Re: Hello [long]

[Dan hursh <hursh@sparc.isl.net>]

On Wed, 23 May 2001, Marcello Missiroli wrote:
> Hi to everybody!
> 
> My name is Marcello Missiroli, I live in Italy, I'm a Linux advocate and user 
> and I teach Computer Science in a High School. 
> My main reason for being here, beside my love of the game, is the fact that I 
> am considering (though still unsure) to use xarchon as a basis for my next 
> year's teaching. 
> 
> Pro reasons:
> * It runs on Linux (and I use Linux extensively in my lab)
> * It's a game, it's graphic, it' arcade. Kid will love it

  But there's no real eye candy.  It's just a remake of an 8bit, turn
based game that was cool better than a decade ago.  You need something
that screams in buzzwords.  :-)

> * It is complex, though no 49 - Megs beast
> * It can reasonably be split in subprojects (graphics, sounds, logic, 
> interface, docs) 
> * It will force them to interact with non-teaching personnel (that's you, of 
> course) and use English as a working language

Is that really doing them a service?  We haven't been very talkative for a
while.

> * It will force them to use "standards took", such as gcc, GTK+, CVS and more

By who's standards do you define standard?

> * It will have a "real" impact 

I would have on me.  All I had in high school was Logo.  (And commadore
basic at home.)

> * It will teach them some real significance and implication of GPL and such
> * We have a lot of time and no real "failing risk". 
> * We have direct ADSL connection, a running server and plenty of disk space



> Contra reasons
> * I (and my colleague) are definitely no hackers, though we have some 
> experience in Linux Programming (ncurses, GTK+, QT at surface level)

Then it will be a learning experience for all.

> * These are 17yr old kids: some of them are really good at coding, but it's 
> real hard to harness them: they tend to avoid things such as "coding styles" 
> and "good programming practices". In addition, at least 25% of them are 
> helpless as programmers

This may teach them the value of coding styles.  Force them to read the
sound code.  I can promise that it will bring some of them to tears.

> * We have no previous "group cooperation" at this level - still no CVS 
> experinece
> * ... you tell me.
> 
> 
> I hope someone respond and tell me if we have any chance of being successful 
> of if we should turn to a different idea, game (or maybe job :-) ) . 
> Be frank ... we won't be offended.

It's modular enough to work.  I don't know if the code bnase is as clean
as you might like.  As far as if it will work, I guess it depends on the
projects you intend to do.

	Add a spell.
	Add an elemental
	Replace creature <X>
	add a type of sound event
	add game save

Maybe you could take the code and chop it up.  Give them a very minimal
version and provide bit of modules for them to improve and integrate.  It
all depends on what you want to do.  It might be lame to just have them
hack on the current version.  Smaller definate goals might be easier to
swallow.

    I'm thinking back to when I learned systems programming.  Instead of
giving us a full multiplatform kernel (like linux) they gave us a stripped
down version of something called Xinu.  We got to improve the scheduler to
prevent starvation, add code to deallocate system resources when processes
exited, implement pipe devises, and so forth.  
    I'm sure your advanced students may be ready to just hack away, but
you less confident students might like to take a few baby steps first, so
that they can understand how to make the wheel, before they learn to make
it better.
    I wish I had a class like this in school.

Dan