[Edu-sig] PySqueak: more on the cultural divide among paradigms

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Winston Wolff wrote:
> On May 6, 2006, at 11:25 AM, John Zelle wrote:
> But I'd like some clarification on what this goal is. 

I don't think there is total agreement on that (or ever will be).

Speaking for myself, my goal it to support educational constructivism on 
the Python platform, inspired by "Squeak" and "Self", but going beyond 
those in a Pythonic way. I mainly want to support support "unschooling", 
"free schooling", and "informal" education (though other uses are 
possible, of course, like in the classroom).

And here is a sourceforge project to that end: :-)
   http://sourceforge.net/projects/patapata/

The mailing list is now active here:
   https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/patapata-discuss

> Everybody is talking about a new 3D GUI and IDE.  What exactly are we  
> trying to achieve by building a new GUI?  What is wrong with existing  
> Windows/X/Mac GUIs for an educational project? 

Take a look at this video on the "Self" programming language and 
environment to see part of what inspires me:
    http://www.smalltalk.org.br/movies/

But if you just want the overview, consider:
   http://research.sun.com/self/papers/programming-as-experience.html

Now, Squeak and Croquet have their own twist on this as well producing 
other ideas worthy of consideration. Lots of resources on the web on those 
and related issues are linked here:
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2005-September/095155.html

 > If we were talking
> about UI research then developing a new GUI system might be  
> interesting, but for educational purposes, it seems like we have  
> enough to do to achieve educational goals, without trying to  
> redevelop a GUI system.

UI Research? :-) Croquet is about five years old. Squeak is about ten 
years old. Self is about twenty years old. Smalltalk is about thirty years 
old. Key aspects of these development environments are still missing in 
mainstream Python development IMHO (e.g coding in the debugger, 
graphically manipulating data structures, fine grained version control, 
prototype-oriented development, modifying running programs, effortlessly 
saving a living world of objects, transparently drilling down through the 
system, easily coordinating multiple developers using all the above tools 
on the same object space, and so on). Not to say you can't do a little of 
some of these with existing tools in Python, of course. It's more a matter 
of degree and integration. It certainly generally is not easy.

As a developer, I want as many of these features as possible under a 
Python GUI and IDE to develop extendable educational simulations. As an 
educator, I think learners will benefit from them as well, whether they 
are learning to program or learning to master the content of a simulated 
microworld.

Now obviously, when one tries to think about doing these older things on a 
newer platform like Python, with its own culture and strengths and 
weaknesses, some R&D is required to adapt them to that new framework. And 
of course, while one is doing that, it would be interesting and motivating 
to think about doing something even better than what went before, rather 
than simply reinvent the wheel (or port it :-).

But, as Kirby rightly points out, Python-as-it-is is quite serviceable for 
self-education, and so are existing GUIs. If you are content with that, 
then go for it!

--Paul Fernhout