[Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 31, Issue 16

[Arthur]

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kirby urner
	
Kirby - question 1.  Do you understand why your messages are coming to me as
html? Makes it difficult to reply in normal form. 

>	I like spatial turtles, i.e. turtles that swim in XYZ, not just in
XY.  I played with doing that using Python + 
>POV->Ray a long time ago, i.e. do your movements, then publish a rendering
of where you've been.  But that's all pretty 
>esoteric.  Too advanced for most beginners. 
	
I agree with you here, but keep wondering why you haven't done more with
vpython.  It works from the command line and its natural syntax seems to me
turtle-like, or certainly beginner friendly.


>Python doesn't have a strong literature.  Logo does.  This may change in
future, but for now, that's just the way it is.  >If you forced me to use
Turtles today, I'd use Logo.

I tend to agree.  

If Python is going to compete for the attention of kids and educators in
this "space" it seem to me it has some obligation to do something different.

And if Python educators feel that the Turtle approach is so effective that
it needs to be part of Python's core, at least make a very overt nod to
where the ideas are coming from. There are many people out of touch with the
history here.  It is easy to assume that people can identify Turtle graphics
with Logo and there is no need for an explicit appreciation. Just not true,
as of now, and with the intended audience.

Let's play nice.

Andre is careful on this issue in talking about the history of Rur=ple.


>Why is Logo out of date?  

In the words of Randy Pausch -  "Logo was". To me it's sort of the
technofreak ethos -the weighting factor, with anything from year 19XX and
before weighted at zero - i.e. non-existent.  Strange world-view.   

I personally don't pay a lot of attention to the Logo world, but the only
reason being that I am not particularly interested in reaching children with
computers. They seem to be doing fine on there own. But every impression I
have is that it is a continuing and active community, building- as you say -
on a long literature and long experience.


>Yes, I think we're in agreement.  I plan to stop saying anything on this
topic, as I'm afraid I will be cast as "anti- 
>turtle".  For political reasons, I want Seymour Papert to like me.  Alan
Kay too.  I hope that's OK with Arthur (whom I 
>like a great deal). 
	
Hmmm.

Loves .Net, admires Kay, and likes Arthur.  I'm almost concerned ;)

But don't we demonstrate that 2 people can agree about little, and enjoy and
respect each other.  Why do you suspect that the same would not be true
with, for example, Kay?  

Art