Flashes of Panic

Writing assignments for this spring’s class is turning out to be the biggest brain drain. Grading them is tedious but not unmanageable; coming up with good questions is a colossal headache, particularly since one of my complaints about other undergrad courses in the department is the uninteresting and un-engaging quality of most of the exercises. (Really, who wants to write a business expense tracking system? Practically nobody.)

We’re throwing them into ML now (a few weeks ago it was Scheme) and I’m coming up with types and functions. I had the bright idea of basing this assignment around a text-adventure theme. What kinds of objects can be found and picked up in, say, Zork? What different qualities do they have?

The original Zork just has some kind of count limit on how many objects you can carry, be they matchbooks and keys or teapots full of water. Say we define a series of artifact types, e.g. containers, weapons, tools, treasure, and miscellaneous (there’s a use for a placemat, for example, but it’s not obvious.) What’s the distinction between them? They all have names, possible numeric weight and/or numeric value, but what qualities distinguish the groups—say, range of weapons, or uses of tools? Any ideas? How do you build the type structure of Zork? (And then, how do you describe the constraints to the students without simultaneously giving them the solution to the problem?)

Now Playing: Попробуй спеть вместе со мной from Группа Крови by Кино

Technorati Tags: computer science, programming, teaching