[Sugar-devel] Programming language

[Gary Martin]

Hi Tony,

On 24 Sep 2012, at 15:33, Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> An important concept is 'language of instruction'. For example, in Nepal the language of instruction is Nepali; however, there are many native languages other than Nepali.
> 
> In Haiti, the language of instruction is French. This is different than requiring a course in French. All of the textbooks are written in French.
> 
> In Rwanda, until last year, the language of instruction was English. Now, it is Kinyarwanda until grade 4, and then English.
> 
> The implication is that we could concentrate on supporting the language of instruction in the deployments: English, Spanish, and French. We should also help deployments with support for initial literacy in the student's mother tongue.
> 
> One concern is that Sugar becomes more text-based with every release. Open Browse for example. Use of icons was a very practical way to help students learn to use the computer regardless of their mother tongue.

Sugar becoming more text-based? Could you be a little more specific as to where in Sugar and Activities you're seeing this?

From a design point of view I try very hard to keep with, and extend the icon focused Sugar designs e.g. the switch away from Activity toolbar tabs allowed us to make Activities much more icon driven. Just the other day I was working with humitos to provide him with a mockup for a simpler, more friendly page load error message (less text and a visual).

Regards,
--Gary

[1] http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/attachment/ticket/3500/Browse_unable_to_load_page.png

> yours,
> 
> Tony
> 
> On 09/24/2012 04:35 AM, sugar-devel-request at lists.sugarlabs.org wrote:
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>>    1. Re: [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18 (Kevin Mark)
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>>    3. Re: [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18 (James Cameron)
>>    4. Re: [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18 (Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn)
>>    5. Re: [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18 (Kevin Mark)
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>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 22:17:25 -0700 (PDT)
>> From: Kevin Mark<kevin.mark at verizon.net>
>> To: Flavio Danesse<fdanesse at gmail.com>
>> Cc: sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org, James Cameron<quozl at laptop.org>,
>> 	"S. Daniel Francis"<francis at sugarlabs.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18
>> Message-ID:
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>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>> 
>> Hola Flavio, I think you gave many?excellent? reasons for using Spanish, which is what i was saying. So I agree. I was recalling something about the OLPC project in Haiti. ?They have 2 'officlal' languages: Kreyol and French. 99% of the country learns Kreyol but the upper class/government know French. So the kids learn French for some reason in their early years along with Kreyol and I was confused by this. Why learn something that they will use very little and confuse learning while trying to learn it in a little used language, French. That may not be 100% correct, so any correction welcome. So I understand the idea of having kids try to learn Python and English at the same time as being difficult and not always useful.-K
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>> Message: 2
>> Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 22:24:25 -0700 (PDT)
>> From: Kevin Mark<kevin.mark at verizon.net>
>> To: Flavio Danesse<fdanesse at gmail.com>, Gonzalo Odiard
>> 	<gonzalo at laptop.org>
>> Cc: sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org, James Cameron<quozl at laptop.org>,
>> 	"S. Daniel Francis"<francis at sugarlabs.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18
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>> 
>> 
>> --- On Mon, 9/24/12, Gonzalo Odiard<gonzalo at laptop.org>  wrote:
>> 
>> From: Gonzalo Odiard<gonzalo at laptop.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18
>> To: "Flavio Danesse"<fdanesse at gmail.com>
>> Cc: "Kevin Mark"<kevin.mark at verizon.net>, sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org, "James Cameron"<quozl at laptop.org>, "S. Daniel Francis"<francis at sugarlabs.org>
>> Date: Monday, September 24, 2012, 1:08 AM
>> 
>> Flavio,Estoy de acuerdo que para ense?ar programaci?n, agregar la problem?tica de comprender otro idioma a la de comprender el lenguaje de programaci?n en si, no tiene demasiado sentido.Lo que si creo que tiene sentido, y esto tu y yo lo hemos hablado varias veces, pero como has dado tu punto de vista, voy a dar el mio, es que usemos un lenguaje comun para tratar de compartir esfuerzos y no multiplicar el trabajo. Imaginate lo que pasar?a si la gente de Nepal, de Rwanda, latino america, y ahora las islas Fiji, cada uno tuviera que hacer su reproductor de videos y audio, su actividad para sacar fotos, etc.
>> El costo en esfuerzo y tiempo que se invierte es alt?simo. En la pr?ctica es mas alto del que podemos afrontar como comunidad, porque aun no hemos logrado todo lo que nos proponemos.Entonces, esta barbaro usar los lenguajes locales para ense?ar y aprender, algunos miembros de esas comunidades y algunos proyectos creceran hasta poder compartirse y alli es mejor contar con un idioma comun. Hoy es el ingles, en cien a?os, veremos.
>> 
>> -----
>> I agree with you when you say, to teach programming, add the need to learn a foreign language to the fact of learning the programming language, does not have too much sense.
>> But have sense (and we talked about this a few times, but you have your point, and I have my point too) use a common language to share efforts and avoid multiply the job. Imagine if people from Nepal, Rwanda, Latin America, and now Fiji, need create his own video player, record activity, etc.?
>> The cost in time and effort is too high. In fact, is higher than the effort we can do as a community, because we haven't reach all what we want.Then, is ok use local?language to teach and learn, some of the community members and some projects will grow up until be shared and then is better use a common language. Today is english, in 100 years, will see.
>> ???Gonzalo
>> 
>> I think a certain?comparison?comes to mind from learning about Debian-edu/OLPC. There are tools you use to learn learing and learn skills and tools you use to do work. To learn programming, you should use what is easiest and useful to do it (like python and Spanish comments), but when you are going to?collaborate?with many non-English people, then you turn to the common language, English.
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>> Message: 3
>> Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:40:13 +1000
>> From: James Cameron<quozl at laptop.org>
>> To: sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18
>> Message-ID:<20120924054013.GN23922 at us.netrek.org>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>> 
>> On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 02:08:03AM -0300, Gonzalo Odiard wrote:
>>> I agree with you when you say, to teach programming, add the need to
>>> learn a foreign language to the fact of learning the programming
>>> language, does not have too much sense.
>> 
>> I couldn't read what Flavio said, but I agree that having to learn a
>> foreign language before learning programming does increase the cost of
>> learning considerably, to the point that the learning may not occur.
>> 
>> This is one of the reasons why some learning areas are difficult.  But
>> knowledge of the implementation language can assist greatly.
>> 
>> Know Latin, can learn medicine terminology more quickly.
>> 
>> Know Italian, can learn opera or music terminology more quickly.
>> 
> 
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