Programming Using Alice

Question

I am currently studying and my next subject is 'Programming Using Alice'. Has anyone had any experience using this? And how would you rate it as a learning tool?

Answer 1

Alice is good tool for students who have had no experience with programming. Simple to the point of being childish, but it gets its point across. Many instructors are raving about how much better the students are understanding programming after using Alice in their 101.

For full disclosure, I have seen Alice used but have never used it myself. My comments come from instructors that I have talked to.

Answer 2

Yea, I used it in my AP Java 2 class back in high school. It was fun, though primitive (at that point, I was more interested in advancing my programming capabilites and didn't like ANYTHING that limited what I could do). It is a good learning tool for children and those who are just getting started in programming (i.e. have never programed in any language before). It teaches the basic concepts in a very visual way with immediate results. Its one very good feature is the 3d environment you get to explore. This makes it applicable even if you are developing your programming skills into something more. You can play around with it and make a fairly decent game; I would expect that a chess game is very possible!

In all, I think it is worth while learning if nothing else to say that you've done it. As it has been a while since I last used it, my response may be a bit dated and I apologize if there is something that I said that is no longer true.

Enjoy!

Answer 3

I took a course on Alice, and it really helps you visualize the concept of programming and most important of, the manipulation of classes. But I really don't recommended for universities courses like the one I took because there are a lot more helpful and efficient object oriented software that can help you applying what you learn in programming courses in an easy way and gaining experience at the same time for example in game development and others involving graphics and visual objects...