Fwd: Flash + AIR on OLPC
-- Forwarded message -- From: Stanley Sokolow overb...@earthlink.net Date: Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 12:02 PM Subject: Re: Flash + AIR on OLPC To: Paul Fox p...@laptop.org Sorry, Paul, I just can't accept the idea that the target audience of the OLPC projects must necessarily include kids who are capable and interested in re-programming the software activities they're using.Moreover, would you want to modify and re-compile your application software (for example, Firefox) just to change the way it behaves with respect to which home page, web site filters, cookies, etc. etc.? That's what configuration options are for. Even if you want more versatility, the application can implement rules in xml or an application-specific mini-language or whatever. Rebuilding an application in Python should be a last resort and not even for the 99.% of target users of the system. How do you define constructionism in this context? Stan On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 11:31 AM, Paul Fox p...@laptop.org wrote: stanley wrote: I guess I don't understand constructionism. i think that's right. Is it reasonable to require that the development system run on the target machine? yes. it's one of the reasons most activities, and many of the system, is coded in python. If Apple had this requirement, all of the iPhone/iPod/iPad applications would be gone. We wouldn't have any of the millions of devices (mp3 players, routers, modems, fax machines, cell phones, etc.) that of course. but i don't think any of those would be considered educational tools, let alone embodiments of constructionism. (and nor would you, i'd guess.) have embedded processors not capable of running their development tools. The XO is the target machine. It's unreasonable to restrict development to tools that run on the XO. it's not that unreasonable. kids learn by doing, and exploring. that's kind of the whole point of constructionism. if you give someone a game written using python and pygame, they can (in principle) modify that game to change the playing rules. if you give them that same game written in flash, they can't. it's really as simple as that. whether one agrees with the notion that this is important will vary, of course. paul =- paul fox, p...@laptop.org ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Fwd: Flash + AIR on OLPC
stanley wrote: Sorry, Paul, I just can't accept the idea that the target audience of the OLPC projects must necessarily include kids who are capable and interested in re-programming the software activities they're using.Moreover, would you want to modify and re-compile your application software (for example, Firefox) just to change the way it behaves with respect to which home page, web site filters, cookies, etc. etc.? That's what configuration options are for. Even if you want more versatility, the application can implement rules in xml or an application-specific mini-language or whatever. Rebuilding an application in Python should be a last resort and not even for the 99.% of target users of the system. these are all strawmen, and i won't bother arguing them seriously. in fact, one of the reasons i wouldn't modify firefox as you suggest is _precisely_ because i probably don't have the source and tools at hand, and it will be difficult (yes, even though it's open source) to obtain them and configure all of the prerequesites. (ironically, the barrier to entry for modifying my own kernel is far lower than for modifying my browser, though the stakes are higher, of course. ;-) the barrier to entry for modifying applications written in a scripting language are lower still, and i'm more likely to do so, or, at least, to examine the code to see why something works the way it does. paul =- paul fox, p...@laptop.org ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Fwd: Flash + AIR on OLPC
Sorry, I keep forgetting to put the list manager in my addresses. Here's my latest message: -- Forwarded message -- From: Stanley Sokolow overb...@earthlink.net Date: Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 4:05 PM Subject: Re: Flash + AIR on OLPC To: mi...@bga.com I forgot to answer your statement below about Linux on the XO: On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 1:13 PM, Mikus Grinbergs mi...@bga.com wrote: ... p.s. People keep showing various Linux platforms (e.g., Ubuntu, Debian, etc) running on the XO. As far as I am concerned, if these people *want* to run Ubuntu, Debian, etc., then buying a modern netbook for that purpose will give them better performance than using the XO. When I started helping my wife develop an interactive math tutoring capability for the XO we bought from the 2008 G1G1 campaign, I looked at and tried the Sugar activities.None of them were capable of her necessary features: 2-way interactive whiteboard and 2-way interactive video and audio communications.Sure, some activities were in development trying to achieve these capabilities, but they weren't real yet. We tried a web services approach -- looked at various things like Go to Meeting.When we found www.Vyew.com, we saw what we needed. It worked on our PCs. Turning to the XO, the Browse activity with Gnash just couldn't run Vyew. When I installed the version of FlashPlayer that the laptop.org wiki recommended, it didn't work the XOs camera and microphone and didn't even operate the Flash settings dialog properly.Doing more searching, I found a version of Ubuntu that had been adapted to the XO by a user who called himself Teapot on the forum. It's a stripped down, lightweight version that uses Xfce as the window manager (hence it's called a Xubuntu distribution) and incorporates the same kernel that olpc used in the version of Fedora that came on our XO beneath Sugar, so it knows about the XO's unique hardware.After some work, I got it running from an SD card so I didn't have to trash the native operating system.I didn't do this because I wanted to run Linux -- I have other Linux machines -- but rather because it would let me get the job done, the system built with the features necessary for the tutoring project. If the XO comes up to that capability with Browse and Gnash, I'd run the native system.But it's not there, yet. We also tried to use Skype on the native Sugar/Fedora OS, but at that time, you had to do so many hokey work-arounds to fool the software into running Skype, it just wasn't feasible for a deployment with low entry threshold. The 6 to 12 year-old kids that are the prime target of the olpc mission don't care what platform is behind the screen. Just as in the Wizard of Oz, Don't pay any attention to that man behind the curtain. As the laptop.org mission statement says, It’s not a laptop project. It’s an education project. To me that says that the mission is not to empower kids to write programs or tinker inside the system, but rather to use the XO as an educational tool to learn about the world and life and such, to collaborate with each other across the room and around the globe, to explore the depth of knowledge on the Internet, etc. Stan ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel