Scramble
We started with some brief discussions of Wikipedia:Extreme Programming practices.
Use Subversion to checkout the code:
svn checkout http://automatist.net/svn/scramble
http://automatist.net/svn/scramble
"Final" Version produced in-class: File:Scramble.zip
First "Story Scenario"
(program starts) [GENERAL GAME STRUCTURE] WELCOME TO HEADLINE SCRAMBLER! Retrieving today's headlines... [RETRIEVING HEADLINES] | [RETRIEVING MOVIE DATA] (ORIGNAL HEADLINE WAS: India Demands Pakistan Hand Over Fugitives) [PARSE HEADLINE / SCRAMBLE] HERE'S your first scrambled headline: PAKISTAN OVER DEMANDS HAND INDIA FUGITIVES try to guess to original: > INDIA HANDS OVER FUGITIVES [FEEDBACK] YOUR SCORE FROM 1 to 10: 5 (MASTERMIND FEEDBACK: HOW MANY WORDS ARE IN GOOD POSITION ) (?Ways to quantify a "wrong" answer, as a way of scoring) > ... YOU GOT IT! HERE'S your second scrambled headline: REPORT SCORE
Modules
- Game
- Feedback
- Movies
- Headlines
- Scramble
Post-class notes
Proposed structure (in retrospect)
Start with group design session, creating "story notes" with various features (all OK, but emphasis is on keeping different features distinct, converging on a common set of terms to describe the project). Arrange the notes in "essential" features and those "to be evaluated" as possible future additions. Start Implementation in teams; each team can select (from the essential features) and complete a "as simple as possible" implementation.
Remaining question is the role / working of meta activities of writing an "outer loop" / controlling code and designing/coordintating interfaces between the groups. (It is very important for a "meta" group to communicated with the various other coding teams to agree upon these terms / inform of changes as they happen).
Ideally, there would be time to meet again as a group, evaluate a rough "version 1", and to iterate on the creation / modification of the story cards. In today's session for instance, it became clear that (1) the scramble module needs to prevent the original text to be returned as a "scramble" (oops), and (2) feedback in the event of a wrong answer was missed, (3) One-word movie titles make for poor scramble source (maybe need to filter our source out), (4) ideas about introducing time / other elements to make the game more challenging.