Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!wugate!uunet!munnari.oz.au!mimir!hugin!augean!sirius!nt!levels!marwk From: MARWK@levels.sait.edu.au Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: Computer implementation of card games Message-ID: <1983@levels.sait.edu.au> Date: 3 Oct 89 10:28:26 GMT References: <2512DF6F.19668@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> <58134@aerospace.AERO.ORG> <14680@netnews.upenn.edu> Organization: Sth Australian Inst of Technology Lines: 22 In article , kalvala@iris.ucdavis.edu (Sara &) writes: > I have a rather general question regarding the use of games in > teaching beginning programming and data structures - how useful do > you people find them? I myself much rather have them than the > accounting/management type of examples, but how well do they go with > students? are they taken seriously? > > And specifically - which card game would be ideal for introducing data > structures? Have to use one in a couple days and can't decide: > blackjack? rummy? solitaire? ... > Patience games like russian bank ( a 2-person game) would be particularly useful because it uses a variety of structures including stacks (since cards can be placed back onto the stock pile and the talon by one's opponent). It depends on the degree of complexity you want to achieve but I might give the above as a 4- or 5-week 4-hours/week practical, but I have not considered all of the difficulty nor its complexity. I would probably not give it in the first semester of a course unless I gave them many hints and a great deal of discussion. Ray Kennington