alice-teacher Project Help

[Erin Whitaker]

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for looking into this in detail. I appreciate the response and
will take a look at the suggestions you have provided and review this with
my student.

Thanks,

Erin

On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 1:28 PM Daniel Abeshouse <dabeshou at andrew.cmu.edu>
wrote:

> Erin,
>
> Alice has an expectation that scene activation listeners will do some set
> up and then return. Whether this is a good expectation can be discussed,
> but it is good to keep in mind.
> The listeners are notified sequentially, so when this program is run, the
> first listener with a long running while loop blocks the others from being
> called.
> In light of this, combining the activation listeners is a good idea, in
> part because it gives the user control over the order things run.
>
> The tight while loops in the listeners present a further problem for the
> current Alice VM. There are insufficient checks in the VM and the threads
> it spins up, so these loops hang around, even after a user might think the
> program has finished.
> I am testing a fix for this. Thanks you for a program that makes that
> testing easy.
>
> Given the constraints (read bugs) of the current VM, the author of this
> world should be encouraged to use a more event driven approach.
> Instead of looping and checking a scareActivated, call a method
> activateScare() where the variable is set to true and stopScaring() for
> false.
> Similarly the repeated updating of enemyDistance could be removed and it
> could be updated when either one moves, or computed only when it is to be
> used.
> These are good practices generally, but especially so until the VM bugs
> are fixed.
>
> Thanks for highlighting these issues.
>
> - Daniel Abeshouse
>
> On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 6:56 PM Donald Slater <dslater at andrew.cmu.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> Erin,
>> Some quick suggestions after a first look:
>>
>> Have the student try to combine the different Scene Activated listeners
>> into one Scene Activated listener. Using Scene procedures may help him
>> organize his thoughts.
>>
>> I am just not quite sure how the different Scene Activated handlers all
>> running affect the underlying system.
>>
>> Also, the one Scene Activated method in which he is counting down (Scare
>> Activated?) he can accomplish the same behavior in a while loop.
>>
>> I am looking forward to other thoughts the community might have.
>>
>> I hope that you are well.
>>
>> All the best,
>> Don Slater
>>
>> Alice Project
>>
>> On Nov 13, 2018, at 12:44 PM, Erin Whitaker <ewhitaker at sewickley.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I have a student project attached that it not running correctly. When you
>> first open it, it seems to run fine, but after having it open for 5 minutes
>> and running it a few times, it begins to run slower and slower to the point
>> where the student can no longer run it or do any work in the coding and you
>> have to close it out. If anyone has a few moments to see what might be
>> causing the problem or has any suggestions, please let me know. I have
>> opened it on several machines, mac and pc, to see if it was a computer
>> issue, but it does the same thing on all devices.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Erin
>>
>> --
>>
>> Erin Whitaker  |  Middle School Technology Coordinator
>> Sewickley Academy |  315 Academy Ave. Sewickley, PA 15143
>> [phone] 412.741.2230 ext. 3389 <412.741.2230%20ext.%203388> [fax]
>> 412.749.5678
>> web <http://www.sewickley.org/> | blog <http://1838.co/1fnkI6W> |
>> facebook <http://1838.co/1fnkAUZ> | twitter <http://1838.co/1fnkrRt> |
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>>
>> <http://www.sewickley.org/>
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>
>
> --
>
> Daniel Abeshouse
>
> Alice Project
> Carnegie Mellon University
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-- 

Erin Whitaker  |  Middle School Technology Coordinator
Sewickley Academy |  315 Academy Ave. Sewickley, PA 15143
[phone] 412.741.2230 ext. 3389 <412.741.2230%20ext.%203388> [fax]
412.749.5678
web <http://www.sewickley.org/> | blog <http://1838.co/1fnkI6W> | facebook
<http://1838.co/1fnkAUZ> | twitter <http://1838.co/1fnkrRt> | pinterest
<http://1838.co/1fnkFb9>

<http://www.sewickley.org/>
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