<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 2:11 PM, Walter Bender <<a href="mailto:walter.bender@gmail.com">walter.bender@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"> FWIW, there are already some efforts underway to port some Sugar activities to Android... hope to learn from those efforts in the short term. </blockquote><div> </div><div>Are there links or info about this efforts ?</div><div> </div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"> -walter <div><div></div><div class="h5"> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 2:09 PM, C. Scott Ananian <<a href="mailto:cscott@cscott.net">cscott@cscott.net</a>> wrote: > Hi folks. I wish to make a radical proposal: > Sugar's days on OLPC hardware are numbered. Sugar as presently written is > not developing quickly enough, and hasn't made significant progress towards > supporting the new touchscreen devices coming down the pike. > This isn't a problem: it's an opportunity! > I believe that SugarLabs should radically embrace "Sugar Everywhere". In my > opinion, this means attempting to target Android or ChromeOS with Sugar > activities as quickly as possible. > "But these OSes aren't geared for learning!" you might respond. Neither was > Linux, until Sugar arrived! Nor was GNOME! > First, let's take a serious look at where we *actually* are with respect to > self-programmability of Sugar. > There isn't a serious IDE. None of the Sugar software is accessible via the > Journal. Much of it is actually writable only by root! > Python is a great pedagogic language, but the best tutorials to show how > Sugar can be hacked start by teaching kids vi! > Viewed dispassionately, we have fallen very short of the 'view source' > ideals, and activities like Scratch or Etoys provide a much better pedagogic > introduction to programming than attempting to read through the python > sources of Sugar does. > If Sugar were to rebase on Android, one of the first tasks would be to > figure out how to run as many of the existing activities in Android as > possible. This can be done via projects like Jython, which implement Python > in Java, and by reimplementing some of the underlying Sugar collaboration > and storage services. The activities are the most important part of Sugar! > We don't need to reimplement the frame, or activity management, or > networking configuration (at first) -- take advantage of the hardware > support of Android and build on its OS services, and concentrate SugarLab's > limited energies on the activities. > In addition to getting Scratch/Etoys/Speak/Pippy to run on Android, the > Sugar community can contribute a simple Java compiler to make Android > more-fully self-hosting. Perhaps some small hacks to Android are needed to > allow it to install apps from its own filesystem. Android is open source, > go for it! The result may be a slightly tweaked android, but > Sugar-on-Android will be portable to hundreds of different low-cost phones > and tablets from any number of different manufacturers. Sugar everywhere! > Or perhaps consider rebasing Sugar on ChromeOS. Existing Sugar applications > could run in a plugin, or as a Chrome extension. In addition, new Sugar > activities could be written in *web standard languages*. In my travels in > South America, Python is still an oddball out-lyer. But universities are > eager to teach HTML and Javascript. Further, Javascript interpreters in > browsers are many times faster than Python, and getting faster all the time. > Consider also that the "Chrome Debugger" is already a *much* better IDE > than Pippy, and already fulfills the most important goal of the "view > source" manifesto -- you can click on *any visible thing* on the webpage, > and see immediately what code produced it. We're still a very long way from > that goal in Sugar/Python. Again, we can build on the system support of > Chrome OS (starting apps, configuring networking, preferences, etc) and > build activities as web applications (which can use a special chrome > extension for additional services, including collaboration and the journal) > which can again run on a large number of different devices. > Portable devices are the future. Lots of manufacturers are already spending > enormous amounts of effort on hardware porting and all the UI and network > and system management tasks for their devices. Sugar shouldn't need to > reproduce this work, or be tied to particular hardware. By capitalizing on > the existing work done for Android or ChromeOS, SugarLabs can concentrate on > what makes Sugar great: strong support by educators, excellent activities, > and a focus on making the system introspectable and hackable. > --scott > -- > ( <a href="http://cscott.net/" target="_blank">http://cscott.net/</a> ) > </div></div>> _______________________________________________ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a> > <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a> > -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs <a href="http://www.sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">http://www.sugarlabs.org</a> _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a> <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a> </blockquote></div>