[IAEP] [support-gang] Which Language?

[Jim Simmons]

Caryl,

I would agree with the others that Python is your best choice.  Most
Activities use at least some Python, and all three of mine are
entirely in Python.  You might look at the source for View Slides,
Read Etexts and Get Internet Archive Books as examples of what can be
done entirely in Python (but not as examples of Python programming
excellence, necessarily.  I am a self taught Python programmer and am
fairly new at it).  Python Activities have the best chance of working
on different versions of Sugar and you can also make versions of
Activities that will run outside of Sugar.  Other languages may need
to be compiled specifically for the platforms they will run on, which
limits portability.

Now the second question, can you do everything on the XO?  Perhaps you
could, and the Activity Develop is intended as a step in that
direction.  I'd have to say that at this time you'd be better off
developing the Activities on a normal desktop rather than attempting
to use the XO for that.  On a normal desktop you can use the IDE Eric,
which has tools to make Python programming easier.  I use Fedora 11
with the included Sugar desktop and recommend that.  Others use an
emulated Sugar environment running on top of Windows or the Macintosh.
 I haven't tried that, but I would say that if you go that route
you're going to need a fairly powerful PC.  Going the Linux route an
older computer, Pentium III or IV, should be fine.

Another advantage of developing with a Sugar environment on a normal
desktop is that you can run more than one on the same box to test
collaboration.  This would not be possible on an XO.

Again, look at my code and the articles in the Sugar Almanac to learn
how to make and package Activities.

James Simmons


> Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 07:25:37 -0700
> From: Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] Which Language?
> To: Community Support Volunteers -- who help respond t
>        <support-gang at lists.laptop.org>, IAEP SugarLabs
>        <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>
> Message-ID: <SNT118-W481D21C72A49777C412C7DCCD80 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
> OK, the consensus is Python so far.  Can he do that strictly on XOs? How does he package it to share as an Activity?  Can he do it on a Mac or PC and then package it for Sugar?  I think he would really like to do it all on the XO. Is this possible? How does it get from terminal mode to being a regular Activity?
>
> Thanks
> Caryl