[IAEP] ASLO

[Tony Anderson]

The problem is ASLO, our primary interface and support for our user 
community.

If we are going the github route, we need to set up a means for updated 
versions of Activities to be made into bundles and installed on the ASLO 
repository. Presumably documentation (but no code) would be required to 
document a procedure to submit or update activities.

In the case of ASLO, the code base is PhP. At one time, it was proposed 
to implement in Python using Django - following the lead of Mozilla. 
This apparently didn't happen. Jekyll is clearly a much better 
framework, it's website promises that installing Jekyll is sufficient to 
create a website. :)

The 'crumbling to dust' applies to the code not Python. Any software 
needs support. Most of the original developers of the Sugar activities 
have moved on to greener pastures. We have activities that failed 
because they incorporated object code which was not recompiled for ARM. 
We have activities that failed because they were build with hulahop. We 
have activities that failed because they imported Abiword. I have not 
seen a single example of a Sugar activity that had to be updated because 
of Python 2.7.

Tony


On 07/14/2016 02:47 PM, Dave Crossland wrote:
>
>
> On Jul 14, 2016 8:15 AM, "Sam Parkinson" <sam.parkinson3 at gmail.com 
> <mailto:sam.parkinson3 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 10:01 PM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com 
> <mailto:dave at lab6.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> On 14 July 2016 at 07:13, Sam Parkinson <sam.parkinson3 at gmail.com 
> <mailto:sam.parkinson3 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> What do you mean?  ASLO is based on very old technology, which is 
> going to get broken.
> >>>
> >>> 10/10 would love to improve ASLO.  I actually did an "ASLO2" 
> effort a while ago, although that failed for reasons that are 
> documented on my blog.  I would be up for using a AppStream and 
> PackageKit based stack to reinvent the activity store experience though.
> >>
> >>
> >> I think if ASLO can't be resuscitated, something VERY simple - a 
> set of XO files and a Jekyll-like simple HTML site that links to them 
> - would best replace it.
> >
> >
> > Nice idea.  That is very simple!  But remember that you also needs 
> search,
>
> As a single page the browser search provides that. Site wide Google 
> Search  provides that.
>
> > i18n,
>
> Its static content. i18n can be done inline.
>
> > provide an api for Sugar to get list of bundles to update.
>
> What is the current api URL schema and do we have examples of sample 
> data or do we need to bring aslo back up?
>
> Jekyll can provide structured data in html, XML, json, etc.
>
> > The current ASLO also has other features, like a developer interface 
> (how do devs submit updates to the static site)
>
> Github pull request.
>
> > and only showing the user activities that are compatible with the 
> version of Sugar they are running.
>
> They click the version and a <10 line JavaScript script hides the 
> irrelevant information.
>
> >>> Re Sugar using python2; a port to python3 was previously 
> investigated as part of last years GSoC. We can port it baring our 
> telepathy-python dependency.  (FYI there has not been a commit for 
> telepathy salut or gabble in the past 2 years.  Dead upstream?
>
> Salut could just be stable. The spec is at least a decade old. 
> Telepathy and Gabble might be lost causes.
>
> > Still, there are so many bugs that affect sugar.  10/10 would love 
> to port collab to using something like Matrix.Org - the spec is *way* 
> is more easy to understand than telepathy.
>
> Yes matrix is very nice. However I don't know if it supports 
> collaboration otself, I think we need a crdt library or something 
> similar on top? Or was that the case with telepathy anyway?
>
> > Telepathy seems much more complex than Sugar needs - we don't need 
> abstract multi-backend support.
>
> What are examples of Activities that deeply integrated collaboration? 
> Write?
>
> >> I think we should not upgrade to python3 but javascript.
> >
> >
> > Py2 -> Py3 is a small change.  Py2 -> JS is massive.
>
> The return on investment is the same, though.
>
> > And moving to JS means you have to replace telepathy, for Py3, we 
> can easily port the python-telepathy library ourselves (it is very 
> small library)
>
> Lionel already has real time collaboration working on Sugarizer, this 
> is no biggie.
>
> > What do you mean by javascript?  It is javascript and HTML?  Or 
> javascript on top of GJS, using the same amazing Gtk+ technology stack?
>
> I am proposing sunsetting the python codebase because it is crumbling 
> to dust before our eyes. The Sugar Python codebase could go back to 
> being maintained by OLPC Inc and Sugar Labs become a web shop. It 
> seems the new "OLPC Laptop" will be running vanilla Ubuntu.
>
> > One idea that had been in my mind recently is moving parts of 
> sugar-toolkit-gtk3 to Vala or C.  In Vala/C, you can expose the 
> objects via Gobject Introspection - meaning that they are accessible 
> from Python{2,3}, Javascript, Vala, Perl, and probably more.  Don't 
> know if it would be worth the barrier that it adds to development though.
>
> If we want to provide software for all the world's children we must 
> develop software that runs on all platforms.
>

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