Doctor Who To Teach Kids To Code 164
DCFC writes: The BBC is releasing a game to help 8- to 11-year-old kids get into coding. Based on Doctor Who, it alternates between a standard platform game and programming puzzles that introduce the ideas of sequence, loops, if..then, variables and a touch of event-driven programming. Kids will get to program a Dalek to make him more powerful. (Apparently the BBC thinks upgrading psychopathic, racist death machines is a good idea!)
It's not every day you get to... (Score:4, Funny)
Apparently the BBC thinks upgrading psychopathic, racist death machines is a good idea!
Doesn't everybody?
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In the USA we call them "drones"
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And hey, the US drones don't have a problem with stairs. They just level the building.
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Daleks aren't machines though... Those are the cybermen.
A Dalek is a living being inside the armor.
not sure which would be better to meet, but I would pick the Dalek if I had the choice. Cybermen either upgrade you to a cyberman, or they delete you. There isn't middle ground, while ad Dalek doesn't ALWAYS destroy and kill, they will use people as leverage too.
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Daleks aren't machines though... Those are the cybermen.
A Dalek is a living being inside the armor.
The cybermen aren't that different—despite the suppressed emotions, they're not purely mechanical. They have living brains inside their mechanical bodies. The difference is that the cybermen are set on "upgrading" people; they think of it as a service. They consider themselves advanced life-forms and want others to have the same experience. Failure to comprehend the benefits of what they're offering is taken as further evidence that you're in need of an "upgrade". They're constantly looking for ways t
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10 wave magic screwdriver at it
20 RUN!
freakin' /. has devolved so far with it's html tag handling that I had to resort to MS-basic to get this to post.
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True, they did do some power upgrades and features, so a non conductive floor or stairs couldn't stop them. Dalek Sec was different than most and did turn a human into a dalek/human mutant as part of the final experiment... so they did try stuff out
modern Dr Who creatures are some scary stuff for kids though... Between the Daleks, Cybermen, Angels, the stuff in the library (can't think of their name), the moon spiders recently, and everything else, My kids have to wait till they are older, then I will go ba
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Though in fairness it's only defenseless because it's humanoid body was engineered away as superflous when Davros decided his entire race should be permanently interred in personal battle tanks.
Exteeerrminate Child (Score:1)
"Look, my Dalek is now so powerful it writes my code for me!"
Wait, how do you know a Dalek is a "him"?
Alien Space Amazons (Score:2, Funny)
Wait, how do you know a Dalek is a "him"?
The eye-cock, the raygun-cock, the plunger-cock, the scrotum bumps, ...
Actually, makes more sense that it's a woman then. They are essentially female beings with extreme cases of penis-envy who have given up their original bodies and put their brains into "strap-on" suits (armor) that give them the Alpha power and have all the "alpha male" symbols protruding from them in the extreme in order to create the emotional impact they desire.
These alien Space Amazon Feminists have had it and are now going to out do the males they so envy by destroying everyone that is male and all fem
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Wait, how do you know a Dalek is a "him"?
The eye-cock, the raygun-cock, the plunger-cock, the scrotum bumps, ...
Actually, makes more sense that it's a woman then. They are essentially female beings with extreme cases of penis-envy who have given up their original bodies and put their brains into "strap-on" suits (armor) that give them the Alpha power and have all the "alpha male" symbols protruding from them in the extreme in order to create the emotional impact they desire.
These alien Space Amazon Feminists have had it and are now going to out do the males they so envy by destroying everyone that is male and all females that "co-conspire" with the males (by allowing them to exist). Which means they are trying to exterminate everyone but themselves.
And here comes the "Doctor", the arguably most ALPHA of the ALPHA Males in the entire universe.. Of course they would be obsessed with HIM and with destroying him.
-- My god.. I started writing this as a joke.. but now it actually makes sense. It fits everything perfectly.. The series needs only to reveal that Davros was actually a woman, a woman who hid the fact that she was a woman in order to attain the access and power necessary in her society to create her augmented Superior Female Race..
I wish I could post this under my account instead of as A.C. but this is too hot.
Addendum (same poster as post above): Going even further back in history to before the creation of the Daleks we find that Davros was secretly in love with the early Doctor, to the point where she ended up revealing her secret gender identity to him, in hopes of finally finding the love and acceptance always forbidden to her. Unfortunately; her love ended up being unrequited. The Emotional trauma that this caused her when she was already at the tipping point of an emotional break anyway pushed her over the
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Thanks for reminding me why nobody goes to lunch with nerds :-)
In time (Score:2)
Re:In time (Score:4, Interesting)
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Or, they could just look them up in the Index File...if they had an Index File.
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And this one
* "You don't have to write your Fortan codes in UPPERCASE ONLY"
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My ability to put 'latex manuscript.tex' and 'dvi2pdf manuscript.dvi' into a makefile is not magic, it is basic automation
It's also redundant and likely not to do the right thing (ironic, given previous comments about libraries). Look for latexmk, which is part of the standard LeXLive distribution. Oh, and since this is not 1970 anymore, let's skip the DVI step and go straight to PDF with pdflatex (latexmk -pdf manuscript.tex is probably what you actually want).
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on Debian/Ubuntu that is pdflatex
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But seriously: Friends do not let friends write fortran.
I do not really agree with that. Fortran 90 and above is a nice language. The problem is people still using old and obsolete F77 features.
Of course, I would not recommand using Fortran 90 for anything else than numerical codes. If you have to manipulate multi-dimensionnal arrays, Fortran is the right language. This is where C/C++ clearly sucks.
consistent with goverment approaches (Score:2)
Apparently the BBC thinks upgrading psychopathic, racist death machines is a good idea!
The US government have been doing that around the world for decades, so surely it must be a good idea.
What for? (Score:1)
Why teach kids to be unemployed? Why delude them, giving them illusions about coding being the key to a successful future? We're not in the '80s anymore. Back then, everybody thought computers were the key to a great career or, rather, that was the trend. By the early '90s with the Web exploding, everybody was pretty certain of that. And what now? IT workers are low-wage blue-collar workers with no vacations, no off hours, no overtime compensation and their jobs are being or have already been outsourced. Co
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Hopefully they will use those skills in other vocations. You don't have to be a full time coder humping a cublicle to benefit from programming skills.
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Yes, you can also be:
- a full time MBA humping a cube
- a full time HR drone humping a cubicle
- a full time financial analyst humping a cubicle
- a full time scientist being humped by a cubicle
- a full time engineer being humped by a soldering iron
All paths to which coding is the solution involves being on the wrong end of a bizarre sexual act.
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IT workers are low-wage blue-collar workers with no vacations, no off hours, no overtime compensation and their jobs are being or have already been outsourced.
In the UK we get a minimum of 4 weeks paid vacation, a set time for working hours, and even salaried workers are due compensation for working over their contractual hours.
Been in IT in the UK for 20 years now, never experienced what you are talking about.
Yup, we actually have decent employment law here in the UK. Sucks to be you, wherever you come from...
UK Only? (Score:1)
At the moment it appears that this is only accessible in the UK. Are there any plans for it to be released elsewhere (without having to circumvent location blocking)?
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At the moment it appears that this is only accessible in the UK. Are there any plans for it to be released elsewhere (without having to circumvent location blocking)?
British Broadcasting Commission.
And yes, they block all non-UK IP addresses from accessing the BBC websites. Anyone in the UK who watches live TV must pay a TV license, which all goes to the BBC. So in effect, only we (the UK) pay for the service, and, are given access to it.
You'll either have to wait for BBC worldwide to take it on, or, get yourself a VPN in the UK.
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British Broadcasting Corporation.
At least (Score:3)
they aren't trying to teach kids screenwriting.
They did so! (Score:3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... [wikipedia.org]
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I also question their programming chops, remembering that one horrid episode where the WiFi was killing people.
You know it's going to be a good episode when you're literally 10 seconds in and you're already cringing in horror.
Britain only (Score:4, Informative)
Commonwealth citizenship apparently grants no privileges.
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Interestingly apparently the BBC can't give it away particularly in the EU for instance though I suspect the same issue is world wide too. Basically the BBC is part state funded and dumping free stuff into other markets regarded as anti competitive though the world service ...
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Hey, I got that response when trying to install an older Doctor Who game from the site last night.
From the UK. On a UK ISP. And no, I wasn't running VPN....
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Commonwealth != British. You gave those rights up when you split from the British Empire :)
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We still have the queen - maybe I'll write an angry email to prince william!
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You have the queen as *your* head of state however ;) Same person, different crown.
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Commonwealth citizenship apparently grants no privileges.
Do Commonwealth citizens pay the BBC license fee?
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My government licenses Doctor Who through the ABC, the federally funded national broadcaster
Why addict hundreds of thousands of Australian schoolchildren to Doctor Who, such as my 13yo nephew, and then deny them access? :(
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Doctor Who got me into coding as a kid in 1982 (Score:4, Interesting)
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The idea of trying to teach fell by the way side basically at the beginning of the show intge 1960s. The older shows have more dialog with period tech talk. Sure you had the same bad guy over a course of weeks. But the shows were 1/2 hour long. Today's the story is more compresses and a little less on the story of the bad guy.
In some ways that is good as the show doesn't feel like it is dragging and others I feel I am missing the story.
Dr Who has come full circle (Score:1)
It was originally conceived to get kids into history. That's why he's a time traveller.
Now the flavour du jour is programming. I can't help but feel we've lowered our sights.
Already done in 1985 (Score:1)
Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror [wikipedia.org]
... The game's play centers on the player's character of the Doctor (specifically his sixth incarnation), and his robotic programmable cat Splinx. ...
Code.org (Score:4, Interesting)
Science! (Score:1)
Use Dr Who to teach science ... yeahhhh... what could go wrong?
Can't get to it outside of the UK (Score:3)
Like many BBC products, this game appears only to be accessible within the UK. I'm in the US, and i'd happy buy a copy / access - this game would be a huge hit with my family! When I tried to go there, they directed me to the BBC Store site, which only sells physical goods. Come on, BBC!
Those Poor Parents (Score:2)
I feel bad for the parents. My wife and I are young, and we already can't stand the Daleks. Imagine those parents out there, who have likely been putting up with "EXTERMINATE" for more years than we have, and now it's not only those surprise Dalek episodes to contend with, but also kids running around thinking that Daleks are so cool and "Look mum! I programmed it to talk!"
the latest in a fine tradition of programming game (Score:3)
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OK, I *would* definitely get this for my kids, except that I'm in the US and can't get it. Ah well ...
The good points gained by them for creating this software are immediately negated by their deliberate and willful withholding of it from the rest of the world. Almost makes them look racist/nationalist for only wanting "their own" to benefit from this educational software... I mean, why not at least make it available for sale outside of Britain?
1. The BBC is funded by UK taxpayers, which is why UK taxpayers get free access.
2. The BBC is under no obligation either to educate or trade with the rest of the world, although it does seem odd that they are not taking commercial advantage of the popularity of the Dr Who brand abroad.
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Sigh (Score:2)
Just as we had a little hope of losing some of that "geeky" image that goes with coding... Dr. WHO starts teaching to code.
Sigh.
Will this appeal to, e.g., girls?
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Actually no. I think Romana, Nyssa, Sara Jane, and Susan all held their own. In fact Romana graduated first in her class on Galifrey and often "took him to school" on a number of matters.
Dr. Who And Prime Computers (Score:1)
Screw you, BBC (Score:2)
Screw you, BBC. My little girl is in tears you idiots. I live in NYC and I am the proud Dad of a 7 year old Dr. Who fanatic. As soon as I saw this I told my little girl and we were both so excited to play this game. Then, we got the stupid "you must be in the UK" message.
Really BBC? I am so disappointed. There are hard core Dr. Who fans who live outside the UK.
Don't do this to your fans!
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Now she gets to learn about networks and VPNs
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Screw you, BBC. My little girl is in tears you idiots. I live in NYC and I am the proud Dad of a 7 year old Dr. Who fanatic. As soon as I saw this I told my little girl and we were both so excited to play this game. Then, we got the stupid "you must be in the UK" message.
Really BBC? I am so disappointed. There are hard core Dr. Who fans who live outside the UK.
Don't do this to your fans!
The simple solution is to move your family here to the UK.
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Thank you! You are very nice, just like most
Brits that I know.
I would love to move there. I have spent time in the UK with friends
and also work. I love London and I love Scotland.
You guys have a beautiful country.
Cheers!
The Doctor (Score:2)
That should be "The Doctor to teach kids to code".
The programme is "Doctor Who", the lead character is "The Doctor".
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The show is called Doctor Who. This game is an extension of the show. You are being correctly pedantic about the name of The Doctor, but you're overcorrecting. Let's replace "code" with "count", and "Doctor Who" with "Sesame Street": "Sesame Street teaches kids to count". Would you complain because there isn't a character on the show (or associated computer game) named "Sesame Street" teaching kids to count? No, because that would be dumb.
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Upgrading Daleks? (Score:2)
Apparently the BBC thinks upgrading psychopathic, racist death machines is a good idea!
What could possibly go wrong?
You just know what this is going to lead to.. (Score:5, Funny)
10 EXTERMINATE
20 GOTO 10
"upgrading psychopathic, racist death machines" (Score:2)
Sounds like the typical online gamer profile to me. Wanna gods, warriors, psychopathic killers etc.
(of course I am joking..... sort of....)
Nerfed (Score:2)
No doubt this will be some sandboxed, fluffy, guided deal, completely missing many of the genuine problem solving skills which lead to a true understanding of what it is to code to create solutions.
Remember kids, #00FF00 is not a creative color.
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Before replying with venom read this (Score:2)
It's an opinion derived from what has been filtered through the international media and should not be considered as reality.
It's how the group is presented to people who are too far away to distinguish the reality through the noise.
Either way it's not important since I don't know any more about them than what the media has decided is amusing enough to pass on and the topic should be get
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Apache were calling themselves Indians (Score:2)
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Indians (or "Inde") is what the Apache nation were calling themselves before European explorers arrived.
I'd have thought they called themselves Apaches.
Exonym (Score:2)
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Nah the Tea Part is the PERFECT name for these people. The original tea party was a astroturf protest instigated by wealthy tea importers who looked to lose business thanks to their businesses being made obsolete by a direct sales model combined with a *lower tax*.
England thought they had found the perfect solution: their too-big-to-fail tea company would see increased profits thanks to direct sales and the Americans would get lower prices and reduced taxes.
Instead a bunch of self interested 1%'ers spun so
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Then kids may mistake Daleks for Ents.
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Perhaps they think 11-year-old kids can raise their standards.
Just kidding - the BBC is pretty close to the top of English language programming. Which doesn't actually say very much.
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Once you dig deep enough, everything is a GOTO.
Suck it, "Goto considered harmful."
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Except other daleks.
The word "racist" has no meaning (Score:2)
It is a political term, and nothing more.
Generally it is used for those who resist the idea that the third world must be imported into the first world, reducing the first world population to a third world hybrid, thus destroying culture, heritage and values and making it more tractable by the twin parasites of government and industry.
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It is a political term, and nothing more.
Generally it is used for those who resist the idea that the third world must be imported into the first world, reducing the first world population to a third world hybrid, thus destroying culture, heritage and values and making it more tractable by the twin parasites of government and industry.
No, "racist" is a term correctly used to describe halfwits who think that the colour of a person's skin defines their whole personal and cultural identity.
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You're an idiot.
Though Daleks are more speciest than racist, given their goal is to exterminate all non-Dalek life from the universe, the racist is the equivalent term for their beliefs from our current perspective.
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Of course Hitler was racist.
What hairs am I splitting? What specifically is my racist belief system?
I don't pray for peace.
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Actually, closer examination reveals a parallel agenda. Mankind has never, ever, waged war because of varied belief systems.
The warfare was motivated by mundane greed and survival while fighting over limited resources.
The "belief" bullshit was just a rallying flag to pimp up a bunch of cutthroats.
Oo, ee, oo ahh ahh, ting tang... (Score:2)
Why not say in the summary which doctor?
Because it wasn't David Seville [wikipedia.org]. "Ting tang walla walla bing bang! [youtube.com]"
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Why not say in the summary that its only available to UK residents (or those with a UK VPN...)
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Or how about:
1) control TARDIS
2) move TARDIS to pick up companion
3) lure companion into TARDIS (yes I know, this is the creepy part)
4) program fabrication machine to assemble K9
5) program K9 to pilot TARDIS to adventure location
6) Send k9 on exploration trip to determine the nature of the problem
etc.
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Until recently nobody other than a Time Lord could manage to fly the TARDIS at all. Now I'm pretty sure the writers will say Clara could sit on the console and accidentally fly it better than the Doctor himself.
I suppose it's my own fault for thinking, "They couldn't possibly have a more annoying companion than Donna." CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
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Drawing a distinction between "shown trying to fly it" and "successfully flying it." I'm not familiar with Adric or Nyssa (classic Who) but I would bet that even if Donna was "given pointers" she couldn't actually do it until the whole metacrisis thing.
Metacrisis Donna and River both being "half-Time Lord" sort of reinforces my point.
And Clara is just a twat. I swear the writers are just trying to see how badly they can abuse canon at this point.
P.S: Hmm...although they did have that scene at the end of the
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Level 3 Can you outrun a weeping angel.
The joke being that getting away from a WA has nothing to do with the running.
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