Learning To Program with Alice

by Wanda P. Dann, Randy Pausch, Stephen Cooper

Learning to Program with Alice, 2e, is appropriate for all one-semester pre-CS1 and computer literacy courses, and for integration into the first weeks of many introductory CS1 courses. Alice was designed to make programming concepts easier to teach and learn. In the Second Edition of Learning to Program with Alice , Alice’s creators offer a complete full-color introduction to the interactive Alice 2.2 programming environment. The authors make extensive use of program visualization to establish an easy, intuitive relationship between program constructs and the 3D graphics animation action in Alice. Students discover how Alice blends traditional problem-solving techniques with Hollywood-style storyboarding. Fundamental object-oriented programming concepts and language syntax are taught independently. Programming concepts can be taught from either an objects-first or an objects-early approach, with an optional early introduction to events. The book’s Java-like syntax allows students to view their program code, simplifying their transitions to Java, C++, C#, or other object-oriented languages. This new edition even allows students to upload their animated programs onto YouTube and share their work on the Web.

Genres: Computer Science, Technology, Reference, Textbooks

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Izlinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished the book today! I didn't read the exercises or questions and skimmed the appendix, but I'm done with the reading!

Yay!

However, I have another project to do so I'll be re-reading sections and there's an exam next week. Still, done!

I did like how this book was laid out. The examples in the text were useful, even if I didn't do all of them. The language was very layman, which made me happy. The important words/terms were a bit hard to understand. I do better when a textbook uses the word in a sentence normally and then writes down the exact definition on the side. (Love it when psych and science textbooks do that!) It would help with the reading quizzes in my class. I also liked they didn't make their programs perfect the first time and wrote them like how most beginner's would (or at least I would) and showed bugs in them and pointed out what was wrong.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a good book to learn the basic concepts with, plus the software is free. If you really like Alice, you can even make games with this. I liked all the Alice in Wonderland references and visuals. Without the visuals, I probably would've been confused all the time. :)

[Two Flower · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool, but still like Squeak a little more. Shame Alice went to Java from Python.