[Its.an.education.project] Interface Definition for Activity Writers
Mikus Grinbergs
mikus at bga.com
Sun May 18 00:38:53 CEST 2008
[In the 'On the Naming of Sugar' thread, 'Glucose' was proposed as
the name of "the minimal system that must be added to a standard
Linux distribution in order to enable Activities to run", 'Fructose'
as the name of a set of (demonstration) Activities, and 'Sucrose' as
the name for "a complete Sugar environment". I believe we should
also have a specific name for the __INTERFACE DEFINITION__ (between
'Fructose'/'Glucose') to which all Activities need to be written.
('Sweetness' was suggested as the name of the "the abstract design
of Sugar's appearance and behavior" - but that name addresses the
Sugar_User's interface. My concern is the Sugar_Activity_Writer's
interface.) ]
--------
In the 'OLPC News (2008-05-17) - Tech Team' posting, Kim writes:
> rebasing our builds ... by the weekend should have a build that
> can be tested. At this point many activities will need some work.
I'm not sure what Kim meant by that last sentence.
I believe strongly that "outsiders" ought to be allowed to develop
Activities. If "rebasing" the XO builds (in this case from Fedora-7
to Fedora-9) involves work for providers of Activities, that's to me
a sign that the __interface definition__ (to 'Glucose') needs work.
Ideally, Activities ought not need changing, no matter what
underlying (Linux) distribution is being used to run Sugar on.
The __interface definition__ that Activities need to adhere to must
be written down in a SINGLE authoritative document (which needs a
codename). Whenever the __interface definition__ gets modified, the
changes need to be explicitly highlighted, together with an
explanation of how "obsolete" Activity_versions will behave if run
with the now-different Sugar.
mikus
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