[sugar] Education?

[Don Hopkins]

Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> Hi Guido,
>
> I still think your choice of words was inappropriate. 
What's inappropriate about "Thanks Alan. I'm quite satisfied with this 
response and I agree with the priorities!"? I totally agree with Guido, 
and applaud Alan for his response and priorities!
> If anything is an anathema, then it's the huge body of impenetrable C 
> code in linux, the libraries, X11, gecko, gtk, cairo, and, yes, 
> underlying Python, too, and even Squeak, though to a much lesser extent. 
Just because something sucks isn't a reason not to use it if there is 
currently no better alternative. Can you suggest or implement better 
alternatives to any of those modules? If not, then let's keep using them 
until we have enough time and experience to replace them, so we can 
learn from their strengths and weaknesses. It would be unwise to attempt 
to reinvent the wheel without ever using one.
> This prevents opening the hood, seeing how things work, modifying it, 
> constructing new things etc. *This* is against the OLPC philosophy, 
> which explicitly encourages constructionist learning.
We are actively engaged in the process of constructionist learning 
ourselves, by building things with these these flawed but useful tools. 
Constructionism is not just for kids! Software developers learn that way 
too.
> Sadly, there isn't anything comparable to Etoys in the whole open 
> source world. Actually, strike that last five words. It's not like 
> most of it couldn't be done in Python, but for whatever reason, nobody 
> does it. I'd be happy to hear otherwise, but so far, the Python 
> community (or anybody else for that matter) to me does not exactly 
> appear enthusiastic about creating something that could replace Etoys.
>
> - Bert -
I am quite excited about creating something in Python that is based on 
the ideas from great systems like Etoys, HyperCard, HyperLook, Robot 
Odyssey, Body Electric / Bounce, and other visual programming languages.

Now that the open source status of SimCity is out of the closet, please 
take a look at my previous posting with the idea of re-implementing 
SimCity on top of such a system:

Ideas for Sugar development environment from HyperLook SimCity
http://mailman.laptop.org/pipermail/sugar/2006-December/001022.html

SJ Klein and I recently talked with Charles Normal of Electronic Arts 
about making SimCity and other games open source for the OLPC, and he 
asked us to make a list of games that we would like EA to make open 
source so we can port to the OLPC.

Which games and other software should we ask EA and other publishers to 
make open source and contribute to the OLPC project?

One at the top of my list is "Klik-and-Play", Maxis's visual game 
programming language for kids.

Of course it might just be more powerful and efficient to re-implement 
something like Klik-and-Play from scratch in Python, as a plug-in visual 
scripting component, which can be used to script a HyperCard-like gui 
environment, and games built on top of it like SimCity and Robot Odyssey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klik_&_Play

I also would love to make a massively multi-player version of SimAnt: 
One Ant Per Child!

    -Don