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

[kirby urner]

On 7/12/06, Andreas Raab <andreas.raab at gmx.de> wrote:

> [A secondary motivation for Logowiki is as an experiment in "zero
> install" deployment and to be able to see what can be done with Ajax and
> friends and a bit of compiler translation technology which is not so
> different from PyPy btw - parts of it would make perfect sense to
> translate Python to Javascript code on the fly]
>

And I'd say tertiarily to up the rank of JavaScript in our minds, as a
language.  Alan and others were making positive clucking noises about
it at the summit, with the caveat that DOM was still not quite right.

> Paul, you are confusing a demo with a product. Logowiki was done to
> explain to OLPC what we mean when we use terms like dynamic content and
> what may change if, for example, Wikipedia had the ability to included
> such dynamic, end-user authored content.
>
> Cheers,
>    - Andreas

Yes, this sounds like an accurate expression of Alan's intent.  He
talks about "interactive Wikipedia" as a metaphor for the kind of
2-way computing we'd like to give children.  Their ability to publish
interactive content would not be so weighed down with upper division
skillsets (why wait until you're 10 to publish a web site?).

In my own mind, I think of Alan as working to empower minors too young
to vote, but often with a lot on their minds and a willingness to
share it.  Given the Shuttleworth sequence, I try to mentally prepare
myself for kids so-empowered entering a Python piece of the tunnel
later in life.

The sequence again is roughly:  pilot avatars and sims with programs
(Logo), immerse yourself in communicative fanstasy environments
(Squeak), surface a more adult mindset and start tackling real world
problems with more focus (Python).  It's kinda like three kinds of
music:  control a body, swim in the ocean, build your own.  The
language names are stand ins for what're probably the best open source
options today.

However, as we've discussed earlier, there's a big fork in immersion
between 2D and 3D worlds (a rough division, with 3D covering
everything from Quake to Star Trek's holodeck).  We've had long
threads into whether Python might contribute as an implementation
language for these worlds.  Answer:  yes. Panda 3D is one good
example, as is Civilization IV.

Kirby