Rating:
(28 reviews)
Author: Stephen Cooper
ISBN : 0132122472
New from $52.00
Format: PDF, EPUB
Download Free Learning to Program with Alice (w/ CD ROM) (3rd Edition) [Paperback] for everyone book mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link
Learning to Program with Alice, 3e is appropriate for all one-semester pre-CS1 and computer literacy courses, and for integration into the first weeks of many introductory CS1 courses.
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Alice was designed to make programming concepts easier to teach and learn. In the Third Edition of Learning to Program with Alice, Alice’s creators offer a complete full-color introduction to the interactive Alice 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 includes over 60% revised exercises and a "sneak peek" at Alice 3.0.
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Collection of Alice 3D “example worlds” on CD-ROM – Students can load an example world and enter their own code to make it work.
Direct download links available for Free Learning to Program with Alice (w/ CD ROM) (3rd Edition) [Paperback]
- Paperback: 371 pages
- Publisher: Prentice Hall; 3 edition (March 7, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0132122472
- ISBN-13: 978-0132122474
- Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 7.8 x 10 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Free Learning to Program with Alice
In a way, this is a tricky book for me to review. I learnt programming with Fortran on punch cards [remember them?]. Then later gravitated to other languages like Pascal, C and Java. But it was only in the 90s that languages started coming out with graphics built in. Prior to that, it was mostly text and binary Input/Output. That was our User Interface, shocking as it might seen to some of you. So there were always abstractions in learning a language, from the very start.
The authors of this book are spot on in saying that there has been little or no change in the teaching of programming to beginners, in the last 30 years. The languages being taught may have changed. Some are now object oriented, and have graphics libraries. But the basic pedagogy has remained constant all this time. So for example the classic "Pascal: User Manual and Report" from 1980 and a current book on Java have this in common.
The innovation offered by Alice is a stark contrast indeed. Alice lets you learn [or teach] a special programming language that manipulates objects in a three dimensional world. The emphasis is on the object-oriented nature of Alice. While other languages use the metaphor of OO mapping to and from real world objects, Alice gives a literal visual mapping that students can readily comprehend. Alice removes the middleman metaphor.
Interestingly, the authors suggest that Alice shifts some of the mental effort from the student's cognition to her perceptual [visual] system. Her visual incoming bandwidth is so large that visual changes can be readily understood.
The authors cite studies that show a faster uptake by students using Alice, compared to students without Alice. And more girls seem to go further with their programming.