Learning to Program with Alice (w/ CD ROM)

Wanda Dann is the Director of the Alice Project and Associate Teaching Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research has encompassed program visualization and object-oriented and event-driven programming. She has published papers on the use of program visualization in computer science education for SIGCSE, the Computer Science Education Journal, and related publications. She has been co-PI for three NSF-funded projects. She is an active member of the ITiCSE Visualization Working Group, studying the effectiveness of visualization in computer science education. She has taken on a major leadership role in the international computer science education community, serving as SIGCSE 2004 Program co-Chair and SIGCSE 2005 Symposium co-Chair. Stephen Cooper is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and the Director for the Center for Visualization at Saint Joseph's University.¿He taught previously at Rivier College, serving as Computer Science program director. He has also worked at IBM as a systems programmer. Dr. Cooper's research interests lie in the semantics of programming languages as well as in program visualization. He is the author or co-author of a dozen articles, and has been the principal investigator for several National Science Foundation and private grants. ¿ Randy Pausch was a Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction and Design at Carnegie Mellon, and co-founder of the Entertainment Technology Center. He also served as the Director of Carnegie Mellon's Alice research group, where he oversaw the development of Alice. He was a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator and a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellow. In 1995, he spent a Sabbatical with the Walt Disney Imagineering Virtual Reality Studio and consulted with Imagineering on interactive theme park attractions, particularly for the "DisneyQuest" virtual-reality based theme park. Dr. Pausch authored or co-authored five books and over 60 reviewed journal and conference proceedings articles, and his primary interests were human-computer interaction, entertainment technology and undergraduate education.

Foreword xi

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xxi

About the Authors xxiii

Part I: Introduction to Alice 1

1 Getting Started with Alice 3

1-1 Introduction to Alice 3

1-2 Alice Concepts 8

Tips & Techniques 1: Special Effects: Text and 2D Graphic Images 15

Summary 18

Exercises 19

2 Program Design and Implementation 22

2-1 Scenarios and Storyboards 22

2-2 A First Program 29

Tips & Techniques 2: Orientation and Movement Instructions 43

Summary 57

Exercises 59

3 Programming: Putting Together the Pieces 62

3-1 Built-in Functions and Expressions 63

3-2 Simple Control Structures 68

Tips & Techniques 3: Camera and Animation Controls 76

Summary 81

Exercises 83

Part II: Object-Oriented and Event-Driven Programming

Concepts 87

4 Classes, Objects, Methods and Parameters 89

4-1 World-Level Methods 91

4-2 Parameters 100

4-3 Object-Level Methods and Inheritance 110

Tips & Techniques 4: Visible and Invisible Objects 121

Summary 127

Exercises and Projects 129

5 Interaction: Events and Event Handling 140

5-1 Interactive Programming 140

5-2 Parameters and Event Handling Methods 147

Tips & Techniques 5: Creating Your Own People Models 156

Summary 158

Exercises and Projects 159

Part III: Using Functions and Control Statements 171

6 Functions and If/Else 173

6-1 Functions 173

6-2 Execution Control with If/Else and Boolean Functions 180

Tips & Techniques 6: Random Numbers and Random Motion 196

Summary 199

Exercises and Projects 201

7 Repetition: Definite and Conditional Loops 213

7-1 Loops 213

7-2 While—a Conditional Loop 219

Tips & Techniques 7: Events and Repetition 225

Summary 228

Exercises and Projects 229

8 Repetition: Recursion 239

8-1 Introduction to Recursion 239

8-2 Another Flavor of Recursion 244

Tips & Techniques 8: Engineering Look and Feel 254

Summary 257

Exercises and Projects 258

Part IV: Advanced Topics 265

9 Lists and List Processing 267

9-1 Lists 267

9-2 List Search 273

Tips & Techniques 9: Groups 277

Summary 279

Exercises and Projects 280

10 Variables and Revisiting Inheritance 289

10-1 Variables 289

10-2 An Array Visualization Using an Index Variable 300

Tips & Techniques 10: Debugging with Watch and Text Output 308

Summary 312

Exercises and Projects 313

11 What’s Next? 322

11-1 Transition to Java 322

11-2 Alice 3 327

Tips & Techniques 11: Poses 328

Appendix A: Using Alice 331

Part 1: Running Virtual Worlds in Alice 331

Part 2: Using Popup Menus to Create an Initial Scene 345

Appendix B: Managing the Alice Interface 350

Index 363