kirby urner wrote:
Or committed company employees, or crew members, or television screen
writers...
Good point.
By the way, SourceForge is finally allowing logins again, so there is now
a proper release here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=165910
I wonder if you've contacted Kevin Altis, the PythonCard developer I
know best. Robin Dunn, author of wxPython is also local (we've met
many times). I saw the new wx book at Powell's Technical, and almost
bought it (I'm waiting for a bigger book budget to materialize, so I
might expand my library).
To be clear, it is limited PythonCard compatibility, but it is using TK to
achieve that, not WX. Eventually, I hope to improve the wx GUI, but the TK
one is more advanced right now and the PythonCard compatibility is built
on that. So, you can take your PythonCard resources (simple ones) and
build TK GUIs with them (at least, as far as laying out widgets,
connecting code still needs to be done by hand, and automating that is not
a priority for me, if it would be doable at all given various issues).
It's a tribute to PythonCard's modular design of using a resource file
that I was able to do this with PataPata.
The basic difference between PythonCard and PataPata is that PythonCard
seems focused on helping you develop GUI-oriented Python applications
faster and in a more maintainable way, whereas PataPata attempts to give
you a live world of Python objects where some of those objects are Morphs
and non-visual Prototypes.
Still, I'd expect the PythonCard project might not like a competitor?
:-) I'm all for friendly competition of course -- but the reality is there
are only so many volunteer developers to go around at any specific time,
so if PataPata picked up some I would expect PythonCard might lose some.
Certainly I could have tried to improve PythonCard rather than make
something different. On the other hand, sometimes when something becomes
popular, say building GUIs in Python, then everyone benefits (say if VB
and Ruby and PHP developers switch to Python and either PythonCard or
PataPata). In the PythonCard case, since it is under a more permissive
license (BSD-ish) than PataPata (GPL) they do address different audiences.
So, see, some teamwork going on, though of an artifact mediated kind. I
think of that as a form of Stigmergy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmergic
Wow, I'd never have guessed. Same root as stigmata, no? Maybe not.
Never thought of that.
On etymology:
From:
http://www.answers.com/topic/stigmata
stigmata ... [plural of stigma, from Gr.,=brand]
From:
http://stigmergiccollaboration.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_stigmergiccollaboration_archive.html
Below are some variations on the terms origins (see the [poster for
references):
* ‘stigma’ (goad) and ‘ergon’ (work)…” to “…stigmergy (stigma: Wound
from a pointed object; ergon: Work, product of labour = stimulating
product of labour).
* from the Greek words stigma ‘sign’ and ergon ‘action,’ and captures
the notion that an agent’s actions leave signs in the environment, signs
that it and other agents sense and that determine their subsequent actions.
* [F]rom the Greek stigma: sting, and ergon: work.
So actually related in some sense I guess.
From there: Stigmergy is a method of communication in emergent systems
in which the individual parts of the system communicate with one another
by modifying their local environment.
So like when I mow my lawn in a certain pattern, signalling a
satellite, or when ETs use a crop circle to phone home, right?
Science fiction examples of stigging out (slang for exercising
stigmergic abilities).
Not quite the same, though interesting examples to work with. The point of
the individual or group stigmergic activity is not generally explicitly to
signal, which is what you give examples of -- people intending to send a
communication, but just doing it by making a large physical artifact.
Rather, the idea is that each actor does something that feels good to them
to improve their local environment, and other actors then build on their
work in some way, or connect their own independent work to the others work
on recognizing it. So the cooperation is mediated through the artifact,
but the artifact itself isn't necessarily intended as a signal (though it
could be). For a better example, it would be like your neighbor sees you
mow part of a crop circle in your cornfield, and they then decide to mow
another part of a circle along the same arc which joins up with yours
because it feels right, and so on, until soon your community has got a
really big circle around the whole neighborhood someone really could see
from space.
In the PataPata example, Gregor wasn't writing xturtle for PataPata, and
PataPata wasn't written to host xturtle, but it turns out the two things
can be used together. That is more like stigmergy in termite mound
building, where termites mill
