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Games Teaching the Basics of Programming
RandomPrecision writes to tell us Wired is reporting that computer programmer Igor Kholodov has created a game designed to make learning the basics of programming fun. From the article 'The board game turns players into skiers who must race down a mountain in the quickest way possible. With each roll of the die, players must follow instructions that are similar to computer program codes. Using basic math, players have to figure out which paths are open to them and then decide the fastest way to the finish line.'"
As my form 2 teacher, Mrs Federline, always told me, if you don't understand something, just do it againjust done it yesterday.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Kholodov lives in Braintree, Massachusetts
On the Developers Page, this story and its twin from yesterday are only separated by one interloper.
are over-rated. Seriously. As soon as someone finds out a game is educational, it kinda loses its touch. Dunno, that's just me.
Nobody's gay for Mole-Man.
There's some serious glitching in the Matrix on slashdot these days.
Yesterdays story on this exact same subject.
C17H21NO4
1. It's a dupe
2. New programmers may find Robocode more interesting. It allows players to actually program instead of just "learning about it".
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Mommy...make the bad dupes stop....*sobbing in corner*
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Sometimes... I go to a place. I leave that place. I come back to that place. Nothing has changed and its all the same. Forever the anthem of a place called Slashdot.
-Digital Madman
A bullet sounds the same in every language. So stick a fucking sock in it...
are over-rated. Seriously. As soon as someone finds out a game is educational, it kinda loses its touch. Dunno, that's just me.
Yeah its just you.
if (story == dupe) // Mod me redundant, whatever, but PLEASE, delete this story from the main page!
{ game_over(); }
No. they are too busy flaming people on slashdot to add auto-dupe detection code.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Their excuse is that they want to draw more attention or comments on a popular or oft-submitted story. Seing as this story only got ~200 comments the first time around, however, I'd say that reposting it was just foolishness. :)
Also, I can kill you with my brain.
Honestly... I rarely complain about the dupes (the slashbots usually do it for me) but this is just ridiculous... this was posted YESTERDAY.
australian project gutenberg is better than the original.
Robot Odyssey
I know I said it last time, but this isn't even a good game, it teaches some c-esque syntax, but doesn't really impart any programming skills (such as problem solving. In fact, the mechanics of the game are no more complicated than 'chutes and ladders', the player never has to make a decision (as far as I could tell by reading the rules anyway).
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
You have to play this thing in meatspace! And who decided to make friends a system requirement?
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini
This one is called "Is It A Dupe Or Not?"
Take a normal pack of playing cards (remove Jokers), and start dealing out cards. Now, look at the face of the card (ie, Ace, 4, 5, King, etc.). If you've already dealt out a card with the same face value, place the card in the "dupe" pile. If you haven't, you can place it in the "post" pile.
At the end of the game, count your post pile. If you do not have 13 cards in your "post" pile, you lose.
This game is designed to teach you if you've already seen something and therefore don't need to post it again.
DUP EMIT
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
I hope that they will have an article soon on how educational games can teach me things. like how to program.
"In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?"
I just checked in to see how many dupes of dupes comments have been duped and what the ratio of dupe comments to comment comments is.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
...Igor Kholodov has created a game designed to make learning the basics of programming fun.
Maybe it's just me, but I've always thought the "let's make learning fun!" approach to education is absurd and ultimately ineffective.
If a person finds the subject matter uninteresting, what is the point in dressing it up as something else? If you have to fool someone into being interested by dressing it up as something else, then they aren't really interested in it, period. Let them learn about something else.
Besides, you don't make learning fun by dressing it up as something else, because the learning itself *is* the fun part. Instead of trying to dress up programming by constructing some absurd artificial problem to solve or game to play, show people how the learned knowledge can be applied in useful ways to real problems to yield impressive results.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
... I don't subscribe to Slashdot. I'm happy putting my money into something where I think it's being used, but I get the impression that the editors don't care about the site anymore.
Go on, mod me as troll or redundant, but the continuous dupes are getting way beyond the amusement factor they used to have.
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
Programming is not like other proffessions. Programming is not where you can see a select statement and know what it is. Or being able to follow the logic of a program. Programming is much more than that. Programming at it's core is about thinking, conceptually building. People who are good active thinkers make good programmers. Sure, people who learn syntax and what a class is can work as programmers, but if they are not at their core thinkers, then all you have is a regurgetory lump sitting in a chair. I have worked with these kind of people, I mean it pains me to work with these kind of people. I am insulted when they are called a programmer just like me.
To me, having a game that teaches the 'basics' of programming insinuates that programming is easy. That anyone can do it. That is the last impressions I want to see. I went to school with too many people who just shouldn't have been programmers. I also work with many people who shouldn't be programmers. So I think that professional programmers should be offended by such a game insinuating that our profession is easy. We should have the same respect as engineers, doctors and other professionals for what we do.
Yes it is indeed a dupe. So is your post, however.
You've managed to build up a huge userbase*, develop a fairly sophisticated posting/moderation system - and then waste the whole fucking lot with retard editors who don't edit, quite plainly don't even read their own site, with less-than-24hrs-apart dupes on a weekly basis, broken links, things that snopes has debunked long ago, etc, etc.
And that's just the "obviously bad" editorial fuckups. Don't even get me started on how the 'quirky science' and 'cool tech' articles have been drowned in a sea of predictable, "didn't we already discuss this to death last week, and the week before that, and the week before that, for the last year or so" stories which are basically nothing more than trolls for page views (ie: ad impressions). You know the sort: linux gets virus, Microsoft sue somebody, RIAA sue everybody, Apple/Google scratch their arse.... SAME OLD SHIT!
FIRE THESE FUCKING INCOMPETENT EDITORS LIKE ZONK AND SCUTTLEBUTT AND HIRE SOME WHO ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT THIS SITE IN THE SLIGHTEST.
Jesus wept.
* so far all the "shut up and go elsewhere" comments, that's not really possible: other sites like technocrat.net have better stories, but approx 2 comments per story, and I started coming here (and continued coming here, for 5-6 years now) to read the comments.
It's obviously some type of new geek sport, Dupe Hunting for fun and profit.
I'm convinced people are intentionally submitted Dupes, and large sums of money change hands whenever the editors DON'T put the dupe on the front page.
I just lost $25k USD on this one. I would have thought a lame story that didn't get comments yesterday would have almost no chance of being posted again.
Old Apple game designed to teach logic gates and the underlying principles of electronics. I loved that "game". I'd love to find an emulator and a copy of it.
-- -R
they wuld post a story about some way to teach the basics of programming...perhaps a board game?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's... a glitch in the Matrix.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I didn't think it would make it through the sieve, but it did. Again - sorry, everyone.
*awaits flames*
Here comes the new story, same as the old story.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Ok, here's an idea. Bare with me on this one...
We all (well, mostly all) know Cmdr. Wil Riker was duplicated by a freak, one-chance-in-a-billion transporter accident that spawned Thomas Riker, but geez this shit's getting outa hand. Now, if the OLD Enterprise crew could merge the Good Jim Kirk back with the Evil Jim Kirk through the transporter, then maybe -- just maybe -- Cmdr. Taco could fiddle with the packet-transporters to merge ScuttleMonkey and Zonk back into a cohesive whole?
More to the point, when (ok, if) this does happen, hopefully their good/evil duplicate articles will merge back into single entities as well.
Of course, this would mean all the posts between the respective dupes would slam together into a single entity of posts, creating a massive disturbance between their respective mirror universes and...
Aw fuck, what was I sayin'...?
players have to figure out which paths are open to them and then decide the fastest way to the finish line.
this is the perfect foundation for programming!
simply choose the fastest method to achieve a small subset of your short term goals, market it, and let havoc ensue for the poor sap who has to maintain the steaming pile!
What the fuck?!
Someone duped an article by Zonk? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?
Deja Vu.
Too bad there's not a game to teach the basics of story editing.
...when we have the slashdot editors to teach us about recursion?
Telltale Games: Bone, Sam and Max
It's not OSS? screw that L1nu> pwnz m$ft!!!1!1!1eleven!1!!!!one
In this game you just do whatever your opponent did in their last turn.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
It sounds like a dreadfully boring game. Skiing? I learned programming by, you know, programming; and I had a perfectly entertaining time.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
Why reinvent the wheel? Sure the article is a dupe, but that's fine - its reuse and sharing. This is something we're keen to do isn't it?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...how to edit a website?
Best Buy can have you arrested
that he said would screw up programmers for life.
KFG
Although, RoboRalley is quite excellent, if one wants to "learn programming" through a game experience, why not try one of those virtual battle grounds like Red Code?
/. the article about MIT Video Game programming?
Or, I suppose, more recently on
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
This could have good implications on future engineers. Where I read that the US is falling behind, this could help teach the logic engineers, especially electrical and computer engineers, need to use regularly.
Take the highest-rated comments from yesterday, and repost them to see if you can "steal" someone else's karma!
Best Buy can have you arrested
I'm trying to remember a game where it teaches some programming concepts. The setting is basically you land in a planet, program a droid to look for supplies, assemble new components, and make more droids. It has a nice in-game C style interface that lets you program the bots' behaviour and set up some complex action macros. It was probably released in '99 or '00.
Hey guess what, it's pretty easy to check back one day for dupes. Search google if you're lazy
Hey guess what, it's pretty easy to check back one day for dupes. Search google if you're lazy
" And we shall call him THE EDITORATOR!"
I think I saw that movie. Wasn't it about the guy that editted things, using editing techinques? I don't remember what they called the guy, but I think it was something like, "the one who fixes broken writing things using corrective measures, and maintains quality content"-person.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
If we all stop reply to these stupid Duplicate posts perhaps the advertisers will take notice and make the editors accountable.
/. post gets 100-400 replys.
A typical
If we can narrow that down to 10 (which will all be first post idiots) then perhaps we can help save this once noble board.
We all know that money talks. Let them hear our plea.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
While Slashdot=Slashdot
{Story}={LastStory}
Post({Story})
End
#Comments are great ways to destroy the damn lameness filter. How lame.
Funny this should suddenly become a topic now. It's hardly new. I've seen many great program-teaching games, and I even wrote "Simul-80", a programming game for the Z-80, back in 1980. It had both a real-person version (lots of running around with program counter wheels and scraps of paper with data) and I even created a program to emulate the simulation. Great fun. Anyone wanting to download it can find it at ftp://maltedmedia.com/simul-80/
Dennis
not just a board game that costs 25.00 bucks to order. And to be really cool, it would be an online game that was open source, so people could modify it...maybe easly change languages so that it could be played in other contries that don't have the money to pay 25.00 dollars for a board game. Heck, with the price of gas, I would have a hard time coming up with 25.00 to blow on a board game right now
And of course, the board game could still be sold by this guy and plenty of people would still buy it. It doesn't have to be one or the other, there is room enough for everyone here.
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
When I was in Middle School in the early '80s, I recall playing a game called "Rocky's Boots" on an Apple 2, I believe. You went through a tutorial learning about logic, and in the end had to build a machine using logic gates that would kick the right items off of a conveyor belt. The game was pretty fun, as I recall. It got me interested in progamming.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Somebody should post this story to Slashdot. I think the readers there will find it very interesting.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Thanks - my post ended up second (not quite first), but the first post was "This is a dupe", so technically, it was redundant.
A -1 won't hurt my karma.
I doubt that you really meant "interloper" which means a meddler or intruder.
You probably meant "intervener" or "intervening article."
-- Anonymous Pedant (making the world a better place, one annoying comment at a time)
I think the most important thing to learning programming is choosing the best first language for a programming student.
Writing in a particular language promotes particular habits and this is never more true than with the 1st language a programmer spends a lot of time in.
I have seen modern code from 20 year plus programmers that still show the marks of the first language they used.
KPL == Kid's Programming Language, which makes a game out of programming games, and then playing them. It's what it sounds like, it's free, and it's fun. It's been 20 since anyone in software thought about beginners. Bout damn time, wouldn't you say?http://www.kidsprogramminglanguage.com/
A few years ago I was banging away at my keyboard writing some program. My daughter came up to me and mentioned that she "wanted to do what I was doing", I asked if she wanted to use the computer and she said "no, I want to program". Well, I set about looking for something for a 5 year old to program with and found, http://www.toontalk.com/
I have to say it was the best $30 I have spent. Here it is 2 years later and she is using languages like Pearl and Python.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!