Levi Pearson wrote: > I don't think that trivial programs vs. complex programs is as big a > factor as hooking the interest of the students. An interested student > will work hard and learn well because they care about the subject; a > disinterested student will do just enough to get by, no matter what the > assignments are.
Despite the vendor lock-in, I think Apple's iPhone SDK program proves this point. Most apps are pretty useless, but I'm sure they were actually quite fun to develop for the programmer. With small but worthwhile goals (applets!), you can more easily see the end from the beginning and actually accomplish an entire project from start to finish, which is exceptionally satisfying. Most open-source projects, on the other hand, are so grandiose that it's hard for students or would-be developers to get involved and feel like staying involved. Things like the Linux kernel, while it might still be a bazaar, are now located in one of the tall towers of a new cathedral (at least we all helped build this cathedral unlike the one down the street), to references Eric Raymond's famous idea. Of course you can still get to the room where the bazaar is located if you're willing to build your own elevator, scale the outer walls with your bare hands, or perfect teleporting. Things like pygame do have the potential to be very rewarding if goals are chosen wisely and small steps taken. IE even an asteroids clone would likely discourage a lot of people at first. Maybe pong would be a better start. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
