[Edu-sig] Just ran into Kevin Altis...

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Kirby-

Thanks for the (indirect) reminder about this. Portland does sound like a 
happening place. :-)
   http://www.unconventionalideas.com/walkability.html
   http://www.unconventionalideas.com/eastbank.html

To run the version in Debian to see what PythonCard-ers have been up to 
recently, I just now had to upgrade from wx 2.4 to wx 2.6 and that also 
fixed my flicker problem. :-) So, proof of concept fourteen, with text 
morphs and no flicker under wx GTK 2.6:
http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/patapata/PataPata/proof_of_concept_014.py?view=log

Anyway, I am confronted with a series of choice points and paths as I look 
at how to build a Self-like inspector (which needs GUI widgets including a 
text editor):
* 3D right now?
* How to put up interactive widgets (custom vs. wx, tk, pyGame, GLUT, other)?
* Whether to keep the programming widgets in the same world window as the 
application or have them in another window (and/or world) or even another 
VM interacting over the network?
Likely there is some deeply Pythonic (glue-ish and platform agnostic) way 
to approach these decisions I don't see yet.

Still, I feel confronted by the biggest fork in the road -- focusign on 
the Squeak/Self notion of a consistent world of objects to present to 
novices and experts alike manipulated in a consistent way (if you drink 
the Koolaid :-), and an eclectic, throw whatever the paradigm and tool of 
the moment is at them that gets a specific task done approach (requiring a 
lot of glue sniffing :-). [***] A fundamental divide, and discussed here 
before. Clearly, I think the Pythonic approach is more in the latter glue 
oriented way. But, that perhaps requires certain assumptions about the 
order things are learned in or presented in, to manage complexity and 
information overload.

Anyway, lots of decisions... So, a good time to revisit how other projects 
like PythonCard are doing things. If I could wrap a wxWidget in a Morph, I 
might get a lot of mileage out of that, and PythonCard undoubtedly has an 
approach to dragging widgets that might be useful (let alone if much of 
PythonCard could be adapted in a prototype way, since PythonCard is 
prototypish anyway, even if I initially used just, say, their menu 
editor). I mentioned long ago the notion of PySqueak and PythonCard 
perhaps merging somehow; perhaps time to look more deeply at the paradigms 
behind various approaches and their potential initial compatability. 
Anyway, still mainly just exploring possiblities at this point.

--Paul Fernhout
*** Sadly, glue sniffing is a serious problem among school kids 
apparently, see for example the 20% statistic here:
   http://emeritus.blogspot.com/2006/04/inhalant-abuse.html
Maybe exciting Python-based constructivist virtual worlds (and a better 
real world emerging out of them?) might help a bit with it.

kirby urner wrote:
> Kevin is the main force behind PythonCard, which adapts the wxPython
> API to make it even more sane.
> 
> His product features an OpenGL window, but it's just a pass-through
> the the wx OpenGL window; I don't think PythonCard has a bunch of
> OpenGL-specific classes.  But these could always be added to a custom
> version (PythonCard for Geometers say).