[Edu-sig] Rapunsel, Rapunsel

[Art]

kirby urner wrote:
>> Personally, I don't think Python *is* in the Alice, Scratch, Rapunsel space
>> or *belongs* in that space or is competitive in that space.
>>
>> Which happens to be more than fine with me.
>>
>> Art
> 
> I think you don't have strong rapport with puppetry and the many
> conceptual similarities of programming to puppeting.

I think I do, more than you think.

> 
> We don't lose that just because of all the dancing bears.  Given your
> experience with VPython (a theater for shapes), I'd think you'd be
> among the first to appreciate that fact.  So what if the object is a
> Nemo type clown fish instead of a polyhedron (come to think of it, a
> clown fish *is* a polyhedron).


We are a lot closer here than you might think.

In my development version of PyGeo I have already begun to implement the 
  idea that it is a bit boring to restrict the representation of points 
to   that of spheres.  I have points as diamond shapes as a new 
possibility, implemented.  But why not any object that can be 
represented as a triangle mesh.  An airplane, a bear.

"""PLAYING TO LEARN!""" is Rapunsel's motto.

I hope that PyGeo embodies that as well.  It should, because playing to 
learn is how PyGeo came to be.

A difference is that I prefer to be clear about what it is we are 
playing to learn - in this case geometry, which in my view is a core, 
core learning experience and very amenable to the concept of play.  But 
I *do* want to communicate that you are free to leave any high degree of 
  solemnity in connection with the subject matter at the door. And maybe 
airplanes as points will further that cause.  I also want to communicate 
that PLAYING TO LEARN is not something that needs to begin or end with 
children.  Even more serious geometry can appropriately be approached 
playfully.  As in the projection of mutable dancing bears of the complex 
plane to the Riemann sphere.

Sorry that more Python folks don't seem to get what I am trying to do 
and find some way to get behind it.

Art