Ladd / Simple Computer Games Survey Summary



Ladd / Simple Computer Games Survey Summary

The population chosen for the Ladd survey included all professors who our Sales Reps have comped CS1 books to, including users of Horstmann’s Big Java, Java Concepts, and Big C++, as well as Nino’s Intro to Programming. The invitee list included 3,954 unique e-mail addresses. Invitations asked professors to click on the link provided and answer questions in a 15 minute survey about “a new text that takes a novel approach to teaching CS1.”Approximately 250 invitations bounced back due to incorrect addresses, and an additional 100 invitees responded indicating that they did not teach the course and were not qualified participants.

Of the 321 respondants, 62% said that the approach described in the prospectus was appropriate for their course, and 94.2% asked to be included in future reviews of the text. 36.4% felt that this approach was favorable over competing texts, while 43.4% were neutral.

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|1. Simple Computer Games intends to leverage student interest in gaming to motivate students to learn programming. Is this approach |

|suitable for your class? |

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|  |

|Response Percent |

|Response Total |

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|  |

|Strongly agree |

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|16% |

|51 |

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|  |

|Agree |

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|46.5% |

|148 |

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|  |

|Neutral |

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|22.3% |

|71 |

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|  |

|Disagree |

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|9.7% |

|31 |

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|  |

|Strongly Disagree |

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|5% |

|16 |

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|  |

|Comments |

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|24.8% |

|79 |

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|Total Respondents   |

|318 |

| |

|(skipped this question)   |

|3 |

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| |2. Is this approach more favorable that that of any competing texts? |

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| |  |

| |Response Percent |

| |Response Total |

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| |  |

| |Strongly agree |

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| | |

| |[pic] |

| |7.6% |

| |24 |

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| |[pic] |

| |  |

| |Agree |

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| |[pic] |

| |28.8% |

| |91 |

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| |[pic] |

| |  |

| |Neutral |

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| |[pic] |

| |43.4% |

| |137 |

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| |[pic] |

| |  |

| |Disagree |

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| |[pic] |

| |13.9% |

| |44 |

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| |[pic] |

| |  |

| |Strongly Disagree |

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| |[pic] |

| |6% |

| |19 |

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| |[pic] |

| |  |

| |Comments |

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| |[pic] |

| |20.3% |

| |64 |

| | |

| |Total Respondents   |

| |316 |

| | |

| |(skipped this question)   |

| |5 |

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|3. Ladd takes an “objects-early” approach to teaching programming. Does this approach fit with your course organization? |

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|Response Percent |

|Response Total |

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|Strongly agree |

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|28% |

|88 |

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|[pic] |

|  |

|Agree |

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|39.5% |

|124 |

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|[pic] |

|  |

|Neutral |

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|10.8% |

|34 |

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|[pic] |

|  |

|Disagree |

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|14% |

|44 |

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|  |

|Strongly Disagree |

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|7% |

|22 |

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|[pic] |

|  |

|Comments |

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|15.6% |

|49 |

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|Total Respondents   |

|314 |

| |

|(skipped this question)   |

|7 |

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|4. Based on the prospectus and the table of contents, does the book have appropriate breadth and depth for a CS1 programming |

|course in Java? |

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|  |

|Response Percent |

|Response Total |

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|  |

|Strongly agree |

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|17.2% |

|48 |

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|[pic] |

|  |

|Agree |

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|54.8% |

|153 |

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|[pic] |

|  |

|Neutral |

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|[pic] |

|13.3% |

|37 |

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|[pic] |

|  |

|Disagree |

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|[pic] |

|9.7% |

|27 |

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|[pic] |

|  |

|Strongly Disagree |

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|1.8% |

|5 |

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|[pic] |

|  |

|Comments |

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|23.7% |

|66 |

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|Total Respondents   |

|279 |

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|(skipped this question)   |

|42 |

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|6. The CS1 text I currently use is |

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|Response Percent |

|Response Total |

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|  |

|Horstmann, Java Concepts or Big Java |

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|9.7% |

|26 |

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|  |

|Horstmann, Big C++ |

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|2.2% |

|6 |

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|  |

|Lewis & Loftus, Java Software Solutions |

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|8.2% |

|22 |

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|  |

|Deitel, Java How to Program |

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|9% |

|24 |

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|Deitel, C++ How to Program |

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|8.2% |

|22 |

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|  |

|Savitch, Java: An Introduction to Problem Solving and Programming |

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|4.5% |

|12 |

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|Savitch, Problem Solving with C++ |

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|4.5% |

|12 |

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|  |

|Nino, Introduction to Programming |

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|3% |

|8 |

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|  |

|Other (please specify) |

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|59.9% |

|160 |

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|Total Respondents   |

|267 |

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|(skipped this question)   |

|54 |

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|7. The language I currently use when teaching CS1 is |

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|Response Percent |

|Response Total |

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|C++ |

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|28.9% |

|79 |

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|  |

|  |

|Java |

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|57.9% |

|158 |

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|  |

|  |

|Python |

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|2.6% |

|7 |

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|  |

|Other (please specify) |

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|[pic] |

|10.6% |

|29 |

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|Total Respondents   |

|273 |

| |

|(skipped this question)   |

|48 |

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The written response answers for question 5: What would it take in order for you to seriously consider adopting this book as your text? What possible weaknesses would have to be overcome? are detailed below.

|1. |The content of the chapters, and the quality of the writing. |

|2. |Heavy use of the SCAN framework worries me. As does the "objects-early" approach. However removing those two components |

| |would disable the book's intentions |

|3. |Changing the course to a game focus. |

|4. |I think it is too long. And, it may be too specific towards games to give students the foundation for other Computer |

| |Science classes. |

|5. |There would have to be enough about GUI for them to also build good business applications. |

|6. |Unknown until the percentage of students who want to work on games is determined. |

|7. |In my view CS1 should be taught from the prospective of computer science as a problem solving science. I prefer to look at|

| |a set of (simplified) real-world applications in a wide variety of fields where algorithmic problem solving approaches |

| |have had profound impact. It is in this context that I motivate and teach programming. While computer games capture some |

| |of this, I would not base an entire course on them. |

|8. |I would order a desk copy of this book to seriously consider it. We are developing gaming courses in our dept. to |

| |encourage more students too. It really depends on how well it is written though. I need a text that is easy to understand.|

| |For example, I prefer the Savitch textbooks to the Deitel textbooks for this reason. |

|9. |I find this proposal very interesting. I worry that C5 has too much content (this is half of my intro course in one |

| |chapter). C10 seems to be missing? I would seriously consider adopting this book. I do think ti would be motivating for |

| |the students. I would want to make sure that all of the basic concepts are also covered. |

|10. |Supporting resources, documents, instructor material, additional real-world examples, sample working programs, etc. |

|11. |I would need to look at the book and see if it would be possible to adapt it to my own way of teaching. This approach |

| |works best for new faculty who look for a course right out-of-the-box. |

|12. |I am currently using C++ so this book would not work for me. |

|13. |Need to see the book and read some of the content. |

|14. |Closer examination of the text to assure inclusion of business type examples, as well as business types of logic for some |

| |portion of the text. |

|15. |I'd need to (be contracted to) review it so as to become familiar with it. This is quite unconventional. It could be a |

| |brilliant alternative, or it could be a flat tire. |

|16. |I question the "objects first idea" send me a review copy |

|17. |we currently use C++ in CS1 |

|18. |I would have to look at the content rather than the table of contents. |

|19. |The opportunity for me and colleagues to review the text and resource materials. |

|20. |Let me comment here. I don't have time today to give you a detailed response. I wrote a Pascal text with Richard Johnson, |

| |published by West in 1995. It came out just as Pascal was dyring. I also wrote and West published a Turbo Pascal graphics |

| |manual designed for CS I. Java offers tremendous opportunities for using graphics to teach programming. I'm involved in |

| |other projects now but would take an interest in development of course materials of this kind later. |

|21. |Game focus appears (based on the TOC) to be overwhelming coverage of Java, particular for a first class with students who |

| |may not have any programming background as yet. |

|22. |I would adopt it if I were convinced that games are a better motivation than robotics. I would want to check whether it |

| |covered just the important concepts without trying to cover all details of the Java language. |

|23. |I cannot answer until I can look at the text. |

|24. |I don't like a book centered on gaming |

|25. |We wouldn't consider this book. |

|26. |The author(s) would have to make sure that the complex topics of game programming do not interfere with the educational |

| |goals of learning how to program. If the framework is appropriately hiding the complexity, the book sounds like it would |

| |be worthwhile considering. |

|27. |Free and Open Source Game Platorm. Educational Games rather than action only. |

|28. |More focus on algorithms |

|29. |The department would have to approve Java. I would have to see the text and what is covered. I like the idea, but not nuts|

| |about doing it in Java. |

|30. |I'd have to try it out myself... |

|31. |The order of the Java in the book is similar to the order in which we teach it. I would need to see how well SCAN works. |

|32. |It is really hard to judge based on this outline. I would like to see a little more before I could decide. Also even |

| |though I teach CS1 I also don't decide which book is used. It is usually the department that decides. |

|33. |I would need to check to see if it covered certain details, like the way objects can be referenced but built-in data |

| |values cannot be referenced from across method boundaries. I would want to make sure the discussion of games didn't take |

| |away from the other material too much. |

|34. |I would need to review the text when complete. |

|35. |The idea is ok (beats many of the cookie cutter CS1 books), but I don't have students who can handle what this appears to |

| |require. |

|36. |I would have to see the text |

|37. |Getting buy-in from the department. We are required to use the department selected text. Also, significant change to our |

| |curriculum. Our department is married to VB for our intro course and wants to teach languages, not programming concepts. |

|38. |Many examples. Students seem to need 'patterns' to follow. |

|39. |It appears to address necessary components of the intro course adequately |

|40. |The software ide/compiler/framework/etc must come with the text. It has to easily installed in a production environment |

| |(schools) and home ofr the students. There must be a companion website where the latest update or patch can be downloaded |

| |and installed easily. |

|41. |I need to evaluate the text when it's ready. |

|42. |Adoption of Gaming Program. Reading/ testing the labs and content. The length of the book may preclude using on an 11 week|

| |term. |

|43. |I give students the option of doing their CS 1 projects in either C++ or Java so I need to have two books that are very |

| |similar. |

|44. |The book could possible fit in a second semester course. Most first semester students have very little or no prior |

| |knowledge of what programming is. Teaching students problem solving skills is the first approach in programming classes. |

|45. |College students are ready to program in CS1, and should have covered the basics before attempting to program a game. The |

| |contents suggest that this texts introduces early CS students to programming using games as a paradigm. In theory its a |

| |great idea but from a University perspective, I ask what it is this text is suppose to teach, game programming or |

| |instruction to computer programming? Keepin in mind that if a text with this mixture of content were to pass a thorough |

| |review before getting approval for its use, then it has to be ordered and reviewed, for the process to take place. It's |

| |going to difficult, as I see it, to convince instructors to order a copy of this text to make that review, because the |

| |book's contents seems to drift between the very basics to CS, to CS1, to game programming in JAVA. |

|46. |Provide enough of a foundation so students can program outside the context of a game. |

|47. |It's highly doubtful I would adopt it unless there were some evidence that it would not worsen the gender divide. |

|48. |The department makes the decision to adopt a text for the CS1 course. I think most of us have to be convinced that using |

| |games is a good approach to teaching the first programming language. Might be covergae of some topics will need to be |

| |added or changed. |

|49. |A direct order from the University President to do so. (I am the Computing Sciences Chair.) Then, it would be a question |

| |whether I'd adopt the book or simply find another job elsewhere. The weaknesses to overcome (see above) would include: |

| |abandon "Objects first" approach, almost certainly switch languages away from Java, and probably cut the programming |

| |content to about 2/3 of the material and add a survey of current computing discipline topics. |

|50. |Send me a review copy. I would like to see the basic programming structures (sequence, decision, iteration) introduced |

| |sooner in the text. Sockets programming seems to have little to do with the game playing that is discussed in Chapter 20. |

| |I may change my mind on this if I could review a copy of the text. Is this text ready to ship? I begin my next semester in|

| |mid-January and would need to make a decision to change texts ASAP. |

|51. |I dunno, I'd need to look through the book. E.g., you don't write a text file until chptr. 9. And maybe that's okay. I |

| |dunno. I am still an "objects later" sorta guy, at least for the CS/SE students |

|52. |This book may cover both CSi and CS2. |

|53. |While the author's premise is intriguing, the question of whether or not the complexity of programming intimidates |

| |students is still quite open. For many, the problem is that students typically come to college ill-prepared for the type |

| |of critical reasoning and analysis that any course requires from them. As well, few college instructors are prepared to |

| |address these inadequacies (how many are familiar with Bloom's taxonomy? How many more with the SQRRR method, typically |

| |applied in K-12, but certainly adaptable to higher-ed?). I fear that the objectives would be loat in the desire to focus |

| |on the gaming, rather than the programming. |

|54. |We teach our introductory programming sequence in C++. If the text were taught using C++ and support libraries we would |

| |seriously consider the text. |

|55. |I need to see the approach used at other schools. |

|56. |(1) would like to see inheritance covered, but perhaps it makes sense to emphasize delegation (2) the fact that there are |

| |no interfaces and there's a reference to "member functions" concerns me -- I've seen too many Java books that were |

| |obviously written by someone who was still thinking in C++. Otherwise, many of the ideas look very interesting. |

|57. |You would have to convince me to use Java to teach an Intro to Programming course. |

|58. |Does not seem engaging to many women and international students. |

|59. |It would most likely be one of two textbooks, so it would need to be "cheap" (or not too expensive). |

|60. |Assignment problems support |

|61. |It might actually be too intense and too long. I would have to see the actual text before I could give a more complete |

| |answer to this question. |

|62. |This is too strong a question for members that have not see the material in hand. Although the outline was very thorough |

| |and the material sounds interesting and very doable. Without the book in have and seeing all the exercise that the author |

| |has in mind and the homework assignmenets available to give to students. If the exercises and homework assignments support|

| |the appropriate learning skill I would consider teaching this material. |

|63. |There is too much here. I would love to concentrate on games, but not at the expense of the basics. I know that actual |

| |coding is difficult for a beginner, but I believe that our students need to do this right away and we can't throw too many|

| |other things at them. |

|64. |Clarity in presentation |

|65. |I would like to see sample programs used in the text and some of the assignments. |

|66. |I would have to evaluate the text against our course requirements. One potential problem could occur since many students |

| |have difficulty grasping OOP. This might require that student take a pre-requisite in OOP. |

|67. |It would need to be very visually attractive to the students and be fully supported with ppt lectures, testbank, code |

| |examples. I would also need to feel comfortable with my ability to work and adapt in the development environment |

|68. |You need edgy and creative games where students compete with one another. If you write the engine, a student can plug his |

| |or her class into the game and a small amount of code can control a larger program. If the games are nothing more than |

| |word games, I would not adopt the book. Tic-tac-toe would not capture the interest of my students. |

|69. |I can't really comment without seeing a few sample chapters. I like the approach. |

|70. |I like the programs to incorporate GUI components such as buttons, textfields, etc, from the start - to stay away from the|

| |command-line style interface. I can't tell if this would do that. |

|71. |Looking at the final version. Overcome possibility that, while enticing, gaming just work as a CS1 environment. |

|72. |Recursion is an important topic for my CS1 course. I think it can be done early; waiting until Chapter 17 is too late. |

|73. |Proven record that it works. |

|74. |I would have to see the book itself and the quality of the writing and examples. Our course also uses closed labs, and I |

| |would like to know if lab exercises are available. |

|75. |Problem is, this approach adds a lot more content (about games) to a course that is already full! The increased motivation|

| |might justify the increased content. |

|76. |I don't think I would ever adopt a book that was based on games. |

|77. |I don't know that there would be enough time to cover syllabus material in CS1 in addition to the game concepts. |

|78. |Inclusion of inheritance, polymorphism and exception handling topics |

|79. |Not a heavy reliance on I/O: I want methods that return Strings, not methods filled w/ piecemeal calls to System.out. (It |

| |sounds like you may be already doing this, w/ igpay atinlay etc.) |

|80. |Our CS1 course is required of all engineering students, and to focus this on gaming isn't appropriate. If we were to offer|

| |a "get 'em interested" programming-oriented course for non-majors outside of engineering, this might be a good choice. (We|

| |don't yet offer such a course.) |

|81. |which IDE, technology requirements, a review of the text As far as weaknesses - the transition from creating games in some|

| |other environment to writing Java code in a real IDE is a major concern |

|82. |Supplements, lab manual, I would only ues Chapters 1-6 for CS1 |

|83. |The book will not fit in our program, since we use Python as the programming language in CS1. |

|84. |If there are good instructor support material such as ppt slides, source code files and test bank. |

|85. |Our CS1 course currently uses C++ |

|86. |I want it to cover the basics such as repetition, decision making, I/O, arrays. I want to be assured that the projects are|

| |fun and able to be completed in one week. I want enought projects to give students ample practice. I want a follow-up or |

| |companion text that deals with CS2 topics. |

|87. |I disagree with a course of totally all gaming applications/applets. Would rather see some games intermixed with business |

| |applications/applets. |

|88. |Good chapters on designing windows applications. |

|89. |I would not consider this book |

|90. |have to look at the actual game code |

|91. |Some of my students are headed for a computer science major. I would not consider adopting this as a text because of them.|

|92. |I think it is a good idea in general. While I think gaming may be something that peeks many students' interests, i wonder |

| |if the theory would be too complex for a beginning student. |

|93. |First of all, I'd have to discuss the text with the committee in my department. We have very deep discussions on how to |

| |best teach programming in our CS1 course and we'd have to evaluate this approach very carefully before considering an |

| |adoption. |

|94. |The framework itself is an important issue. I would have to get a site license so that it could be installed on all of the|

| |public computers our students use. Politically, any royalties would have to be bundled in the price of the textbook, and |

| |definitely not a separate cost for the computer center or the department. The prof who organizes the course would have to |

| |be convinced to change his teaching approach, which tends to lean more towards the theoretical. The book itself would have|

| |to be well written, with clear examples, and plenty of stand-alone exercises. I personally like progressive problems, but |

| |we have a lot of weak students who get lost early and can never recover. The price of the book would have to be comparable|

| |to or less than what our students pay now. |

|95. |My students have a lot of trouble defining and creating their own classes. And knowing how information flows throughout a |

| |program (mainly parameters) has always been difficult, as well. |

|96. |Good reviews |

|97. |We are currently using C++ for our CS1 classes. However, we do offer an intro to Java class for which this might be |

| |appropriate, though it has more material than we would be able to cover in one semester. We are also developing an intro |

| |to game programming class (hope to teach next fall) for which this book might work -- we're currently hunting a text for |

| |it. |

|98. |I would have to look at it. It would have to have complete, syntax highlighted, code examples, and the game theory could |

| |not get in the way of learning Java. |

|99. |For our environment, as a two-year transfer program to the four-year institutions in our area, we need to match the |

| |similar courses in the four-year institution. This course covers approximately 80% of what we need to cover in our |

| |first-year curriculum. It is lacking such things as a quick introduction to data structures and to complexity measures |

| |(big-O notation). |

|100. |I would need to assure myself that proper emphasis is placed on correct program construction including the 3 basic |

| |constructs of sequence, repetition, and decision. I would also make sure that the text does not rely too heavily on |

| |pre-written "black-box" code provided by the author as for example in Ford & Topp. |

|101. |I would have to review a copy of the text book. The concept is interesting enough to merit a review of the textbook. |

|102. |Emphasis on pseudocode and at some point do programming without graphics. Students need to realize that programming is not|

| |only graphics. |

|103. |This seems to be a 2 semester class, and I don't see any mention of UML, which we introduce early. |

|104. |Solving scientific problems using Java |

|105. |Hard to tell just from a TOC. Important to have good code samples that work |

|106. |See my comments to question #1. I would be skeptical about the quality of student due to the use of the framework. I am |

| |always willing to review and try things out, but would have to see the text before I could make a decision. |

|107. |I'd have see if the text is written in a clear and understandable style, look at the examples, and check out the problems |

| |at the end of the chapters. |

|108. |This is a great idea -- using games to teach OOP in a CS 1 course. The TOC suggests that this is a hopeless |

| |implementation. The titles are application areas, not concepts. |

|109. |research to support the idea that it better prepares students and is more welcoming to women. |

|110. |I would need to see how the necessary programming concepts can be covered in a semester when new information (gaming) is |

| |now also being presented. |

|111. |Would have to peruse it in more detail to form an valid opinion, |

|112. |I don't get to make the decision about a text alone. There's a group of faculty who decide the textbook for the course on |

| |a year to year basis. The text represents a significant departure from more traditional texts, so one really would have to|

| |wait to see the degree of coverage of topics before answering this question. In spite of the evidence that students are |

| |not flocking to CS, there will be resistance to new approaches to teaching CS1/CS2 courses from some (many) faculty. |

|113. |Lack of instructor materials and all software avail to student on CD/DVD and easy installation instructions. |

|114. |Selling the concept of teaching games to my department chair and academic dean. |

|115. |I will consider adopting this book. |

|116. |Accessible writing style, a lot of short sample code fragments early on, longer examples later on. This book does not look|

| |like it will be a decent java reference for students as they move on through the curriculum. They will probably have to |

| |buy another book for our CS2 course dealing with polymorphism, inheritance, etc. |

|117. |would have to review the book before considering for adopting. Presentation of material as well as ancillary materials are|

| |important |

|118. |I'd have to read some of the chapters to see how well concepts were explained. I'd look at chapter exercises to see if |

| |students had enough to test out the ideas presented. There are all types of games from logic to adventure. Has the author |

| |tested the games to see if students think they are fun? Otherwise, it could be quite deadly. There are a lot of chapters, |

| |so I'd doubt they all could be covered in one semester. Finally, and most importantly, I'd have to work with this |

| |Framework to determine it's ease of use and installation. |

|119. |I would have to see it first. There is a lot to overcome here. Students like games, but is the text really effective at |

| |presenting CS1 concepts? |

|120. |we utilize a formal lab in teaching cs1 and cs2. will the text be accompanied by a lab manual or have suitable lab |

| |exercises associated with each chapter? |

|121. |It's unsuitable. The book we use is used for both CS1 and CS2 and should also serve as a reference book for future CS |

| |courses. |

|122. |Send me a review copy. Even in it were not adopted for the CS1 course, we would consider it for a separate course in Games|

| |Programming. |

|123. |The approach and the typical reliance on the "laundry-list" of every control structure, type, and various other syntactic |

| |minutae of a particular language that authors insist on including in CS1 books turning the books into a pseudo-language |

| |reference rather than a text book. |

|124. |I'd need to actually see the details; but I like it. There is a segment of students who actually *dislike* games and |

| |prefer to do "useful" work. It might be interesting to see traditional vignettes in this book, the way most books have |

| |game vignettes now. |

|125. |I'd review the book before adopting the approach. |

|126. |I would need to verify that the class and gaming complexities do not overwhelm the student. further I would need to see |

| |that the basics are covered early enough and in a complete manner. |

|127. |Accurate and detailed instructor support materials |

|128. |Absolutely have to see a cpy of a substantial part of the text. |

|129. |Our approach focuses on graphics rather than games as the intro vehicle. I would like to see the actual text for the |

| |"games" approach. |

|130. |It would have to be easy to read. |

|131. |I wouldn't teach a course based on games. |

|132. |Would take a complete rewrite. |

|133. |A focus on programming basics. Students do not need to learn objects in CS1, they need to learn control statements, how to|

| |compile and how to read compiler error messages. This book would never be adopted by a serious 4 year computer science |

| |program as an introductory text. Weaknesses doesn't even begin to cover the problems in this book. |

|134. |There is way too much material here for me to cover in my 10-week course. This is no different from other CS 1 books, |

| |though, so to adopt this book I would have to buy into the premise that gaming attracts students and/or that this approach|

| |is better than the approach offered in other books. I'm not convinced by either argument, frankly, at this point. |

|135. |I would not consider this book. It is too hard for CS1 students. It ignores the 'business' aspect of computer programming,|

| |and focuses too much on games. Real life problems do not involve games. It does not seem as if this book stresses the Web |

| |approach to Java. Also, "Computer concepts" (e.g. computer terminology, theory and so on) is also part of CS1. Where is |

| |this going to go if this book is so detailed? |

|136. |I am teaching beginning engineering students, thus these examples & techniques are not appropriate for us. |

|137. |Hard to say from just a table of contents; I would need to see sample chapter material to see if it is suitable. Also, the|

| |use and breadth of the framework would need to be examined. |

|138. |I would need to see the text and consider the instructor and student resources that come with it. (E.g. Customizable |

| |electronic test bank, PowerPoint slides, etc.) |

|139. |We use C++ as the intro language--would like to see a C++ version of this text. Students can't read as much material as |

| |appears to be here in a semester--needs to condense into fewer chapters/pages. Writing quality matters a great deal (not |

| |too familiar with Ladd). Book sounds very focused on game projects--would need a good deal of different useable |

| |programming projects per chapter so that I can select what I feel is appropriate given where students are at in the |

| |course. |

|140. |Well, first of all, we don't teach Java -- we have a Programming Logic course and use the textbook I co-authored with |

| |Stewart Venit. Then we have an Intro Programming class where we use C#. We have implemented Alice into our Programming |

| |Logic course and, as Lead Instructor for this course, I have not found the "grab the student with fun/clever stuff" |

| |approach particularly effective. The other instructors who teach these courses with me both agree. I honestly don't think |

| |either games or pretty graphics will increase enrollment. |

|141. |I need to see the book. PS -- I do not teach Java -- I would be more interested in how this maps into a VB .NET ext. |

|142. |First and foremost, correctness. Too many books I've seen have errors that confuse and distract students. Secondly, a |

| |professional style of programming, instead of sloppy techniques that would not be allowed in most shops. Thirdly, a clear,|

| |concise method of explaining topics instead of a rambling discourse. Fourth, full program examples instead of only |

| |snippets. |

|143. |This book is interesting. But I have to review each chapter in order to seriously consider adopting this book as the text,|

| |Not sure about the weaknesses before I read it. |

|144. |We would not use it since we teach the CS1-2 sequence in C++. We have re-examined this decision several times in recent |

| |years and feel STRONGLY that it is the best for our students. |

|145. |It would have to have embedded exercises each 3-4 pages to test understanding rather than having students read an entire |

| |chapter and then providing a slew of exercises at the end. |

|146. |I was the author of some of the first microcomputer games (1978-1979). I understand the power of the approach you suggest.|

| |But I only teach graduate students, and your approach is only suitable for undergraduates. |

|147. |If you provide a circ. mapping to the ACM CS1 objects first/early approach it would be most helpful. |

|148. |divide the chapters/sections into 3 priorities/levels, make sure the book can be used for students of different |

| |backgrounds. in other words, level 1 material should be self-contained. |

|149. |To present problem solving as the central notion of computer science (algorithms). The text seems to focused on gaming; |

| |hence the big picture gets lost. Also, in spite of the OO advertising, the table of contents seems more procedural than OO|

| |in its attempt to present a problem solving framework. |

|150. |I would need to review the text itself. The ToC looks fine. It's the actual words, presentation, examples, etc., that make|

| |or break a textbook. I'm happy to examine galley's... But, just a ToC and perhaps a sample chapter or two are insufficient|

| |for us to make a decision. That said, it's an EXTREMELY exciting approach. I would LOVE to serve as a reviewer for this |

| |text. I have served in this capacity for other CS1 texts, including JSS... and have developed test bank questions for both|

| |JSS and Savich's Absolute Java. |

|151. |Pedagogic soundness is vastly more important than gimmicks. Give me a good pedagogy and a variety of examples, some of |

| |which are games. Don't give me an intro programming book that claims to be a game programming book: give me an intro |

| |programming book that happens to use games sometimes. |

|152. |Unfortunately, you would need to change the application area from games to business systems. It's doubtful that such a |

| |major re-write would be undertaken. You might want to contact some instructors in the DeVry schools that offer the |

| |Game-Playing and Simulation Curriculum; they would probably be interested in this approach. |

|153. |I would have to see the book to answer that. |

|154. |We use C++ in CS1. |

|155. |I think this table of contents needs to be refined. What is here is a good start, But for an instructor to use this text, |

| |we would need the table of contents to include basics of programming so that we can find topics in order to refer a |

| |student to read about a topic where he/she is weak. We used one of these interesting texts one year. It was very well |

| |written, and in the individual sections it was great, but we couldn't find basic features like looping/repitiion. In the |

| |table of contents above, it is not clear where the section on writing classes is or the section for creating objects using|

| |a constructor. Since many instructors only roughly follow the book, we would need a more complete table of contents, and a|

| |good index |

|156. |Committee decision - I would need to see the book to make a recomendation |

|157. |I don't like the structure of the table of contents. I think the structured program design needs to be highlighted in the |

| |beginning of the book. Without it, students will develop bad habits that will be hard to break in later chapters. |

|158. |I would have to look at it. Currently more than half the students taking my CS1 course are math majors. We have had a lot |

| |more success since we switched to textbooks that have plentiful examples of applied math. Unfortunately Bronson is not |

| |being revised and doesn't cover Java 5 so we are back to using a standard type textbook (and losing more students again). |

|159. |I actually quite like the content outline; I'd want to be sure the design problems were robust enough for the ability to |

| |do serious CS2 continuation |

|160. |I think the approach is at best no better than any other I have seen and at worst completely unworkable. |

|161. |I teach using this technique (Games as motivation in CS1) but I am opposed to the idea of using surrogates in the process.|

| |I don't like having students use a prebuilt framework (a crutch) even if they are eventually weaned from it. Get rid of |

| |the crutch and I'm far more interested. |

|162. |Your initial statetement about Java complexity turning off students does have us concerned. Our numbers are down and the |

| |ability of existing students makes a "Go slow" approach necessary. I would like to see hte book. The game angle may have |

| |some promise. |

|163. |It's all in the execution. You can't really tell from an outline -- but the TOC looks quite good. If it is clear and |

| |engaging and the students "get it" then it will work. If it is unclear, despite the hoopla of the game approach then it |

| |won't work. Generally programming requires the students to jump over some conceptual barriers that are at least partly |

| |unavoidable due to the unfamiliar syntax of Java and other programming languages. |

|164. |Old school thinking within the CS department |

|165. |I would have to have the text in my hand, working through the examples as if I were a student. I can not tell if the text |

| |is suitable in any other way. (BTW, I currently use one of your texts - Big Java, and am very pleased with it.) |

|166. |The first thought that comes to mind is the pool of programming projects. With the Internet it is necessary to create new |

| |programs or students will find solutions online. Assuming that all programming assignments in the book will eventually |

| |have solutions on line, how hard will it be to come up with unique games for programming assignments. |

|167. |Breadth in the fundamentals of computer science. More research that demonstrates this approach is embracing rather than |

| |alienating. |

|168. |I need to see the text before I realistically can answer this. However, I would need to have user-defined methods |

| |introduced in chapter 2 and Swing gradually introduced very early and/or throughout each chapter |

|169. |The biggest obstacle would be if other faculty do not see the gaming as a means to enthuse students but rather see the |

| |course as Gaming 101. |

|170. |If we used games, this would work. Currently we don't, so it won't work. |

|171. |Would need to see the book and any samples of code. Text would also need prepared instructor materials: powerpoint / |

| |solved problems / etc |

|172. |We use C++ in our CS1 course, so this wouldn't work, but it sure looks interesting. |

|173. |The contents shown above look promising. However I would like to see how the authors get the student started with writing |

| |the simplest Java game program. In CS1 it is always a struggle to tell students about all that they have to type |

| |accurately (e.g. public static void main(String[] args) ) to get even the simplest program up and running. |

|174. |I would need to examine the textbook before giving detailed feedback. |

|175. |I'm using Scheme for my intro courses now. Part of the problem with Java is that it's Java. But aside from that, if I were|

| |to teach a Java intro course, the most important thing for me would be excellent writing---crisp, clean, clear, |

| |compelling, engaging prose. |

|176. |One important question for me would be the relationship between these chapters. Particularly of interest to me is how do |

| |ideas that aren't necessarily taught or emphasized until later chapters originally motivated or suggested in the earlier |

| |chapters. Of particular interest to me is the idea of event driven programming. Do these ideas exists even within the |

| |early chapters or does it just come into existence with the 11th chapter. |

|177. |I don't think this approach has merit. From the table of contents, it looks like you're replacing difficulty with |

| |programming by instead creating difficulty with game theory. I can already hear the whining. |

|178. |Again,I disagree with the premise, therefore it is very unlikely that I would be interesting in adopting the text. I am |

| |always nervous about using "tricks" to teach a subject. |

|179. |Nothing on link lists, stacks or queues. These are crucial in the cs2 course I teach, and I use the same text for both |

|180. |I don't think the overall structure would work for us. |

|181. |We would need to weed out the procedural parts and cover the rest. |

|182. |We need a book that serves the needs of both our majors and also the various science students who take our course hoping |

| |to gain some insight into computer applications for their area of interest. Moreover, gaming seems to have a reputation as|

| |being a predominantly male interest, and today more than ever we need to interest more women in the field. I think the |

| |primary weakness is the whole idea of using games as the central organizing principle. |

|183. |Lack of software engineering concepts. Flailing about in writing a program is another good way of losing students, even if|

| |they are motivated to want to write a particular kind of program. |

|184. |Weaknesses: -Reliance on framework -Gaming emphasis is motivating, but not as ideal if I want to cover non-gaming types of|

| |programs -I've used a gaming/entertainment approach before and it worked OK for CS students but not as good for non-majors|

| |in the class, who might want to apply CS concepts in other ways To adopt this book, I would have to want to use a gaming |

| |methodology. Right now I'm not that interested, but if there was enough evidence that such an approach would have a big |

| |impact on retention or completion rates then I might consider it. |

|185. |personal background ... school policy against games on class computers ... KISS |

|186. |This book contains both CS1 and CS2 material. I would want to limit it to CS1. I'd want to see a sample chapter to see |

| |what the writing is like -- would it be easy for my students to read. I'd also want to see the code that they use and how |

| |it is integrated into the course. An accompanying lab manual would be an added bonus. |

|187. |Not sure if all of this would fit into a semester. |

|188. |Possible weakness would be in simply developing one program through the entire semester. I would need to see some smaller,|

| |non-game programs within the larger game development project. |

|189. |Not sure... I would like to see the book first |

|190. |I will not use Java in an introductory CS class. There are better languages, such as Python that provide a better |

| |experience at the introductory level. |

|191. |We would need a section dedicated to that type of approach. Since we are proposing an undergarduate game dev degree, that |

| |probably would not be a problem. |

|192. |Right now in our CS 2, we use *Head First Java*, which is a quality textbook that costs less than $50. Cost would thus be |

| |an issue. If I were teaching a Java-based CS 1, I would certainly consider adopting the book. If, however, there were no |

| |coverage of java.util classes, this would be a deal killer. |

|193. |I think it's way too much material for an intro class. |

|194. |CHANGING INTRO LANGUAGE FROM C TO JAVA & IDENTIFYING LOCATIONS IN CURRICULUM IN WHICH TO DEAL INTENSIVELY WITH POINTERS. |

|195. |We current use a traditional Java programming approach. We would consider switching if it was proven that a games-based |

| |approach would not dilute the core programming skills, core problem solving skills, and attracted new students to the |

| |major. |

|196. |An act of God |

|197. |I would consider it, depends on the specifics, hard to say w/o seeing text and the projects |

|198. |I need to examine the book. |

|199. |I will look at it. My biggest concern is that all the students come in expecting to graduate as game programmers anyway. |

| |Thats a bit like all the college basketball players expecting to become NBA players. |

|200. |Total rewriting. |

|201. |The exercises are as important as the presentation and without seeing them, I wouldn't be able to make a decision. I look |

| |for a text that uses carefully written exercises to make the students use the concepts presented. |

|202. |Java has its own short-comings. We have stayed with C++ and include C#. The same concept in either language might be |

| |considered. This book might well work for a special topics course "Introduction to Programming and Games". |

|203. |I'm just concerned that the extraneous and unnecessary complexity of Java programming has been replaced with extraneous |

| |and unnecessary complexity associated with games. |

|204. |Primary concern is that the students "get" the concepts as well as tweaking the components. I generally like this idea and|

| |think it should move forward. As with any textbook, I would need to see it (readability, understandability, quality of |

| |exercises, quality of the system, etc.) to be able to evaluate it. |

|205. |I would have to read the text first. Second, what support material goes with the text? |

|206. |It would most likely never be a choice for the main CS1 sequence. There are, however, different varieties of CS1 courses |

| |that are taught. One of them is from a "game development" approach, so this might be suitable. |

|207. |This sounds like an interesting approach, something the students would relate to. We are trying to encourage more female |

| |to consider a career in programming or computer science. This might help encourage more female and also spark some |

| |interest in undecided students. Our curriculum is planned at least a year in advance so we would need to see a textbook |

| |prior to making a committment. Also, providing teacher resources would be a deciding factor as instructors have very |

| |limited time to prepare materials. The more teacher resources (i.e. powerpoints, testbanks, workbooks, lab activities, |

| |program assignments, etc.) that can be provided, the more likely the textbook would be adopted if it matches our |

| |curriculum goals. I would be very interested in seeing a copy of this text along with the teacher resources available. |

|208. |I would place emphasis on problem solving, iterative and incremental development, complexity management, seperation of |

| |concerns, debugging, and program correctness (e.g., loop invariants, pre-conditions, post-conditions). Focus on the |

| |programming process rather than describing about a program that is already written. |

|209. |Our CS1 and CS2 courses are in C++, not JAVA, and I don't believe that is going to change. So we would need a C++ version.|

|210. |I would certainly need to review the text thoroughly. A solid collection of supporting materials makes the decision to |

| |adopt easier. |

|211. |The mixture of gaming with an introductory programming discipline would have to be rationalized. |

|212. |I can't consider this text as our first language is C++, not Java. |

|213. |We currently teach C++. We are moving to Java, but are not there yet. Again, the question is how much the abstraction gets|

| |in the way of the students |

|214. |We would have to switch from C++ to Java. From the T of C it is hard to say. I think the use of games is a real plus. |

|215. |Since our intro course also includes non programming content I'd have to see how much of the above would fit. |

|216. |I would not consider a text focused on gaming, |

|217. |I would love to use the text for a non-majors course and as an elective course in game development, but not a CS1 text. |

| |Our CS1 text has to go through 2 semesters of programming with a broader base (more OO design concepts, introduction to |

| |data structures, etc.) that I don't see covered in the TOC. |

|218. |I'd have to see the actual texts and example used within. I'd want to see if the games are text-based, graphics-based. I'd|

| |want to know how the oo design was done and how much is shown to the students and how much is done implicitly. |

|219. |Be nice to include a bit more history. Be nice to include some ethics. We currently teach Java as our CS2 course. CS0 is |

| |taught in Javascript or VB. CS1 is taught in C++. Advanced Data structures is taught in C++. Most of the local industry |

| |demand lies in C++ and . The book appears to be enough to cover CS1 and CS2. We might consider it if it could cover |

| |both. |

|220. |We currently teach in C++ but we might consider changing. |

|221. |I'd have to teach middle school. |

|222. |Are the games really buildable? Colleagues want end-of-chapter questions. (looks like those are there) I'd want it to be |

| |environment independent. |

|223. |Our cs1 course is being revised. I believe we are considering a non-java, non-c++ language for the first part of the |

| |semester. (desperation) |

|224. |I have enough concerns about the inherent complexity of games, and enough experience with previous texts that have |

| |attempted this approach (e.g., 1st ed. of Nino & Hosch), to be skeptical - I'd have to see a draft of the text (or the |

| |text itself) before I'd seriously consider it. |

|225. |I'll have to see the actual content of the book, especially the examples and exercises. It would be good if the problems |

| |and simple enough and creative, so they have to work with their imaginations. |

|226. |change the goals of our department |

|227. |I like what I see for the most part. We, a committee, recently chose a new text that we are currently using -- a more |

| |appropriate text than the previous one. At this point, we would all need to review, and agree upon, another change in the |

| |text. But I would be interested to look at this one. |

|228. |we'd need to switch from C++ to java as the first language |

|229. |We would certainly have to examine the text carefully. There don't seem to be any obvious obstacles to me. |

|230. |Python is a better teaching language, we just dropped Java due to it's excessive overhead, and I doubt we will go back to |

| |a Java based cs1 text. |

|231. |It would have to be written clearly and well. I think Joshua Bloch's Effective Language Guide is a great example of |

| |excellent prose. Head First Java is fun and engaging - this book would have to meet both of those criteria. |

|232. |It's not so much weakness as that we are really enjoying Barnes and Kolling's Objects First with BlueJ right now, so we |

| |would need to be sure the text is as good as that. (For example, their book is really nice to use in a lab setting because|

| |it has series of exercises that you can set students working on to be active learners.) |

|233. |It appears that there is a tremendous amount of material to cover. If each topic is covered too lightly, then that could |

| |be a problem. If each topic is covered in depth, it could become another Deitel text which gets difficult for the students|

| |to comprehend due to the huge amount of material. Ideally, there would be a path through where some items could be skipped|

| |(put off until a second semester). [I don't see a chapter 10 on the list]. It would be an interesting text to look at. |

| |We've been looking for a usable gaming approach to CS1. |

|234. |I would have to be sure the book shows students how to make their own classes and objects not related to games and how to |

| |get input from stdin and output to stdout. |

|235. |Demonstrably better writing, order of topics and presentation than current text -- Horstmann's Java Concepts. Weakness: |

| |some folks, including some students could well see this approach as less than academic -- games == fun != serious study. |

|236. |Hard to say without seeing the text - the outline looks great, but the writing and examples used are important. |

|237. |I doubt that I would use a book with such a heavy emphasis on game programming. A few chapter perhaps, but not the entire |

| |book |

|238. |Teaching the course again -- we already have the book for next semester. |

|239. |I always look for a strong instructor CD. I also like to see code examples using the Eclipse IDE. We will be using Eclipse|

| |exclusively in our Java courses and its great when students can see familarity of the IDE in the book example (but I |

| |understand that is not always possible). |

|240. |I'd have to learn to like games myself before I would feel comfortable teaching fram a text that is so game oriented. |

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