[Edu-sig] OLPC related: pyGTK for cross-platform (Mac especially)?

Paul D. Fernhout pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com
Wed Dec 20 23:04:33 CET 2006


Arthur-

Wow, thanks for the link (and thanks also to you and Ian for the other 
comments). This is a little like what I tried to do with the PataPata 
OpenGL window, but that never went very far. Wonder if this system would 
easily work on the OLPC system?

The key point for me (as a lazy programmer :-) is maximum effectiveness 
for least effort. It's one thing to build a proof of concept or something 
fun for oneself, but when one starts thinking about how does the biggest 
audience share what you have made, then the issue becomes ease of 
installability and how open the license is and how likely the effort will 
not have legal problems.

(On your other post, Squeak has some licensing issues still in flux; it's 
hard to assess how they will come out as they are not *fun* to deal with 
for most programmers; Python's legal situation seems much clearer).

By the way, in outlining the programming style that makes you smile, you 
just rediscovered Squeak. :-) The ability to work in Smalltalk all the way 
down and into the VM is what many people like about it. When working in 
Python I keep hitting these brick walls or black boxes of the compiler or 
window libraries which require switching languages and development 
environments. Now if they could just solve licensing and modularity issues 
as well as Python had.

--Paul Fernhout

Arthur wrote:
> Arthur wrote:
> 
> 
>>Like offering alternatives.
>> 
>>
> 
> Like this new-on-the-scene effort
> 
> http://pyglet.org/
> 
> """
> Pyglet is a cross-platform multimedia library written in pure Python.
> """
> 
> Checked out the svn version.
> 
> Exciting to see for - among other reasons - it seems to implement what 
> had been kicked around here regarding VPython, i.e. a pure Python - via 
> ctypes - fully native
> crossplatform windowing, OpenGL capable infrastructure.
> 
> Humbling - the effort and background needed to pull something like this off.
> 
> It is early, but with what has clearly been invested in it to date, one 
> suspects the effort will continue to get it to wherever it needs to get.
> 
> What I imagine to be the underlying axiom from an educational point of 
> view is that it is more infrastructure for doing engaging things by 
> writing pure Python from what - if it were up to me- would be the 
> simplest possible edit/run environment.
> 
> I don't have a name for the educational philosophy behind such thinking, 
> and don't expect it to become ubiquitous.
> 
> Justs makes me smile.
> 
> Art
> 
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