[Edu-sig] PySqueak: More on Croquet and 3D

[kirby urner]

On 5/17/06, Paul D. Fernhout <pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:

<<SNIP>>

> ground, etc.), right now, I don't think computers (and interface
> technology) are not going to be close enough to 100% reality to make it
> worthwhile to channel all our interactions with them *first* through a
> first person 3D view.

I tend to agree with all of the above.

However, between Croquet and a completely flat GUI, there's a
spectrum, and we're seeing signs of Cartesian 3Dness creeping in, but
not all that overwhelmingly, e.g. six desktops become the faces of a
cube, but you only zoom out and rotate the cube when flipping to a
different desktop (doesn't happen all that often unless you're by
nature frenetic):

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2006/05/blabbing-on-edu-sig.html

Even more subtly, windows have been garnering depth cues for years,
plus gradually straying from the purely rectangular:

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2004/12/interface-designs.html

(I've this curvilinear motif on CBS News too -- TV and computer screen
aesthetics interpenetrate in large degree).

> You're absolutely right here. I think 3D is a great thing for visualizing
> data to understand issues and help solve problems, and a great way to
> communicate whatever the 3D representation chosen (realistic to whatever
> degree or even totally schematic or even mathematically abstract). And I

Games!  World Game is less apologetic for using the word "game"
because it's more about happy stuff than what got plotted on the old
War Game boards.  We're more light-hearted in our approach to global
simulations, though just as into cross-checking and verifying.
Vigilance against sloppy scholarship remains of paramount importance.

> attempt to make it easy to do 3D collaborative applications. But, in
> considering Croquet as the evolution of Squeak as a kids programming
> environment I see an implicit intent based on my interpretation of Alan
> Kay's intent (perhaps in error?) that Croquet is what we should all use
> all the time when we are at the computer. I think that implicit intent is

That will never happen, except sure, maybe *some* people will eat
their own dog food in this regard.  In general though, people are too
curious to ever alight on one generic omniembracing containment
system.  That's what reality is for.  Within reality, all GUIs are
special case.

That being said, let's use Croquet sometimes, why the hell not?  I'd
especially like it on a much bigger screen with a projector, and with
less of an Alice in Wonderland flavor (I've already got Alice, the
computer game, which twists the scenario into something darker and
more gothic -- closer to Batman in flavor, and therefore more
comfortingly all-American in my book (but who wants something that
twisted for an interface? (we should at least be able to "skin"
Croquet in some dimensions, according to personal taste, if it really
purports to be more of an operating system and less of an
application))).

> what bothers me, because, perhaps conditioned by experience (?), I think
> approaching the computer (as it exist now and for the next ten to twenty
> years) expecting a third person experience is better (i.e. more flexible,
> less disappointing, more effective for most tasks) than approaching it
> expecting a first person experience (where that first person experience
> will be missing things for the foreseeable future). Anyway, a
> philosophical point of interface design for me to muse over some more.
>
> --Paul Fernhout

Some will experiment with other shapes of screen.  Imagine the
challenge of fitting a GUI to an hexagonal frame.  Very Klingon.  Very
Dymaxion.

Kirby

PS:  you're mentioned in my blog too by the way:
http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2006/05/home-schooling.html