Alice is one of those programs that are easy to use, but difficult to master. The idea of dragging a couple predetermined codes to create animations sounds simple enough, and it is, but when making a videogame, a programmer must have a vision for what he or she wants to express to an audience. Making your vision a reality is the hardest part of Alice. Just stringing together different codes won’t produce a desired result, but when you do string the right number of codes together, that’s when programming changes from a boring string of numbers to a work of art.

After using Alice, I have grown more appreciative of programmers. Whenever I used to play a game or watch a movie, I wouldn’t acknowledge the amount of work that must have went behind the creation of just one of the many scenes. After spending countless hours perfecting my video (and still ending up with an imperfect finished product), I came to admire and appreciate the perfection and meticulous attention to detail that goes into programming a videogame or movie. After all, when I can’t even get my T-Rex to stay half way above the surface of a road, you’re bound to watch Jurassic Park all over again and say “Wow, Not only do they keep the T-Rex’s whole body above the ground, they also make its legs move! They must have put in a lot of work making that.”

Overall, using Alice has been a positive learning experience. Using Alice was like riding a bike with training wheels. Once I master Alice, I can possibly hope to try real programming and expect to fall over a lot.