[Tutor] suggestion for group project

[Brian van den Broek]

Hi all,

A while ago, in a response:

Danny Yoo said unto the world upon 2004-11-29 17:14:
> 
> I just got in contact with Nick Parlante of the Nifty Assignments
> project; he's been collecting material on fun projects:
> 
> http://nifty.stanford.edu/
> 
> The projects there look pretty nice.  In fact, I'm thinking of
> adapting material on that page for us here on Python-Tutor.
> 
> Is there a particular project that sounds interesting to folks? 
> Personally, I'm interested in:
> 
> http://nifty.stanford.edu/catandmouse/html/
> 
> But that's only because I helped tutor it back when I was at
> Berkeley's Self-Paced Center...  *grin* But if people want, I'd be
> happy to convert Professor Clancy's support code from C++ to Python.


I've got a suggestion: would there be any interest among list members in 
picking one of the assignments, working on it, and then doing a code 
comparison/critique?

When Danny posted, I did <http://nifty.stanford.edu/2003/randomwriter/>. 
I thought about posting what I had done to the list and inviting such 
comment/criticism, but was dissuaded by two things: 1) once I'd got my 
code to a reasonable polish, with docstrings and all, it seemed a bit 
long to just plunk onto the list, and, 2) I suspect much of the 
interest, fun, and learning might well emerge from having a go at the 
task and then seeing what others came up with. If I posted mine 
unannounced, others wouldn't have the chance to go at the problem fresh.

What do others think?

I wonder if the length of code, the possible undesirability of a bunch 
of answers to a collection of homework problems getting posted, and 
other considerations might make this better as an off-list endeavour. 
I'd be interested in doing it either here or on private channels. (If 
there was interest and we opt for private, I could probably get my uni 
to let me set up an unarchived listserv for the purpose.)

Best to all,

Brian vdB