alice-teacher Alice Textbook Flaw (Using Lists for "The Wave")

[A. Jeff Goldstein]

We're using the Dann, Cooper, Pausch "Learning to Program with Alice" 3rd Edition, Prentice Hall, 2012 textbook in our Computer Programming class.

Chapter 9, page 280, Exercise 9-1 has an interesting real-world problem:  In Alice practice processing a List (in order) where each of four persons executes "the wave" (a popular cheer in football or basketball games).

The problem suggests using four people:  coach, student1, skaterGirl, and randomGuy2.  However two of these objects articulate their arms differently than the others.  It is very difficult for students to re-position the arms of coach and student1.  I tried myself for more than an hour, finally giving up.

I suggest to resolve this "glitch" use the following four people (two are from the original group);

randomGuy1, skaterGirl, randomGuy2, and dJ

These people articulate their arms correctly looking much more like "the wave".

Now, "it's a good thing"!

Most sincerely,

Jeff Goldstein
Frank W. Cox High School
AP Computer Science, Computer Programming, & Financial Management
My website:  http://www.jeffgold.net