[sugar] Sugar on Beagle Board training at ESC Boston

[David Farning]

On Mon, 2008-08-18 at 16:00 -0500, Jason Kridner wrote:
> Call for presentation from Sugar developers,
> 
> I think it would be great if the Sugar community would put forth a
> training at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston in October[1].

What sort of class do you have in mind?  I will see what we can put
together.

> They will be holding several classes[2] on the Beagle Board and I
> believe the board is well-suited for higher-level educational
> environments (low-cost, low-power, small, DSP capabilities, 3D
> graphics, etc.).  It is certainly no OLPC replacement, but I'd like to
> get the people who are playing with that board thinking a bit
> differently about how we train programmers to think about computers--
> and I believe Sugar is a good tool for that.

Further collaboration between the embedded world and Sugar has the
potential for significant payoffs down the road.  We share a common
interest in doing more with less.  Less power, less cpu, less memory,
more usefulness.

> The Beagle Board is an ARM-based platform that is intentionally
> incomplete[3] (no case, no built-in LCD, no built-in Ethernet, etc.).
> It *is* intended to promote TI's OMAP3530 device which comes from an
> architecture originally intended for mobile phones and I'd understand
> if the tie-in with a particular company's promotional goals puts some
> people off, so I want to be up-front about that.  Still, there are a
> lot of developers who are interested in the platform and, being a fan
> of the OLPC software architecture, I don't want them to miss out on
> Sugar.

I see no conflict of interest engaging with potential partners who have
a commercial interest in seeing Sugar improve. 

> Let me know if you are interested.  I'd be happy to help with the
> port.  Python, GTK+, and GECKO are already running.

I have subscribed to the beagleboard group at google.  Please let me
know if they are other communication channels to which I should
subscribe.

In terms of getting a project like this going.

1. Gather together a small group of people who are interested in the
port.

2.  Create a minimal infrastructure.  Wiki page, mailing list.... to
coordinate your work.

3. Start working on the port.

4. As soon as you have made some reasonable progress on the port, go to
the nearest mountaintop and start yelling, 'look at the cool project we
are working on.'

5. Repeat step 1 though 4.

I will assist you however I can in steps 1,2, and 4.  My short term goal
will be be replacing myself with someone who can help you with steps
1-4;)

thanks
dfarning