Thinking about teaching an online BL scripting class, reactions?

[Jervan]

Is pacific GMT-8? If so, that means.. 4AM for me D:

Could be worse, I guess... somehow.

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[Chrono]

I do not wish to miss this, also, do record it so that people can watch on youtube if they did miss it.

Text + YouTube = "forget..."

[Zenthos]

A project to go along with the learning would be great, such as a lot of programming tuts for PC do.

[Chrono]

I've got an idea.
An ingame computer classroom build, modded so that when you click the screen, a GUI comes up with a text field, and that data gets saved to the server for that brick. Only the one it's assigned to can make changes. The teacher's computer can read all of them remotely.

Another useful lesson is using resources (ex. other add-ons)

[Somebody]

Also you might want to do a precursor lesson to test the system and weed out the people who don't realize what they're getting into.

This.

[Zenthos]

Ooh gobby sounds cool, never heard of that.

[Mr. Wallet]

ok so new plan: ustream.tv, blockland server, gobby. ustream lets me add text captions which will be a huge help. downside is, it seems you need to make an account to use the chat 

At the end, perhaps a "Using this knowledge" section with some very basic AI and a few other implementations of what has been learned, and also maybe a section involving client code and the server>client stuffs.

I plan on setting up examples every step of the way so people can see practical applications of everything right when they learn it. So far I want to focus mainly on server-side stuff, so I'm not sure where I'll stick in client stuff, but client code and server>client will definitely be addressed at least somewhat in "server/client communications".

The past-reference is a huge question-mark. If anyone else wants to summarize what I've taught so far and put it up someplace regularly, go for it. However I'm intentionally keeping the material covered vague so that I can move at exactly the students' paces and teach them only what they don't already know. Everyone will be coming into this with a different level of experience and no one has ever done this kind of a thing for BL before, so it's impossible to design a perfect curriculum beforehand.

[Zenthos]

Will UIs be covered? Making weapons/vehicles with mount points? (Assuming you have the models)

[Chrono]

This is a scripting class, not a modelling class.

[Zenthos]

Oh wait mount points is in the models...


OK THEN, UIs?

[kakashi11]

I'll attend, i can read a basic script and edit it,

Lol i made a one hit jeep killer :D

[rkynick]

Oh wait mount points is in the models...


OK THEN, UIs?

This is a scripting class, not an art class.

That said, maybe, I dunno.

[tapemaster21]

I would try my best to attend, I am working part time and going to summer school, but this would be awesome.

[Mr. Wallet]

GUIs definitely qualifies as "below the bottom of the list". Personally I find them to be a lot of very intensive work and very easy to bug up.

I'm sort of at a loss as to what order things should be in or even how they should be grouped beyond the OOP section. By add-on function (game mode/weapon/vehicle/GUI)? Per request/poll? straight into larger example projects?
Well, here's what I've got now. please note the addition of "conventions" in functions I.

Code: [Select]

the basics
what is scripting?
the console
script files
a little about the grammar of torquescript
a little bit about blockland-format add-ons
functions I
anatomy of a bare-bones function
on programming conventions (incl. whitespace)
variables
servercmd basics
datablocks and objects
datablocks vs. objects
how torque handles objects
dynamic fields
functions II
function calls and parameters
server/client communications
maths, strings, and assignment
arrays
conditionals
if/else if/else
switch/switch$
while loops
for loops
object-oriented programming
inheritance
child datablocks
packages and child functions
object-oriented functions
self-study and debugging
tracking information with echo
the editor
.dump();
How to do cool stuff
weapons and practical applications of object-oriented functions
bot basics
saving and loading information
GUI basics
global alternatives: scriptobject and scriptgroup
(more stuff as requested, maybe a section on TCPObject)

[Zenthos]

YES, bots.