Alice

1. Alice An introduction to programming Created by Dr. Randy Pausch

2. Alice Programming Language • Created by Dr. Randy Pausch (known for “The Last Lecture) • Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh • Free for downloading from www.alice.org • Installed on most lab machines around campus – Instructional Software / Alice

3. IDE • Interactive (or integrated) development environment • Object tree • Editor • Event window • Window of the world • Details about the current object

4. Process for starting a world • Click green button – “Add Objects” • Choose some objects to add to world • Can have more than one instance of a class (an object), they will be numbered fish1, fish2, fish3… • Don’t spend ALL your time doing this! • Click DONE when finished adding • You can come back later and add more

5. To ‘write’ a program • Click on an object, either in object tree or in picture of world • Choose a method from the list available and drag to the editor window – it will turn green when you can drop it • Put it in the sequence you want executed • Answer questions about arguments for the method, if any • Alice makes it hard to make a syntax error!

6. To translate and execute a program • Click the Play button in the upper left hand corner of the IDE • Remember to close the play window or click the stop button before going back to the editor window

7. Control Structures • Look just below the Editor window – there is a bar there • You can drag those things into your program also • Loop and While are “repetition” structures • If/Else is the “selection” structure • “Sequence” is shown by the order the methods are used in the Editor window

8. Functions vs Methods • This is the terminology used by Alice • Not quite same as OOP • Functions ask questions and give back answers “how far?” “how big?” “is near?” “is not near?” • Methods are actions “move” “turn” “talk”

9. Saving Alice worlds • File menu “Save World” option • You can browse to where you want the world saved • Extension will be “a2w” “Alice version 2 world” • Automatically makes a folder called “backups of “worldname • The more objects the bigger the world!

10. Loading in a world you made • You CANNOT double-click on the file where the world is to run it • You must run Alice.exe first • Then from the File menu, use “Open World”