Jim - Thanks for an honest take from another perspective. Looked at the project site. First let me congratulate myself on one thing I learned. Squeak Alice is here. http://www.alice.org/stage3/sqalice.html A much, much better match of aesthetics. My high regard for my own worldliness is reinforced and we prove once again that even paranoids have enemies.

I hesitate to add to this thread, partly because it's difficult to know exactly what the various participants are really thinking

I think I can be accused of ignorance, or stupidity. But I'm saying what I'm thinking. Which is probably my worst stupidity.

In my experience, most successful leaders of university R&D groups have this characteristic--marketing yourself and your work energetically is almost a requirement in a setting where external funding defines a person's worth.

Heh. Sounds like the world I live in too. And Randy a master by all accounts. But I vote for a world in which the most successful leaders of university R&D groups are those doing the most important work, with the most integrity. I am I Don Quixote.

you haven't mentioned specific examples of bad science or critiqued specific published hypotheses or results (forgive me if you've done this and I've just missed it).

Alice doesn't have hypothesis and conclusions. Apparently that's old fashion science. It has "lessons". Lessons don't reveal their source or basis which is convenient because you can't refute them. So I will quote from Alice's lessons at http://www.alice.org/stage3/lessons.html <quote> Vocabulary Matters The choice of names for behaviors is critically important in a system for novices. Among the more notable examples in the names we use are: Move, not Translate: Translation, to novices, is the process by which English is translated to French. Resize, not Scale: A scale is an object used to weigh other objects, not a verb. <quote> But whereas you can't refute lessons, you can laugh at them and call them names if you are so inclined. I am so inclined: Laughable shameful silliness. But the lesson I like the best, which gets its own 14 point bold: <quote> Typing is Hard <quote> And of course anyone else is well entitled to laugh at my laughing and call me names. Which I guess is why real science is a good thing..

Using an environment like this, experimental user interfaces for creating and manipulating the environments can be created and tested.

Never said Alice couldn't be used in doing science. So can card decks and inkblots.

The manipulation of 3D objects provides an outcome that is easy to grasp cognitively and logic errors are quickly perceived. Manipulation of 3D graphics is also strongly reinforcing to many people.

100% insanely enthusiatic agreement.

Enthusiasm from Alice proponents in this direction is, I think, understandable opportunism.

A term hard to ponder. But I know I don't like it. If those proponents are serious let them give it some real attention in a serious way. And once we all understand where VR research ends and education begins, I will be the first to welcome them. I am quite serious about that. Stephen Figgins, if he can remember, should be able to verify that one of the first things I ever said about Alice was that I wish I was on the team. No question they are having fun. I like fun.

In any case, it doesn't invalidate Alice's usefulness as a 3D interface-design laboratory. Alice will be used for secondary purposes to the extent that it is truly beneficial.

No it doesn't invalidate anything. Just having my say on how beneficial I think it has been in this arena to date.

It's reasonable for Python to point to projects with a certain coolness factor like Alice as examples of the capabilities of the language.

Absolutely. The bunnies *are* cute. But I think Lightflow way cooler.

Python will incorporate lessons from Alice and other research

People much more important to the future of Python than I have expressed some displeasure about the possible incorporation of at least one of Alice's "lessons".

but it's real success will depend on projects like Zope, optimal relational and object-oriented database access libraries, porting up-to-date XML processing software into the Python libraries, Kirby's math curriculum examples, Jeff Elkner's students' demonstration of excellence, and the like.

Amen.