Homework help requested (not what you think!)

[Joseph Clark]

Not to open Pandora's box or anything, but are you aware of the Roguelike community (subculture?) (cult?) of game development?  Rogue was an old "text-based" role playing game for Unix, "text-based" in the sense that it used the console as a 2D map and ASCII characters as graphics.  There has been a sort of revival of the genre and a lot of amateur game developers have done some simple or complex variations on the theme.  They're not all RPGs.  The category is defined by a few commonalities like procedural content generation.

There are very active forums and an extensive wiki.  I think these might be particularly appropriate fodder for a tutoring experience because they are neatly broken down into bite-sized chunks.  One day you could do procedural map generation, another day AI, etc.  And all these lessons generalize to the "professional" game development world.

Look at this forum: http://forums.roguetemple.com/index.php?board=7.0
This wiki: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Main_Page 
This Python tutorial: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Complete_Roguelike_Tutorial,_using_python%2Blibtcod

By the way, I tried my hand at Markov chain name generation, too.  My python code is at https://github.com/joeclark77net/jc77rogue/blob/master/program/namegen.py
and what it does is read a corpus of names and generate new names that sound like that corpus.  So you feed it a list of Roman names and it will give you fake names that sound Roman.

// joseph w. clark , phd , visiting research associate
\\ university of nebraska at omaha - college of IS&T
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> Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 15:43:45 -0700
> Subject: Homework help requested (not what you think!)
> From: john_ladasky at sbcglobal.net
> To: python-list at python.org
>
> Hi folks,
>
> No, I'm not asking for YOU to help ME with a Python homework assignment!
>
> Previously, I mentioned that I was starting to teach my son Python.
>
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.python/I7spp6iC3tw/8lxUXfrL-9gJ
>
> He just took a course at his high school called Web Technology and Design. They had the students use tools like Dream Weaver, but they also hand-coded some HTML and JavaScript. He has a little experience. I am building on it.
>
> Well, a few other parents caught wind of what I was doing with my son, and they asked me whether I could tutor their kids, too. I accepted the jobs (for pay, actually).
>
> The kids all claim to be interested. They all want to write the next great 3D video game. Thus, I'm a little surprised that the kids don't actually try to sit down and code without me prompting them. I think that they're disappointed when I show them how much they have to understand just to write a program that plays Tic Tac Toe.
>
> Where programming is concerned, I'm an autodidact. I started programming when I was twelve, with little more guidance than the Applesoft Basic manual and the occasional issue of Byte Magazine. I hacked away. Over the years, I have acquired a working knowledge of BASIC, 6502 assembly language, Pascal, C, and finally Python (my favorite). If I knew how to impart a love of experimentation to my students, I would do that.
>
> One kid looks like he's ready to forge ahead. In the mean time, one parent has recognized his son's lack of independence, and has asked me to assign programming homework. I hope it doesn't kill the kid's enthusiasm, but I'm willing to try it.
>
> So, what I am seeking are suggestions for programming assignments that I can give to brand-new students of Python. Please keep in mind that none of them are even up to the task of a simple algorithm like Bubble Sort -- at least, not yet.
>
> Many thanks!
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