[sugar] Pippy and Calculate

Julius B. Lucks julius at younglucks.com
Wed Sep 5 08:48:13 EDT 2007


Hi All,

This is just a thought, but for a while I have been thinking about  
providing hooks into python from existing activities.  What if  
Calculate provided a button that hooked into Pippy - when the button  
is pressed, Pippy would pop up, showing the underlying python code  
that is producing the math equation being focused on in Calculate.  I  
think this could be a great way to introduce children to python with  
context.  This could be thought of as as a gentle 'view source',  
focusing on math within python.

More generally, I would love to see such a hook in other activities  
to provide hooks into python in a specific context.

Just an idea.

Cheers,

Julius


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On Sep 5, 2007, at 3:06 AM, Walter Bender wrote:

> While in the abstract, Yoshiki has a great idea, I see three problems:
>
> (1) Especially for young children who are just beginning to read and
> write, imposing Python and its syntax on them is to high of a hurdle
> for accessing a calculator;
> (2) While I love Pippy, it has a long ways to go towards being
> friendly to the uninitiated: there is no debugger, for example; This
> is fine for the purposes for which it was designed, but to use it for
> a general purpose tool is a real stretch;
> (3) Reinier has added a very approachable feature set to the latest
> versions of the Calculator Activity: it lets you define variables and
> hence contruct word problems. It isn't a full-blown programmng
> environment, but it is one of many stepping stones for younger
> children.
>
> I would almost go so far as to agree with Yoshiki that for the more
> advanced calculator features: trig fucntions, etc., we do make the
> leap into Pippy or Etoys, but there is something simple and
> approachable to Reinier's work.
>
> -walter
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