Hello [long]

[Marcello Missiroli <marcello.missiroli@tiscalinet.it>]

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
* 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
* It will force them to use "standards took", such as gcc, GTK+, CVS and more
* It will have a "real" impact 
* 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)
* 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
* 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.

Later, 
Marcello.





-- 

Marcello Missiroli
(1) marcello.missiroli@tiscalinet.it [general]
(2) piffy@treemme.org [game-related stuff]
(3) m.missiroli@itisvinci.com [school-related]