Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Dec 4)

[Paul Boddie]

Terry Reedy wrote:
> "Paul Boddie" <python-url at phaseit.net> wrote in message
> news:el1ru1$gql$1 at lairds.us...
> >    The One Laptop Per Child developers and testers briefly consider Python
> >    development environments (in the context of things Alan Kay presented at
> >    EuroPython 2006):
> >
> > http://mailman.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2006-November/003176.html
>
> But the only thing about Python here is "(Is somebody going
> to write a Python development environment for children?)"

Yes, it's a bit tenuous, but the context and further discussion is
where the interesting stuff is. At EuroPython, Alan Kay gave a keynote
which focused a lot on the Etoys and Squeak body of work, which is
where users (with children particularly in mind) can experiment with
different ideas in an interactive graphical environment based on
autonomous objects with editable behaviour. Since Squeak is an
image-based environment, a lot of the "view source" functionality comes
for free, whereas Python, despite its apparent similarities with
Smalltalk and Lisp, doesn't appear to have quite the same level of
convenient support for both live editing of objects and process
persistence.

The next message in the thread referenced above mentions Pygame, which
is where a lot of people believe such work should be done with Python.
Perhaps the Python density in that thread isn't great - it's not a
bunch of core developers agonising over C API minutiae - but the
significance of the project along with the issues involved is certainly
worth exploring.

> >    E..and the best way to try the latest Python-related developments
> >    in the OLPC project:
> >        http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2006-December/007441.html
>
> And this has no obvious relation to its description

The Sugar environment is the user interface for the OLPC project. If
you look at the "human interface guidelines", you'll see the following:

"To enable such layered exploration, OLPC has written much of what can
be in Python, a scripting language, to enable children to view the
source code."

One of the more discussed topics in various places outside the Python
"mainstream" recently was whether it was convenient to try out the
Sugar environment without having the OLPC hardware. The referenced
message attempts to provide some clarity in the matter, but once again
it's the further discussion that adds extra value, I think.

Paul