Lab 4 Comments

[aaaschmitt]

No description provided.

[lmock]

On the max block page -- am I supposed to click on the script image to open up a snap file? I'm just not sure if that's intentional or not. If it is intentional, then you should make it more clear that they should do that.

Oh wait nvm I see what you did in the next section!

[aaaschmitt]

yes i'll add something so they know to do that.

On Sat, Feb 1, 2014 at 8:33 PM, Lauren Mock [email protected]:

On the max block page -- am I supposed to be able to click on the script
image to open up a snap file? I'm just not sure if that's intentional or
not.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/beautyjoy/bjc-r/issues/201#issuecomment-33891836
.

[lmock]

Input Types: "Yet, you can type text in!"-- can you reword this? The sentence object seems to be missing.

[aaaschmitt]

Sure that's from the old lab. On the max block page exercise 1 actually
directs them to click on the picture do you think this is clear enough or
should I put that line somewhere earlier?

On Sat, Feb 1, 2014 at 8:35 PM, Lauren Mock [email protected]:

Input Types: "Yet, you can type text in!"-- can you reword this? The
sentence object seems to be missing.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/beautyjoy/bjc-r/issues/201#issuecomment-33891860
.

[lmock]

Oh one other thing -- I haven't gone through the whole lab yet, but did you apply the special span to format every instance of the word Snap!?

[aaaschmitt]

No I'll do some find and replace at some points.

On Sat, Feb 1, 2014 at 8:39 PM, Lauren Mock [email protected]:

Oh one other thing -- I haven't gone through the whole lab yet, but did
you apply the special span to format every instance of the word Snap!?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/beautyjoy/bjc-r/issues/201#issuecomment-33891927
.

[githanwang1]

On the global variables page, it seems like there's a stray question mark in the last sentence: "When you make a global variable, you also get a "Delete a variable" button that can be used for the obvious purpose.?"

[lmock]

FYI I was told using the word "let's" is disliked by some people... :P

[ghost]

I think we could enlarge the icon that redirects the students to snap or replace it with some caricature, which could become the official thing for redirecting.

[ghost]

I Think the "COMPOSITION OF FUNCTIONS" heading is a bit out of place, since we are focusing more multiple inputs at this point in the lab.

[lmock]

Also make sure your images are not BYOB images -- if you've copied pages from the old lab, some images will probably be BYOB images, not Snap ones.

[lmock]

I personally really dislike how blocks are super tiny (i.e. on the sum-thing's up page). I used a zoom factor of 2.03 in Lab 1 to make blocks super big :)

[xtitter]

I think the "custom blocks make code easier to understand" should:

• move to after abstraction. Thats because brick-wall has lots of examples of the benefits of custom blocks that you can use
• change to "The benefits of custom blocks" or something like that.
• have a page listing the various benefits of custom blocks:
  • makes code easier to understand (give an example -- maybe from brick wall? dunno. Talk about sharing code here,maybe)
  • makes it easier to modify things later (example from brick wall is the "draw mortar" block, which isn't shortening the program but lets you change the mortar in one place)
  • um, there are others. Brian gave us a list at one point, right?

[xtitter]

Lauren: your blocks were crazy too big! maybe just a little bigger... but I like that they fit in the normal line height.

[xtitter]

Were you able to get anywhere with a more complicated game of tag to motivate global variables? It would be nice..., and to re-inforce that global vars should be used for inter-sprite communication only.

I don't like the line about "even if no script is running" ... I guess global variables are a way to store state between runs of a program, but that is kinda weird. hmmm. You still need defaults inside a 'setup()' procedure, and you wouldn't share a program with the world that relied on this kind of state.... hm.

[ibirnam]

• on the Valid-Date? page, it doesn't seem obvious that they need to click the image to get the code. This should be made clearer.

Other than that, I think it looks fine, though I do worry that this lab might be a bit too long, as I feel most students won't make it past the brick wall section. Though the rest of the lab after that isn't that difficult, the concept of global variables is left until the end. I'm not sure if it would be better to introduce global variables upfront, but what do others think?

[xtitter]

Nonononono global vars until absolutely necessary!

Nate fat-thumb Titterton
On Feb 2, 2014 1:04 PM, "Ian Birnam" [email protected] wrote:

• on the Valid-Date? page, it doesn't seem obvious that they need to
  click the image to get the code. This should be made clearer.

Other than that, I think it looks fine, though I do worry that this lab
might be a bit too long, as I feel most students won't make it past the
brick wall section. Though the rest of the lab after that isn't that
difficult, the concept of global variables is left until the end. I'm not
sure if it would be better to introduce global variables upfront, but what
do others think?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/beautyjoy/bjc-r/issues/201#issuecomment-33912548
.

[ccoale]

Should there be some kind of introduction to this topic? It feels strange that it jumps right into exercises without any kind of introduction or motivating goals like some of the other topics have. (Also, I agree with Nate about the image sizes. It makes it so much easier to read when the images are inlined with the text at line-height.)

[cycomachead]

How are we doing on the fixes here?

@aaaschmitt @peterasujan

[aaaschmitt]

I think this is my next project after the lists 2 GUI and stuff. However, I
think some of these changes were already made before the lab went out this
semester. Motivation/ Introduction is definitely a major component that is
missing here though.

Andy

On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 10:08 PM, Michael Ball [email protected]:

How are we doing on the fixes here?

@aaaschmitt https://github.com/aaaschmitt @peterasujanhttps://github.com/peterasujan

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/beautyjoy/bjc-r/issues/201#issuecomment-38650417
.

[cycomachead]

@aaaschmitt If you want to work on this in the next day, I'd agree motivation would be a good thing to write up.