11 Dec
2006
11 Dec
'06
3:16 p.m.
Cesare Marilungo wrote:
David Baron wrote:
Sorry. I've been harsh in my reply, with no true reasons to do so.
I should have just said that maybe you've to give it another try. Or
investigate a bit more on the project.
Sorry again.
c.
--
http://www.cesaremarilungo.com
Just installed it. A very creative but
frustrating package. As with
too many of these things, one must be able to read and that in
English (or a few European languages?). Fine print abounds in what at
first looks like a very sparse UI.
The program abounds with objects and widgets. Some very creative and
versatile, others frustratingly crude. Graphic objects like squares
cannot be resized (nothing stops one from reprogramming them and then
dutifully uploading the scalable versions for others to
enjoy--smalltalk was once the rage.)
Smalltalk 80 is, well, 26 years old. Before Unicode so is
incompatable with mutlingual keyboard choices. No Hebrew for my
daughter, not in UI and cannot type it in to text objects either.
Truetype fonts (newer than smalltalk80) are beatutiful but they are
also Unicode based nowadays.
I think most kids would enjoy trying various widgets but run out of
patience doing anything more with them. Most adults would as well.
A model (allbeit not an audio app) for a program sutiable for
children but versatile enough to be of interest to their parents as
well: Tuxpaint. This one is superb and is also in use in many
schools. (Also needs more languages in the UI!)
Apart from Alan Kay himself
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viewpoints_Research_Institute), take a
look at the Viewpoint Research Board of Advisors:
http://www.viewpointsresearch.org/about.html
John Perry Barlow, Vint Cerf, Richard Dawkins, Doug Engelbart, Marvin
Minsky, Nicholas Negroponte, Seymour Papert and so on.
Doesn't any of these names ring a bell? Anyway, at VR, they're using
and continuing the development of squeak.
Did you know that you're making ridicule of a big chunk of the history
of informatics?
Ciao,
c.