[Sugar-devel] Minor update to Make Your Own Sugar Activities!
Tony Anderson
tony_anderson at usa.net
Wed Mar 15 23:32:09 EDT 2017
James,
Sugar now provides in the Journal a link to the Documents directory.
This, of course, has the problem that the display does not show
subdirectories. I have toyed with the idea of having the tutorials use
Sugar Commander and the excellent gedit activity instead of the shell
and nano. However, at the end I believe that the Terminal activity is
simple to use and that learners should become familiar with the file
system through shell commands. The nano editor is easy to use.
I think that a second round of tutorials introducing Sugar Commander,
gedit, and git could be introduced for learners already familiar with
shell commands and nano.
Tony
On 03/15/2017 10:49 PM, James Simmons wrote:
> Tony,
>
> I own an XO laptop from the first Give One Get One promotion, so I
> know what it can do. I've used the Terminal Activity and I wrote the
> Sugar Commander Activity because I thought that the original design of
> Sugar, which made your thumb drive look like the Journal, was not such
> a hot idea. In my opinion files and directories should look like files
> and directories and the Journal should look like the Journal. I know
> that some of the newer XO's can switch to a GNOME desktop.
>
> I never tried developing Activities on an XO because I never had to.
> It is definitely easier to do things the way I do it, and for someone
> living in the U.S. with reliable internet it's pretty cheap. I agree
> that this is not the case for all the students, or even most of them.
> It's a case of "to those who have, more shall be given."
>
> I had the same situation when I wrote /E-Book Enlightenment/. Free
> e-books in English are plentiful, other languages not so much. I had
> to write chapters on making e-books, figuring out what is in the
> public domain, photographing book pages, building a device to hold
> books in place for being photographed, doing optical character
> recognition, donating books to PG and archive.org
> <http://archive.org>, etc.
>
> Maybe MYOSA needs a chapter on using the XO for developing
> applications, installing Git and using it locally, etc. My own XO has
> been in a drawer for a couple of years.
>
> James Simmons
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 12:46 AM, Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net
> <mailto:tony_anderson at usa.net>> wrote:
>
> Hi, James
>
> If you go to activities.sugarlabs.org
> <http://activities.sugarlabs.org>, you can register via the
> register link at the top right. This is not registration for
> Sugarlabs but for ASLO.
>
> As I understand the github repository, access with the ability to
> commit changes is closely held. The enables proposed changes to be
> vetted before a commit.
> However, the web page has a sign in link which gives limited
> access (create pull requests and comment on them, for example).
> That same two-step process is used for ASLO. The developer submits
> the change which puts it into a sandbox pending review.
>
> Actually Sugar has files, directories and a command shell
> (Terminal activity). It is relatively easy to switch activities
> via the Frame. I say this from several years of experience
> developing on the XO (easier than using usb flash keys to move
> code to the XO to test). The fact that Browse does not support
> flex and the unique XO screen makes testing on an XO essential if
> that is the target.
>
> The process of making changes via github to the Sugar core is
> certainly reasonable. However, nothing in this procedure
> interferes with a developer modifying and testing a change on an
> installed Sugar independently of the internet. Access to the
> internet being needed only to submit the change.
>
> The issue is not to use Sugar for everything, it is to use the
> available computer for everything (XO). In general, the XO is the
> first computer our users have used and, aside from an Android
> device, the only computer available. While used desktops and
> laptops are available, the $100+ funds are not available.
>
> The 'current setup' you mention depends on ready access to the
> internet, something not available for at least 2/3 of our users.
> It is a strength of Sugar that the source code is immediately
> available to the user without need of a repository (except access
> to activities not installed - a need supplied by a schoolserver).
> This allows learners to get into programming in a meaningful way
> using only what is installed on the XO.
>
> Tony
>
>
> On 03/14/2017 11:25 PM, James Simmons wrote:
>> All,
>>
>> I only meant to make the manual actually tell where we currently
>> put our code repositories, without rewriting the whole chapter.
>> (I had hoped that a Google Code-In mentee might do that, but it
>> didn't happen). The one piece of information that is still
>> lacking is how to have your account added to the sugarlabs
>> organization. That happened so long ago that I forgot how it
>> happened. If someone could remind me I'll add that information to
>> the note.
>>
>> I haven't done any Sugar development in years but I do program
>> computers for a living and I use Git in my day job.
>>
>> Sugar has some good Activities to teach programming, but I don't
>> think it is a great Activity development platform. For that you
>> really need files and directories and a command shell, the
>> ability to run Sugar as more than one user at a time, etc.
>>
>> I understand the desire to use Sugar for everything, but I think
>> it would always get in the way. You wouldn't expect to be able to
>> develop an iphone app on an iphone, or at least I wouldn't.
>>
>> If I wanted to teach Activity development to children I'd get
>> some reconditioned desktop computers and install Fedora and Sugar
>> on them. I have used nothing but reconditioned computers myself
>> for years. It is amazing to me what you can get reconditioned on
>> Amazon and elsewhere for around a hundred bucks. This is
>> basically my price range for a "new" computer, and for that I can
>> get a Lenovo or other quality brand with more than adequate disk
>> space and memory. These computers are built for use in offices
>> and have many years of life left in them. In Fedora you can run
>> Sugar as a desktop environment as well as in a window. You can
>> hook them up to a TV or a projector (something I remember many
>> people wanted to do with the XO).
>>
>> I don't see ASLO being separate from Git as a problem. I think of
>> it like the production environment at work. If it's good enough
>> to use it goes on ASLO. If not, it stays in Git, but I might push
>> my code to the central repository so others could fool around
>> with it.
>>
>> Part of teach a child programming should be teaching him good
>> work habits, and I think our current setup promotes that.
>>
>> James Simmons
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 9:28 AM, Laura Vargas
>> <laura at somosazucar.org <mailto:laura at somosazucar.org>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> 2017-03-14 7:13 GMT-05:00 Walter Bender
>> <walter.bender at gmail.com <mailto:walter.bender at gmail.com>>:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 12:45 AM, Tony Anderson
>> <tony_anderson at usa.net <mailto:tony_anderson at usa.net>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 03/14/2017 12:03 PM, Alex Perez wrote:
>>>
>>> I would think ASLO could simply be made to inspect
>>> the contents of an activity, upon upload, (since
>>> it’s just a zip file), and look for the necessary
>>> string within activity.info <http://activity.info>,
>>> such that it could be displayed under a “details”
>>> section of an Activity, within ASLO.
>>
>> What I propose is that the ASLO page have a link to
>> the github repository. See the attached screenshot
>> which shows a link to home page. I would see this
>> link being added here.
>>
>>
>> +1. But that can be done if (1) we include the repo path
>> in the info file and (2) do the work on ALSO to display
>> it (I think alsroot was looking into this).
>>
>>
>> +1 to add the repository link field on ASLO.
>>
>> This is an example where we all agree that something needs to
>> be done.
>>
>> Now, how do you propose we get it done?
>>
>> You proposal has no bearing on where the repo is hosted,
>> as it should not.
>>
>>
>> Tony
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Walter Bender
>> Sugar Labs
>> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Laura V.
>> *I&D SomosAZUCAR.Org*
>>
>> “No paradox, no progress.”
>> ~ Niels Bohr
>>
>> Happy Learning!
>>
>>
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>>
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