[Edu-sig] "Croquet Project" and Python ?

[Arthur]

David writes - 

>>I went to the Croquet web site, and got the impression that it was another
>>massively-multiplayer online game, but possibly less violent than most. :)

>>Is it educational? Yes, highly educational - for the people designing and
>>building the system itself.
  
To which Francois responds. =

>No, it's a full 3D programming objet with all the paradigm wich goes with
>it.
>In fact it's a 3D, multimedia, collaborativ,  smalltalk.
>Smalltalk is used for the UPS tracking systems, controls all the trains in
>germany and the german AMD processor factory assembly for example.
>It's not just nice.

But Francois, if we are at all serious about this what are we waiting for.
Certainly the constraints inhibiting introducing kids or anyone else to the
fundamentals of 3d programming are not at this point technological.  We
certainly do not need croquet to become massively accepted, and replace the
current Web infrastructure to get there.

I happened to have gotten started with Python and PyOpenGL, and a text
editor. I feel strongly that this kind of learning process depends  - or is
optimally undertaken - in a minimalist and transparent environment. It is
not that the size and complexity of something like croquet is only
unnecessary, it is in fact a fundamental obstacle in the way of a learning
process where grasping and isolating dependencies is to the heart of
matters. I believe this is true on a motivational level as well as on a
cognitive level. Learning these kinds of things is much more exciting when
one understands that I can rotate this cube with these small tools and this
algorithm, and that what I am learning is fully portable, and helping me
gain self-sufficiency of some sort.  All that is lost in an environment such
as croquet.

Art