###################################################################### # # Buzzword Generator # # From: BASIC Computer Games (1978) # Edited by David H. Ahl # # "This program is an invaluable aid for preparing speeches and # briefings about education technology. This buzzword generator # provides sets of three highly-acceptable words to work into your # material. Your audience will never know that the phrases don't # really mean much of anything because they sound so great! Full # instructions for running are given in the program. # # "This version of Buzzword was written by David Ahl." # # # Ruby port by Leslie Viljoen, 2021 # ###################################################################### WORDS = [["Ability", "Basal", "Behavioral", "Child-centered", "Differentiated", "Discovery", "Flexible", "Heterogeneous", "Homogenous", "Manipulative", "Modular", "Tavistock", "Individualized"], ["learning", "evaluative", "objective", "cognitive", "enrichment", "scheduling", "humanistic", "integrated", "non-graded", "training", "vertical age", "motivational", "creative"] , ["grouping", "modification", "accountability", "process", "core curriculum", "algorithm", "performance", "reinforcement", "open classroom", "resource", "structure", "facility","environment"]] # Display intro text puts "\n Buzzword Generator" puts "Creative Computing Morristown, New Jersey" puts "\n\n" puts "This program prints highly acceptable phrases in" puts "'educator-speak' that you can work into reports" puts "and speeches. Whenever a question mark is printed," puts "type a 'Y' for another phrase or 'N' to quit." puts "\n\nHere's the first phrase:" loop do phrase = [] prefix, body, postfix = WORDS phrase << prefix[rand(prefix.length)] phrase << body[rand(body.length)] phrase << postfix[rand(postfix.length)] puts phrase.join(' ') puts "\n" print "?" response = gets break unless response.upcase.start_with?('Y') end puts "Come back when you need help with another report!\n" ###################################################################### # # Porting Notes # # The original program stored all 39 words in one array, then # built the buzzword phrases by randomly sampling from each of the # three regions of the array (1-13, 14-26, and 27-39). # # Instead, we're storing the words for each section in three # separate arrays. That makes it easy to loop through the sections # to stitch the phrase together, and it easily accomodates adding # (or removing) elements from any section. They don't all need to # be the same length. # # The author of this program (and founder of Creative Computing # magazine) first started working at DEC--Digital Equipment # Corporation--as a consultant helping the company market its # computers as educational products. He later was editor of a DEC # newsletter named "EDU" that focused on using computers in an # educational setting. No surprise, then, that the buzzwords in # this program were targeted towards educators! # # # Ideas for Modifications # # Try adding more/different words. Better yet, add a third # array to the WORDS array to add new sets of words that # might pertain to different fields. What would business buzzwords # be? Engineering buzzwords? Art/music buzzwords? Let the user # choose a field and pick the buzzwords accordingly. # ######################################################################