Starting Out with Alice, 3rd edition

Published by Pearson (October 12, 2012) © 2013

  • Tony Gaddis Haywood Community College

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Starting Out with Alice: A Visual Introduction to Programming presents a fun and motivational way for novice programmers to learn the basic tenets of programming. Using Alice, an innovative and increasingly popular teaching tool, readers from a variety of backgrounds create virtual programming worlds of animations and computer games. In the successful style of Tony Gaddis’ texts, useful examples and detail-oriented explanations allow students to become comfortable with fundamental concepts of programming without dealing with frustrating syntax errors and complex design techniques. With the knowledge acquired using Alice, students gain confidence in their skills to transition into Java or other programming languages.
  • Using Alice, program structures are displayed as tangible objects, and students use a drag-and-drop interface to move tiles–people, animals, fantasy creatures, and vehicles–into an editor. Students can “flip a switch” to see the Java programming structures hidden behind the scenes.
  • The Gaddis style, supported by Alice’s simplistic learning methodology, eases students into programming language and helps them recognize and avoid errors as they develop their skills.
  • The full-color design complements the virtual Alice world, helping students to relate the text’s step-by-step explanations to the on-screen environment through screen shots.
  • VideoNotes - An extensive series of online VideoNotes  accompany this text. Created by author Tony Gaddis, VideoNotes provide extra examples and demonstrate how to solve problems. The VideoNotes are available to instructors and students through a password-protected companion website, located at http://www.pearsonhighered.com/gaddis/. An access code to the companion website is included with the purchase of a new copy of the textbook.
  • Concept boxes throughout the chapter focus students’ attention on key topics.
  • Notes explain interesting or often misunderstood points relevant to the topic at hand.
  • Tutorials guide students through several exercises per chapter, ensuring student understanding of the material.
  • Tips advise students on the best techniques for particular actions.
  • Warnings alert students to common missteps or problems they may encounter.
  • Checkpoints at key locations in each chapter check students’ understanding of important lessons.
  • This text can be used in a variety of courses, from a standalone introductory course using Alice, as the initial teaching tool in a CS1 course, or for programming in a fluency course.
  • Separate Chapters on Decision Structures and Repetition StructuresIn previous editions, both decision structures and repetition structures were covered in Chapter 4. This edition has a chapter dedicated to decision structures (Chapter 4) and a chapter dedicated to repetition structures (Chapter 5). New material and tutorials have been added for both chapters, including the following in Chapter 4:
    • A new tutorial on writing a single-alternative decision structure
    • A new tutorial on creating nested If/Else instructions
  • And, the following in Chapter 5:
    • A new tutorial on writing user-controlled loops
    • A new tutorial on using a While loop to make an object smaller
    • A new section on nested loops
  • Expanded Coverage of Class-Level Functions
    A new tutorial on writing class-level functions has been added to Chapter 6.
  • New VideoNotesVideoNotes are step-by-step video tutorials specifically designed to enhance the programming concepts presented in this textbook. Students can view the entire problem-solving process outside of the classroom—when they need help the most. VideoNotes are available with the purchase of a new copy of this book. Access can also be purchased separately online. Eight new VideoNotes have been created, many of which accompany tutorials. The book now has a total of 39 VideoNotes, available on the companion Web site at http://www.pearsonhighered.com/gaddis
  • New Programming Problems
    Additional programming problems have been added to Chapters 1, 4, and 5.
  • Java Language CompanionA Java Language Companion booklet has been created to accompany this book, and is available for download from the book's companion Web site, at http://www.pearsonhighered.com/gaddis. The Java Language Companion demonstrates how the Alice programming topics that are taught in the textbook compare with their corresponding Java programming topics. The Java Language Companion is designed to correspond with this textbook on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Students who are studying both Alice and Java can work through both this textbook and the Java Language Companion simultaneously.
  • Improved Readability for Screenshots
    Many of the screenshots containing Alice code have been enlarged for improved readability.
  • Alice 2.3When purchased new, this book comes with the latest version of Alice, which at the time of this writing is Alice 2.3.
Brief Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 Introduction to Alice and Objects

Chapter 2 Programming in Alice

Chapter 3 Variables, Functions, Math, and Strings

Chapter 4 Decision Structures

Chapter 5 Repetition Structures

Chapter 6 Methods, Functions, and More about Variables

Chapter 7 Events

Chapter 8 Lists and Arrays

Chapter 9 Recursion

Appendix A Installing Alice

Appendix B Answers to Checkpoints

Index


Table of Contents

Preface

 

Chapter 1 Introduction to Alice and Objects

1.1 What Is a Computer Program?

1.2 Algorithms and Programming Languages

1.3 Learning to Program with Alice

TUTORIAL 1-1: Opening and playing an Alice world

1.4 Objects

1.5 Classes and the Alice Galleries

TUTORIAL 1-2: Creating a world and adding objects

1.6 3D Objects and the Camera

TUTORIAL 1-3: Moving the camera in 3D space

TUTORIAL 1-4: Manipulating objects in 3D space

TUTORIAL 1-5: Manipulating subpart objects

Review Questions

 

Chapter 2 Programming in Alice

2.1 Writing Methods

TUTORIAL 2-1: Adding instructions to an Alice world

TUTORIAL 2-2: Exploring additional primitive methods

2.2 Naming Conventions

2.3 Designing a Program

TUTORIAL 2-3: Using the program design cycle

2.4 Comments

TUTORIAL 2-4: Inserting comments

2.5 Tips for Setting Up an Initial Scene

2.6 Executing Instructions Simultaneously

TUTORIAL 2-5: Creating simultaneously executed instructions

2.7 Exporting Your Code for Printing

2.8 Exporting an Alice World to Video

Review Questions

 

Chapter 3 Variables, Functions, Math, and Strings

3.1 Variables

TUTORIAL 3-1: Creating and using a variable

TUTORIAL 3-2: Creating a set instruction for a variable

3.2 Using Functions

TUTORIAL 3-3: Calling an ask user function

TUTORIAL 3-4: Using a proximity function

3.3 Creating Math Expressions

TUTORIAL 3-5: Using math to avoid collisions

3.4 Working with Strings and Text

TUTORIAL 3-6: Converting a Number variable to a string

Review Questions

 

Chapter 4 Decision Structures

4.1 Boolean Values

4.2 The If/Else Decision Struc

Tony Gaddis is the principal author of the Starting Out with series of textbooks. He has nearly two decades of experience teaching computer science courses, primarily at Haywood Community College. Tony is a highly acclaimed instructor who was previously selected as the North Carolina Community College Teacher of the Year, and has received the Teaching Excellence award from the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development. Tony, Haywood Community College 1981 Business Administration and 1985 Electronic Data Processing graduate, was selected as Outstanding Alumni Recipient for 2012 for the college. His Starting Out with series includes introductory textbooks covering Programming Logic and Design, Alice, C++, Java, Microsoft Visual Basic, and Python.

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