[Edu-sig] Question abut teaching using a MUD

[kirby urner]

I was an online adviser for this Eagle Scout wannabe who
needed a project, community service type.  His project: to
make online Quaker meeting a reality by gutting a pre-existing
MUD and outfitting it with Quakery rooms and characters
(some bots, some other denizens).

Upshot:  successful, got the badge, but offended a test user
when one of the worshipers spasmed out, having been zapped
by a goddess weapon of some kind (stuff he'd forgotten to
remove).

My more general advice (the above just an anecdote), is
to find something big and sprawling, try diving into it,
get screens full of code ASAP.

A big danger with (some) newbies is Blank Screen Syndrome
(BSs) and a prolonged feeling of duhhhhhhhhhhhh.... makes
for quick burnout and disillusionment.  More fun to be reading,
like when learning any alien language (e.g. Klingon, Python,
whatever), flipping between design time and run time (yes,
code is breakable, enter version control).

Kirby

On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 9:55 AM, csev <csev at umich.edu> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>  I am teaching an undergraduate course in Python at the University of
>  Michigan (www.si182.com) and several students expressed an interest in
>  building online text-based games.
>
>  I am wondering if anyone nkows of or has used a Python MUD in a
>  teaching environment and might have some suggestions for me.
>
>  Charles Severance
>  University of Michigan
>
>  P.S. See you all at Pycon 08 in Chicago :)
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