Three weeks in programming class were spent in the 3D world of Canegie-Mellon’s program called Alice.  It was interesting, but honestly, I was working hard to keep up.  Being a hands on artist and having grown up before the era of 3D gaming, etc. much of this is taking some getting used to.

This was the project I made for this course:  basically the cat meows, which startles the cow, who kicks the chicken, who is caught by the scarecrow, scaring a frog into leaping causing the chicken to fly off the screen.  The cat, scared by all the ruckus, runs to the barn, which opens as he arrives.  I did this with my nieces and nephews in mind.

All because of a cat’s meow…

The only thing that saved me in this class is the 100% I got on most of the tests.  I understood the concepts, executing them was a bit more tricky but I pulled off an A for the final grade.

Programming… 25 years ago I took a class in Basic and Pascal and said “never!”  Here I am … living my “never”.  The thing is, I still don’t like it and that is that, pure and simple.  However, it is a “need-to-know thing” for a technical writer / web designer.

We spent 5 weeks in a program called Scratch culminating in a midterm game that we created ourselves.  Mine is a simple child’s matching game. 

Scratch doesn’t work smoothly or respond quickly and the graphics stink, so I am not exactly crazy about the program.  What we are to “learn” on this project is the basic concepts of how programming language works and fits together.