Scripting school

[Flyingroc Chung]

This is in response to Diderot's question in another thread, I think this deserves a new one tho...

Hey, Diderot, as you may know, I have been involved in teaching intro to programming courses iRL. So I'm actually really interested in working out something for LSL, but as usual I have time constraints.

I think there are a lot of ways to make in-world LSL classes effective; but it takes time to develop these kinds of classes. For example, the class that I'm involved in now uses lectures and software developed in at least 3 different universities. with at least 4 professors, and half a dozen graduate students over more than a year.

Now we (that is, the CDS) aren't (yet) giving out computer science diplomas, so we can lower the quality of service a little, I suppose. To develop a course here, we need to ask a few questions:

* what level of scripting do we want to teach? The answer ranges from teaching people with basically 0 knowledge of scripting, to people who already have CS degrees, and just want to understand how to apply their knowledge to SL.

* what kind of scripting do we want to teach? Scripting vehicles, for example, is way different from scripting a gambling machine, which is again much different from scripting dance machines. Ideally we should teach certain skills, but also *principles* of scripting such that people can teach themselves everything else after finishing the course.

* how do we want to teach it? These range from traditional classroom type lectures to selfpaced tutorials (which could be via in-world objects, ala ivory tower, or web-based)

* how do we evaluate a person's progress? Do we give any kind of certification at all? Should we have exams? Quick and frequent feedback on a person's progress is good both for the instructor and the student, but how do we do this?

Then, we have some unique SL-related problems too:
* student commitment. Normal courses will build on stuff taught in earlier lessons. Say a full course takes 100 hours, how many students are able to commit that time?
* instructor commitment. Instructors will have to commit the same amount of time (likely more) as the students. While students can drop out without affecting the rest of the class, if an instructor drops out (because of RL conflicts, or whatever), the whole class gets screwed.
* synchronous meetings. getting 5 people to meet regularly at appointed hours is difficult, as we all know.
* etc. (speaking or RL commitments -- I have a lunch meeting)

So, RL classroom techniques are likely not gonna work without RL commitment between instructors and students. We have to consider that almost everyone who does SL, do it on their spare time.

I don't know what the answers are, but I'm interested in other people's ideas. One that has been floating about is a system of aprenticeship, similar to how the old guild was envisioned. But if so, we have to evaluate why the old guild failed, and how we can make it work.

I'd appreciate other people's thoughts on this.

EDIT:
Claude reminded me of the nstadt school, whose premises we could use for lectures, or self-paced learning kiosks, etc.

We also want to give some sort of value added to the [url=http://www.lslwiki.com:xelb9alc]LSL wiki[/url:xelb9alc], which, aside frome being the lsl reference, imho is already a good way to go about learning scripting for the self-motivated person.

[Diderot Mirabeau]

FR, thanks for taking my thought and developing it further in a dedicated thread. I enjoyed reading your post as I think it raises a lot of really relevan questions all of which I think I have some ideas for/opinions on.

I hope you'll excuse me if most of my replies are written in an imagined context of the New Guild being realised, which I realise is a decison still subject to political debate and voting.

[quote="Flyingroc Chung":1hbbk1mm]but as usual I have time constraints.[/quote:1hbbk1mm]
I think that's a general problem for all skilled craftsmen in SL. But I think I have an idea on how to make the teaching effective.

[quote="Flyingroc Chung":1hbbk1mm]* what level of scripting do we want to teach? The answer ranges from teaching people with basically 0 knowledge of scripting, to people who already have CS degrees, and just want to understand how to apply their knowledge to SL.[/quote:1hbbk1mm]
As I see it the LSL wiki goes a long way toward fulfilling the needs of the latter group. On the other hand the former group might not want to start out with LSL as their first exercise in programming? This group would perhaps be better off employing bricolage, i.e. taking existing scripts that roughly serve their purpose and tweaking them to work in the new usage context. However, I think both groups would be well served by an extended open source "scriptorium" .. i.e. a kind of script repository containing open source or Creative Commons licensed versions of scripts for various domains of use - ranging perhaps from circling a linked set of prims to 'interfacing' with the web or an advanced vehicle script.

[quote="Flyingroc Chung":1hbbk1mm]* what kind of scripting do we want to teach? Scripting vehicles, for example, is way different from scripting a gambling machine, which is again much different from scripting dance machines. Ideally we should teach certain skills, but also *principles* of scripting such that people can teach themselves everything else after finishing the course.[/quote:1hbbk1mm]
Personally, I'd like to see us draw on existing strengths while at the same time targeting areas where there is likely to be a direct need within the CDS - I propose therefore that we consider specialising in interfacing with the web, creating administrative systems (i.e. land management, voting, company registration, notarisation) and possibly scripting to support building (holodecks comes to mind, elevators, building functionality) and landscaping (adaptive soundscape, waterfall animations, animals).

[quote="Flyingroc Chung":1hbbk1mm]* how do we want to teach it? These range from traditional classroom type lectures to selfpaced tutorials (which could be via in-world objects, ala ivory tower, or web-based)[/quote:1hbbk1mm]
As you've already hinted at generic classes in the presentation format or simple exercise workshop are very time-consuming and perhaps not a very effective usage of the time at the disposal of our master scripters. Also as I understand it there are other outlets in SL that provide education following this format - although possibly not for scripting. If we were to do it I'd probably propose developing or acquiring a generic scripting tutorial presentation and scheduling it in regular intervals. The actual presentation could then be carried out by scripters of some experience, who were practising alongside a master. Something akin to the teaching assistants of university education I imagine.

Now supplementing this (in addition to the Scriptorium) - and here is where I imagine we might add some real value - would be the design projects where those scripters, who know their basics and can use the lslwiki independently actually work on solving _real_ projects on the basis of a simple requirements specification or even a design such as the one outlined by Desmond Shang for holodecks. So the projects would be commissioned by for example the RA in relation to a sim expansion project or for another administrative system to support new legislation, or by builders, who need some specific scripting functionality for their product. This model would work roughly the same way as the Sim Planning Committee was organised in the sense that the scripters work largely on their own on the basis of the requirements specification / design blueprint and possibly a few starting hints from the scripting master, supplemented with lookups on the lslwiki. Then periodically or on an as-needed basis they would submit the progress of their work to the master under which they work for review, feedback and eventual approval.

I think such an organising paradig might tie nicely with how I envision work and teaching to be organised under a New Guild - so quite likely a Scriptorium / Scripting School could become an integrated chapter of the New Guild if you like.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

As I used to teach scripting classes as an Instructor, I can maybe help.

As Diderot suggested, showing people existing scripts and how to tweak them will be more effective in a generalized 'how to get something to basically work' manner. I used Hank Ramos' "University of SL" materials for this purpose. It's difficult (under the time constraints I, for one, am under) to try and teach anything like the fundamentals you'd teach in a proper CS class, and most of those with that kind of interest are CS students already. Therefore, I concentrated on teaching the syntax of LSL itself, with just enough structure worked in so the clueful can at least script effectively, if not well. After all, much of what most of the SL populace will want scripts for will be fairly simple things such as color-changing, a 'gun' script, spinning objects.

[Flyingroc Chung]

Very interesting ideas, Diderot. I think we could do something with this. LSLwiki already has a [url=http://www.lslwiki.com/lslwiki/wakka.ph ... y:2iqrwc32]script library[/url:2iqrwc32] we could probably build on that. Have you guys seen the ivory tower? I'd like to build something like that for scripting. But we have to consider that encouraging people to experiment with scripting entails a risk of lagging or even crashing the sim.

Developing self-paced courseware and materials is probably a good idea. It can even be done incrementally. We could try doing the first lesson and build from there. Now to find someone to actually do it.

[Diderot Mirabeau]

Should we choose to adopt a master/apprentice approach we'll probably need to devote some time to thinking about the 'rights' aspect of the material developed. Personally I'd prefer a requirement that all scripts developed under this initiative be made GPL open source in the interest of retaining full control over any scripts that we might use to support our administrative infrastructure and similarly be able to provide them easily to other communities with a desire for better democratic governance tools.

[Sleazy_Writer]

Googling for LSL I found ....

Leisure Suit Larry!

[img:246jjz58]http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/ ... /Larry.gif[/img:246jjz58]

And, some great titles for scripting classes/chapters:

LSL 1 – In the Land of the Lounge Lizards (1987)
LSL 2 – Goes Looking for Love (In Several Wrong Places) (1988)
LSL 3 – Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals (1989)
LSL 5 – Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work (1991)
LSL 6 – Shape Up or Slip Out! (1993)
LSL 7 – Yacht nach Liebe! (1996)

[Carolyn Saarinen]

It's been pointed out that there are existing educational organisations in SL. Perhaps we can maximise avian casualties with a minimal expenditure of calciferous projectiles* by setting up a joint venture with one of them?

TUi offers a wide variety of courses, at various levels. These include a seven part introduction to scripting, which I've just completed. It's pretty good. Intermediate and advanced courses are to come. They also offer one to one tutorials. Perhaps, as something between the two, we could arrange for them to run special group sessions for CDS residents, if enough people are interested?. Classes cost L50 each for Intro and will cost L100 each for intermediate. You can get a discount by paying in advance.

Regarding the Ivory Tower of Scripting: FR expresses concern about lag on the CDS sims. Why not site the Ivory Tower on TUi's shiny new campus? They must be set up to cope with the lag better than our sims. I'm sure they'd be very grateful for such a resource, and all their students get to see a great example of how fabulous the CDS is; that's a lot of people.

*Sorry about that. I sometimes say 'Robert's your avuncular kinsman' too!