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
• Dont 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