[Edu-sig] Articles of possible interest

[David Scherer]

> I did realize before it went to press that girls of that age no longer
> play with Barbies, but I didn't know what to substitute, and neither
> did my fiancee.  I figured that 95% of the audience would be men like
> me who wouldn't notice the cultural discontinuity, so I decided to
> leave it in...

This debate echoes another one that has centered around the game industry's
recent rush to release computer games targeted at girls.  Mattel's "Barbie
Fashion Designer," which by all accounts was even worse than it sounds, sold
more copies than Quake.

The problem is not that Barbie won't sell, but that it may do more harm than
good.  Here's a well-written rant on the subject:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/game_design/19980213/girl_games.htm

(I didn't write the games in question, please don't get mad at ME :)

> Coming around to your plea for more text processing: good point.  I
> still believe that many kids would find text processing boring (you
> must have a more than average interest in it given your interest in
> linguistics), and to really show off the power of today's computers,
> graphics are in order.  Searching a million words in under a second
> isn't quite as impressive as displaying realistic full-screen 3-D
> animation at 30 frames per second, I think, and the latter appeals
> more to people who can't program at all, Internet search engines not
> withstanding.

If anyone should be an advocate of
30-dual-texture-mapped-environment-mapped-real-time-3D-full-screen-frames-pe
r-second, I should be.  I'm presently developing a Python graphics library
aimed at making 3D visualization accessible to novice programmers, so
obviously I believe there's an important place for that.

But, Guido, please don't discount what she's saying.  Verbal skills *are*
just as important as math skills, and for men just as much as for women.
Text is also a more malleable medium than graphics, so a novice can do more
with it.

Let me make a specific, if rough around the edges, suggestion: a
Python-based MUD/MOO.  A text-based, online environment scriptable in
Python.  This would offer, for example:

 - Adventure.
 - Building.  Extending the world with a combination of Python and English
prose will be easy and fun.  It would be possible - and probably great fun -
to create entire games this way.
 - Communication: a MUD can be a richer communication environment than a
chat program, because it provides richer features for action.
 - Competition, for those who want it.
 - Exploration: If a large database is provided, exploring and mapping the
world will be an interesting task.  It's also a task well-suited to computer
assistance, so it provides more motivation for programming.
 - Writing: The only way to build or communicate in a text-based environment
is to write.  Trying to communicate something you really want communicated
is a much better way to learn to write than writing assigned papers on
topics you could care less about.
 - Theatre: MUDs are role-playing environments, after all.

I don't have a lot of experience with MUDs, and I don't feel like I can make
the case for this as well as it should be made.  However, I don't think this
would require boys and girls to go off in separate corners.  All of the
activities above enhance each other, and all of them provide ample
opportunity for learning and programming.  There is something for everyone
in there.

A Python-based MOO already exists, but after glancing at it I'm not sure
it's a good basis for what I'm talking about.  It tries to be like
LambdaMOO, which means that a newcomer has to pick up the LambdaMOO commands
*and* Python at the same time.  I think that would be hopelessly confusing.
Something new should be created, probably as an IDLE extension so that it
can use IDLE to edit Python code.  I don't think I have time to develop this
myself, but I might be convinced to build a starting point if other people
volunteer to, e.g. build a core database.

What advantage does a text-based game have over a graphical one?  It's
vastly easier to extend.  Maybe you create a simple room like this:

class Glittering_cave (room):
    """You are in a cave carved almost entirely out of fractured quartz.
Dim light from a crack to the south reflects off of thousands of crystal
planes as you move.  A passage winds northwest among the crystals."""
    northwest = exit(ice_cave)
    south     = exit(tunnel5)
    amethyst  = object("amethyst", obvious=1)

glittering_cave = Glittering_cave()

In a 3D game, creating this room would require, at a minimum, modeling and
texturing this scene, without using more triangles than the engine can
handle at a reasonable frame rate.  This is a formidable task for an expert,
and is generally done with custom level editors or commercial software that
sells for $3000+ a seat.  In that kind of environment, blurring the line
between the creator and consumer is a lot more difficult.  Alice has *not*
addressed this problem - they do not provide a modeler useful for this sort
of thing.

Just my $0.02,

Dave