Re: Conway's Game of Life (cellular automata)

[Matthias Felleisen <matthias@ccs.neu.edu>]

As Shriram pointed out .. 

But more to the point, here is a story I learned from Keith Cooper who
took over the intro course from Kathi Fisler who took over from me. 

Keith starts his course with this scenario: 

 "Everyone please stand up."

 "If you have not written a program of more than 10 lines, 
  please have a seat." 
about 30% sit down

 "If you have not written a program of more than 100 lines, 
  please have a seat." 
a few more sit down

 "If you have not written a program of more than 1,000 lines, 
  please have a seat." 
99% sit down. 

 "If you have not written a program of more than 10,000 lines, 
  please have a seat." 
everyone's sitting by now. 

 "If you have not written a program of more than 100,000 lines, 
  please have a seat." 
everyone's sitting by now. 

 "I have written a program that requires 500,000 lines of C code.
  I have chosen to teach this first course with Scheme because it 
  will teach you something good. Are there any questions?"

I bet that many of you out there can adapt this game to your setting. 

-- Matthias

P.S. Cooper conducts compiler research and is involved with the GNU C
project now, funded by some large agency.