Winston Wolff wrote: > On May 6, 2006, at 11:25 AM, John Zelle wrote: > But I'd like some clarification on what this goal is.
I don't think there is total agreement on that (or ever will be). Speaking for myself, my goal it to support educational constructivism on the Python platform, inspired by "Squeak" and "Self", but going beyond those in a Pythonic way. I mainly want to support support "unschooling", "free schooling", and "informal" education (though other uses are possible, of course, like in the classroom). And here is a sourceforge project to that end: :-) http://sourceforge.net/projects/patapata/ The mailing list is now active here: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/patapata-discuss > Everybody is talking about a new 3D GUI and IDE. What exactly are we > trying to achieve by building a new GUI? What is wrong with existing > Windows/X/Mac GUIs for an educational project? Take a look at this video on the "Self" programming language and environment to see part of what inspires me: http://www.smalltalk.org.br/movies/ But if you just want the overview, consider: http://research.sun.com/self/papers/programming-as-experience.html Now, Squeak and Croquet have their own twist on this as well producing other ideas worthy of consideration. Lots of resources on the web on those and related issues are linked here: http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2005-September/095155.html > If we were talking > about UI research then developing a new GUI system might be > interesting, but for educational purposes, it seems like we have > enough to do to achieve educational goals, without trying to > redevelop a GUI system. UI Research? :-) Croquet is about five years old. Squeak is about ten years old. Self is about twenty years old. Smalltalk is about thirty years old. Key aspects of these development environments are still missing in mainstream Python development IMHO (e.g coding in the debugger, graphically manipulating data structures, fine grained version control, prototype-oriented development, modifying running programs, effortlessly saving a living world of objects, transparently drilling down through the system, easily coordinating multiple developers using all the above tools on the same object space, and so on). Not to say you can't do a little of some of these with existing tools in Python, of course. It's more a matter of degree and integration. It certainly generally is not easy. As a developer, I want as many of these features as possible under a Python GUI and IDE to develop extendable educational simulations. As an educator, I think learners will benefit from them as well, whether they are learning to program or learning to master the content of a simulated microworld. Now obviously, when one tries to think about doing these older things on a newer platform like Python, with its own culture and strengths and weaknesses, some R&D is required to adapt them to that new framework. And of course, while one is doing that, it would be interesting and motivating to think about doing something even better than what went before, rather than simply reinvent the wheel (or port it :-). But, as Kirby rightly points out, Python-as-it-is is quite serviceable for self-education, and so are existing GUIs. If you are content with that, then go for it! --Paul Fernhout _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
