should should put more effort into a robotic tutor
that actually shows you how it would use the system
to solve an example problem
. a robotic system could have a cartoon's message bubble
giving the robot's rationale for each activity,
along with an overview window of the robot's plans
. most importantly,
the robot's tutorial should give me the same power as
that provided by a book:
the tutor's pace is controlled by a page-turning button;
and I can stop a tutorial at any time,
(use bookmarks to come back to it),
and ask the robot with a table of contents
[/][whatever questions I have, at the time I have them]
. now, [/]that would be creating the illusion of zero gravity!
on the hand,
being dragged around by programmed intructing,
is far worse than frivolous
-- it.s a penmanship lesson in Sanskrit !
. it is my hope that the Alice system as I envision it,
can teach all normal preschoolers to program in Python .
--
American Dream Documents
"(real opportunity starts with real documentation)
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