[Edu-sig] Alan Kay - another one of his ideas

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Gregor Lingl wrote:
> The logowiki can be found here:
> 
> http://www.logowiki.net

Just as a general comment, running a current Mozilla under Debian 
(Unstable), with JavaScript turned on, there are no graphics on those 
pages for me when I click Run. Nothing happens.

I don't mean to complain specifically about these pages, just to point out 
that while the supposed intent here is to make programming available to 
the masses by using a dumbed down environment like a web browser, in 
practice, this fails for me. Whereas, when I install Squeak or Python, it 
works. So, I think Alan Kay may be going in the wrong direction here in 
some ways, compared to Squeak. Not to say it might not be useful for 
certain audiences, just that it fails the "everyone" test, at least for me.

And of course, the site was also inaccessible when I first learned about 
it (from Kirby's post to this list I think) from too much demand most 
likely, so it also failed the cost test. Presumably, they just could not 
afford to put enough resources into the project for "everyone".

I've fought this battle before in other (commercial) situations. The web 
is good for many things. But if you want a rich client, forcing everything 
through a web browser involves making big sacrifices which often just 
often aren't worth it. And in my case, didn't even work at all! You can 
look up stuff on "rich client" vs. "thin client". For many situations, the 
answer is more often something like "java web start", where you can get 
the latest software installed with one click if you already have Java 
installed. And for Python, that means you can (in theory) launch any 
Jython program in one click from the web. I asked people to test that here 
a month or so ago
   http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2006-June/006574.html
and everyone here who tried it reported success in seeing a Java web start 
3D application. (I myself had some problems with some of my attempts, but 
they were not on the Java end -- they were on machines not configured to 
properly do 3D graphics). And, the demands on a server for Webstart are 
probably lower than for interactive use like logowiki.

To be clear I don't want to entirely discourage doing stuff with Python on 
the web, our your outlined idea to make a logowiki like thing for Python, 
just to point out that there are limitations to the approach and there are 
other approaches like Jython and Java WebStart with their own advantages 
(and disadvantages too, no doubt).

Now, if people don't like the "Java" in "Java Web Start"
   http://java.sun.com/products/javawebstart/
perhaps it might be worth petitioning Guido to somehow bless a "Python Web 
Start" and rounding up some people who wanted to support that?
You would still need to install Python though. And have a compatible 
version for the app you are downloading etc. Still, you don't "need" that 
-- because Jython + Java Web Start is right here right now.

--Paul Fernhout