Collaborative Learning project

Dear monks,

I have read this this node that has been posted not very long ago and it has made me interested in this idea. I have been thinking of a collaborative project where it would be done for the sole purpose of learning, something in the spirit of apprentice.perl.org. However, after doing some research I have found most of the projects in apprentice.perl.org to be very difficult (even to understand what they are about). I was looking for something very simple where project members would be about equal in knowledge, so that they would not be overshadowed by some guru who would do all the work. Of course, you won't get far if you have a bunch of people not very good at programming trying to achieve something because they lack exptertise. I think this could be where Perlmonks could step in with their help.

So, I would like to ask if there would be enough people interested in taking part in a perl coding project, primarilly focused on learning perl? If there would be a few people interested, I would be willing to donate some time and resources for this (my resources are pretty limited though ;) We could set it up at sourceforge and keep working on it, at the same time keeping PerlMonks informed about our project: about our achievements, our successes and problems.

Another question that has been on my mind is what would be the project topic, what would we write? I was thinking that it would be OK to write some software that alternatives exist (so to say, "reinvent the wheel"), or maybe there is a particular problem that Perlmonks members want to solve and this project could help. Perhaps the project topic could be Perlmonks related -- generating statistics or what-not.

What are you thoughts on this subject, would such a project be worthwhile, etc. This is really a "request for comments" post ;)

Comment on Collaborative Learning project

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Re: Collaborative Learning project by samurai (Monk) on Sep 17, 2002 at 15:02 UTC
If you wanna learn a LOT about perl REAL quick, I'd say write up a caching templating system a-la Template-Toolkit. You can learn a lot about a language by using it to parse another (mini-)language. Don't blame me if there are a few casualties along the way among your members ;) -- perl: code of the samurai	[reply]
Re: Collaborative Learning project by BorgCopyeditor (Friar) on Sep 17, 2002 at 19:59 UTC
How about a Magic: The Gathering app (or some other such game)? -- Full disclosure: I don't play, but the kids seem to like it. :) -- You could write a server and clients. It seems like the kind of thing that could: Be up and running fairly quickly Be open-ended enough for continued tweaking Present a sufficiently varied set of tasks to be broken up into groups. (Adding new features to the server, porting the client to various OSes, and/or setting up a web interface both for players and for administrators, setting up a database for connections, tournaments, etc.) Just a thought, which may turn out to be half-baked. BCE --Your punctuation skills are insufficient!	[reply]
Re: Re: Collaborative Learning project by moxliukas (Curate) on Sep 18, 2002 at 08:49 UTC
I think I also like this idea of developing an online game (I have never heard of this particular game though) because it has very broad perspective on things. Writing a full game would probably involve: using databases CGI for web interface (with an interface to the database) with cookies and all side issues You can even write a custom template system (remember that we are not striving for efficiency, the objective is to learn) Socket programming - client and server There could be graphics programing involved (let's say displaying user stats in a graph) As the project might get big, you also get experience in working as a team as a bonus ;)	[reply]
Re: Re: Collaborative Learning project by sch (Pilgrim) on Sep 18, 2002 at 08:37 UTC
I quite like the idea of that (or something similar - I've heard of Magic, but don't know anything about it). As an alternative, I've seen there are often questions about shopping carts - I'd be quite interested in this, in fact I've done a simple version for some stuff I'm involved in - but I think it would offer some useful stuff: CGI cookies - good idea or not, alternatives db back system - i.e. mysql or something similar user interface issues Of course, again this is only a suggestion - and I'd be interested in some alternatives.	[reply]
Re: Collaborative Learning project by sch (Pilgrim) on Sep 17, 2002 at 13:26 UTC
Trying not to do an aol <me too> but yeah I'd be interested in this one. I'm just sort of getting off the ground as far as perl goes and am getting the hang of it, but I'm having to concentrate on the areas I need for the projects I'm working on right now, so I'm probably missing out on stuff that would be useful because I've got enough to get by.	[reply]
Re: Collaborative Learning project by Gordy (Scribe) on Sep 17, 2002 at 12:13 UTC
I for one, as someone in the early stages of learning perl, would be very interested in being involved in such a project.	[reply]