[Infowarrior] - 'Last Lecture' prof's program to be updated

[Richard Forno]

'Last Lecture' prof's program to be updated
The Associated Press
Friday, July 31, 2009 1:16 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/31/AR2009073102068_pf.html
PITTSBURGH -- Carnegie Mellon University will release an updated  
version of the animation-based software developed by late "last  
lecture" professor Randy Pausch to teach computer programming.

Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor and pioneer of  
virtual reality research, was involved with the Alice software project.

He died at age 47 of pancreatic cancer last July, 10 months after  
giving his "last lecture" about facing death that became an Internet  
sensation and spawned his best-selling book, "The Last Lecture."

Alice 3 - expected to debut next week, according to university  
officials - is designed to teach programming using a "drag and drop"  
interface to create 3D animations. The latest version, available free  
athttp://www.alice.org, also lets advanced users create programs in  
the Java programming language.

Users can select hundreds of character objects and scenes from the  
popular video game "The Sims" to make and control virtual worlds.

Hundreds of colleges and numerous middle- and high schools use Alice  
software to teach programming, according to Carnegie Mellon.

Alice "dispels the impression that computer programming is all about  
arcane notations and requires years of training before it becomes  
possible to create interesting results," Randal Bryant, dean of the  
School of Computer Science, said in a statement.

Pausch saw an early version of Alice 3 shortly before his death.

"To the extent that you can live on in something, I will live on in  
Alice," he said during his final lecture.

© 2009 The Associated Press