[Edu-sig] PyGame ?

[Jason Cunliffe]

Hi

Wondering if anyone here has looked the latest PyGame?
http://pygame.seul.org/

Looks like there is some very useful stuff in there - for example CDROM +
Joystick drivers etc..

Could be useful for improving installations, tutorials, inteface Joystick to
3D graphics/Math functions, Lightflow, motivational progamming.. lots of
blit functions for animation.. for teaching progamming using game context of
analyis and design...

The recent thread on CS now and in the good old days when computers were
driven by rubber bands, reminds me that the prespetn metaphors of widgets
and wodgets adn dominance of unimaginative, insanely complex GUIs and
operting systems has tended to obsccure some of teh basic things about using
computers. For example - when you look ata screen you are looking at a
display.

How does it get there?
How do you change it etc.?

I dont mean one shoull take the vacuum cleaner apart everytime you want tidy
the house, but at least once in once life, preferably at an early age, take
it apart and put it back together. Pygame seems interesting in that you can
jump in making stuff and thinkning about logic or gameplay, but also can
poke around lower level, deal with interfaces to physical and virtual
devices.. some kids really enjoy that.

PyGame is thoroughly cross-platform because it is based on SDL

http://www.libsdl.org/

<quote>
Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform multimedia library designed to
provide fast access to the graphics framebuffer and audio device. It is used
by MPEG playback software, emulators, and many popular games, including the
award winning Linux port of "Civilization: Call To Power." Simple
DirectMedia Layer supports Linux, Win32, BeOS, MacOS, Solaris, IRIX, and
FreeBSD.

SDL is written in C, but works with C++ natively, and has bindings to
several other languages, including Ada, Eiffel, ML, Perl, and Python.

[also jokes: A little girl had just finished her first week of school. "I'm
wasting my time," she said to her mother. "I can't read, I can't write - and
they won't let me talk!" ]
</quote>

Personally I have never been a game player, so I don't know about all this.
They always bored me. Longest ever was couple of days with Sim City, and
last summer for a day 'The Sims' with my niece, but I was fascinated by the
idea of Sim City and what kind of stuff one could develop beyond it.

My idea of computer games was alsways graphic software, music,
Forth/Lingo/Python/Zope/Flash programming, etc.. First thing I ever did on
my Amiga was bootup a version of Conways game of Life. Then went on to
exploring realtime granular synthesis using RGS, and other magical soudn and
graphic software written by a brilliant friend. You can read about them at
http://www.echonyc.com/~jhhl/software.html

I did not sleep much that first week I remember -- hooked me on
computers.and wanting to learn how to program.  My Amiga background tells me
cross-platform multimedia library + Python abatraction interface is a GOOD
thing.

What's you opinion?

- Jason
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Jason CUNLIFFE = NOMADICS['Interactive Art and Technology']