Quote: "Oh no!!! Not "people wanting to learn""
with such a brief description, its easy to jump to the wrong conclusion... That wasn't actually what I was pointing out:
I just searched the newcomers board only for "bullet" and got 54 results. all the titles are so similar, that after opening 5 and finding very similar questions in the threads, I can (quite safely) assume that most are going to be more-or-less the same.
Now, imagine yourself being a teacher, teaching Dark Basic at a school, you've just spent about half an hour explaining a bit about creating, deleting and moving objects. then you ask your class "Does anyone have any questions?"
54 people raise their hand and all ask you (perhaps with different wording) "How do I make bullets in my game?"
You show that person the basic concept of making a bullet, moving it bit, checking for collision, and if no collision, move it again... repeat the process until it moves too far, or it hits something.
Then you get asked the same question again... Well, haven't you just answered that question? Yes, but because the question wasn't word-for-word identical, your second student thinks that your previous explanation may not apply (or wasn't listening, and was instead playing squares with the person sat next to them). You're expected to answer it all over again.
And this happens another 52 times...
My point is, getting people in school to work in teams requires the students to be very committed, and very tollerant. Computers are awkward, precise, and just one tiny error, and the teacher is expected to come and help at that very moment; even if the said teacher is busy helping someone else, or marking coursework...
Lastly comes the possible heartbreak to the students who given up lots of their time to create the program, obviously it's going to need to be tested, who better than other students... Unfortunately, at that age, people are not very diplomatic, especially when they have commercially developed games at home that they love to play...
"Do you like this game we've just spent 9 months making"
"No, it's crap..."
The students who've made the game, have just got a lot of experience, and are now far more likely to make a successful project in future, but probably think inside "why bother, no one will like it" and just giving up at that moment... I'm sure many users on our newcomers board who've tried to start too high, and then found it to be very difficult have probably also thought "Programming's not for me"
Kids actually learning in schools however, would be brilliant, they're mostly there to cause as much damage and steal as many things as possible ranging from pens to projectors, at our school, the projector in one of the IT rooms was pinched 3 times in 2 weeks... on the last occasion it was only rumoured to have been in place for 20 minutes!
Now, hopefully I've cleared that up, learning to program is fun - but too early just results in too many repetitive questions being asked. (which partially constitutes our newcomers board)
