What are the disadvantages of Alice programming language?

[lukesawyer]

if possible could you give me at least 5 disadvantages.
I tried lookin in the internet but i couldn't find clear answer to my question.

luke sawyer

[DensetsuNoKaboom]

Would you like the Alice-lover version or the Alice-hater version?

[TauTrumpsPi]

Hmmmmm, well

1. No collisions

2. No conversion to exe. for standalone use

3. Hard to use own objects, mostly must use built in

4. Very laggy compared to other languages, can't handle big games

5. Somewhat glitchy copy/paste system

[CSS562]

Just my opinion of course, but Alice is not a programming language.
You can become an expert in using Alice, and in the end, not really understanding what actual programming is all about.
Another way of saying this is that you use this tool to learn programming concepts. But, again, at the end of the day, you really would be no closer to be able to use a real programming language like Java or C++.

[David B]

The only thing that I can think of is the fact that Alice does not support .exe exporting.

[shassie]

I am not satisfied with Alice objects especially for beginners. Then, the performance is slow if the project is rendered

[Sparky9292]

Originally Posted by lukesawyer

if possible could you give me at least 5 disadvantages.
I tried lookin in the internet but i couldn't find clear answer to my question.

luke sawyer

I've taught with Alice since 1999. I do appreciate the professors who wrote the initial grants and the grad students who built their PhD programs with it. It's a good free tool.

Here are my biggest problems:

1. No ability to compile and deploy games without requiring Alice. - The web deployment option is basically broke and requires gazillions of wierd non standard java pluggins to even try to get it to work. The movie export generally works (it creates a quicktime movie) but you are out of luck for a standalone app. That's sad considering it's built in Java.
2. No collision detection support. This is generally what turns off teenagers to Alice.
3. No developer support - slow response. I think Alice has been at 2.2 since 2005. Alice 3.0 is basically frozen since the big announcement that Maxis/EA were going to create it.
4. Out of date graphics. Now when I show 9th graders, they laugh at the poor graphics of Alice (and Alice 3.0). I don't even put screenshots of Alice in my promotional materials.
5. Ungodly long boolean expressions for checking simple things. Just try to create a AND or OR expression.

I've been looking at Scratch/Jeroo/JKarel/GameMaker/AppInventer/CodeAcademy/XDX, and honestly, I think those apps can cover the same programming fundamentals in those apps with a lot less frustration that Alice can. I may use Alice for a few weeks for a gee-wiz type activity and then move on to something else.

I also get the feeling that Alice's role is finished. A few grad students finished their PhD's on the topic of using Alice to encourage programming and now Alice is not worth maintaining.

I think the best option would be to open source the entire thing and put it up on GitHub where the community can fork/branch it and create much more than the couple of grad students at CM.

[arty-fishL]

^ agreed

[Mr Kidnapper]

Did any of you guys ever figure out how to compile an Alice 2.2 jar? I can decompile the .java files from the .jar we have with JD-GUI but it doesn't work when compiled back into the jar. Assuming someone can do this, we can make a lot more changes than with Arty's jar loader alone.

[arty-fishL]

Originally Posted by Mr Kidnapper

Did any of you guys ever figure out how to compile an Alice 2.2 jar? I can decompile the .java files from the .jar we have with JD-GUI but it doesn't work when compiled back into the jar. Assuming someone can do this, we can make a lot more changes than with Arty's jar loader alone.

I believe JD-GUI is incorrectly decompiling some of the files and causing dependency and syntax related errors. To get proper code you require an original source and the only one available is outdated.

I have decompiled and recompiled individual .class/.java files and reinserted them into the jar and got it working, but only those that have no dependencies. To insert additional classes/files into the jar (other than those already there), I suggest first deleting the META-INF directory, this is not necessary, but is useful as a common practice for java projects that specify the files that must be there (eg. Minecraft).