[Sugar-devel] SarynPaint: a Java program packaged for the OLPC

[Tomeu Vizoso]

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 18:21, Jim Simmons<nicestep at gmail.com> wrote:
> Tomeu,
>
> I have to agree with you on this point.  I program in Java for a
> living, and never programmed in Python before I got my XO.  I can do
> Java in my sleep, especially with the Eclipse IDE.  Every time I need
> to add a feature to my Activities I think about how I'd do it in Java
> then translate that to Python.  I constantly wish that Eric had code
> completion features anywhere near as good as I had in Eclipse.  If
> anyone would benefit from having Java supported in Sugar it would be
> me.

Actually, both Marco and me used to code in Java before Sugar and the
current Sugar code-base still has some Java-isms.

I personally like Java and miss its staticness, but I also learned to
love python's dynamicness ;)

But what is most important for me in Sugar is Python's hackability.

Regards,

Tomeu

> I don't want it.
>
> I don't think there is an Activity you could write In Java that you
> could not write in Python.  The Python version would perform better,
> would use less memory, would integrate with Sugar better, would
> probably have fewer lines of code, and would not require a 75+ mb
> runtime.  Most importantly, children wanting to learn to program would
> be much better served if most of the Activities they might want to
> study the code for were written in Python, rather than a bunch of
> different languages.  Python is a good language for beginners.
>
> If the author of SarynPaint doesn't want to maintain two versions he
> might rewrite it in Python and abandon the original.
>
> James Simmons
>
>
>> Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:09:37 +0200
>> From: Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at sugarlabs.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] SarynPaint: a Java program packaged for the
>>        OLPC
>> To: Jeffrey Kesselman <jeffpk at gmail.com>
>> Cc: Ben Wiley Sittler <bsittler at gmail.com>,     sugar-devel
>>        <sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org>,      OLPC Developer's List
>>        <devel at laptop.org>
>> Message-ID:
>>        <242851610908310809r4814cd9em5f2508b02b6bf70a at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 16:56, Jeffrey Kesselman<jeffpk at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Honestly,? I think the lack of Java on the XO has more with python
>>> defensiveness then anything else.
>>
>> Honestly, I don't think so. Most or all of the Sugar developers had
>> zero python experience when joined the project. And we are way too
>> busy to care about language wars.
>>
>>> I draw this conclusion partly from the fact that it has been pretty
>>> crippling lack since initial inception of the XO, but one that there is
>>> great resistance to fixing nonetheless.
>>
>> The Sugar platform is composed by what deployers want to be there, not
>> by what each developer would like. If that was the case, we would have
>> to ship the runtimes for all available languages and the XO doesn't
>> have enough room for that, nm for the student's work...
>>
>> If you really think that Java should be there, propose to deployers of
>> Sugar an activity that will bring value to their students and tell
>> them to talk to us.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Tomeu
>>
>>> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 10:46 AM, Ben Wiley Sittler <bsittler at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I think maintaining two parallel versions of the code in two languages
>>>> would be a huge waste of effort for me, but if someone else wants to
>>>> they are of course welcome to.
>



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