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

[Jim Simmons]

If you have a URL for the project I might look at it to see if I could
make a Python version, giving credit to the original author of course.

If you've been following this mailing list you know there are frequent
discussions about what should be included in the supporting
environment for Sugar.  We've had discussions about WebKit, QT, as
well as Java.  WebKit was opposed by some because it does the same
thing as Gecko, but it we included it Read could support EPub files,
which would be a huge win for the platform even if we used it for
nothing else.  As for QT, apparently  there is a lot of educational
software already written that uses QT.

Neither of these justifications exists for Java, plus Java requires 75
meg for the runtime which is a lot of disk space for the XO although
it might be tolerable elsewhere.

I once wrote a program to do standards checking on COBOL code.  I
wrote the first version in Turbo C, then rewrote it in COBOL because
it needed to run on a mainframe and that was the language the
mainframe needed it to be in.  I actually liked the COBOL version
better, for reasons that would be hard to explain.  IBM did offer a C
compiler for the mainframe, but nobody wanted it, not even me.  COBOL
was the right answer.

James Simmons


On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 4:30 PM, Ben Wiley Sittler<bsittler at gmail.com> wrote:
> I understand this point of view, certainly. At this point I much
> prefer writing Python to Java because the result is likely to be
> shorter and easier to modify or re-use, but I am not the author of
> SarynPaint, merely someone who got it working on the OLPC. The
> original author wrote it in Java, and I doubt there's any reason he
> would suddenly switch languages he runs it on Macs which have both
> plenty of resources and a well-integrated Java runtime "out of the
> box".
>
> That said, I'm sure that if the idea of SarynPaint is appealing enough
> for OLPC users and the JRE requirement onerous enough, someone will
> clone it in Python. The license (GPLv3) certainly encourages such
> re-use.
>
> So far, however, I see nothing to justify that. The target age group
> for SarynPaint (early hand/eye coordination) is younger than for the
> OLPC project. The activity has no save/resume yet, and so might
> actually discourage constructivism. I don't hear any deployments
> clamoring for such an app. Really, then, it seems like it might be
> more used by G1G1 donors' kids, and they can probably afford the
> bandwidth and moderate hassle to install OpenJDK.
>
> Please do prove me wrong though, I'd love for this software to be more
> widely used, and for its deficiencies to be addressed, either by me or
> by others who are passionate about making this hardware more useful
> and/or entertaining to kids.
>
> -Ben
>
> On 2009-08-31, 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>