Journal integration for Scratch

[John Maloney]

Hi, Eben.

Not to worry -- I did not see your email as an attack at all. You were  
just pointing out the fact that the Journal does support thumbnails  
and text info. That's a good point.

Something as innovative as Sugar simply takes time to mature, and you  
can't get everything 100% right the first time. You need to have real  
applications and real users and you need to iterate many, many times.  
Sugar is still in the "rapid-evolution" phase of its development.  
(Even more so for the Journal.) I've been working with the XO for  
about 18 months now, and over that time the software has made enormous  
progress. And rapid progress is still being made. I'm sure that things  
will continue to get easier over the next 18 months -- both for XO  
users and for those of us porting applications.

Keep up the good work!

	-- John


On Dec 18, 2008, at 1:25 PM, Eben Eliason wrote:
> Thanks John!
>
> My previous comments weren't meant as an attack against you or
> Scratch, of course.  We know as well as anyone about resource
> constraints!   I just want to keep everyone honest, and make sure that
> the broader goals for Sugar and the Journal don't get lost while we
> struggle to figure out how to reach them.
>
> I wish I could say "the Journal does all of these things
> wonderfully!", but alas, I can only muster "the Journal, as
> (re)designed, would do all of these things wonderfully!"  Hopefully
> we'll get there.
>
> - Eben
>
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 12:57 PM, John Maloney  
> <jmaloney at media.mit.edu> wrote:
>> Hi, Eben.
>>
>> Yes, using the Journal would be optimal for XO users, and perhaps  
>> we will
>> make Scratch do that in the long run.
>>
>>       -- John
>>
>>
>>>> Re:
>>>>>
>>>>> At the moment it is not possible to delete scratch projects easily
>>>>> (just in terminal) and our students have difficulty to understand
>>>>> the file and folder structure in the dialog with the very small  
>>>>> font.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, I see the problem. Your solution sounds like it would work,  
>>>> but
>>>> the downside is that browsing for existing Scratch projects would  
>>>> be
>>>> done using the Journal, rather than Scratch's "open" dialog. That
>>>> means the user would not see the project thumbnail and project  
>>>> notes.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure this is the downside.  That's one of the benefits.  In
>>> fact, the Journal itself supports thumbnails and a description  
>>> field,
>>> so a similar experience could be offered there, in a place that's
>>> familiar to those using Sugar.
>>>
>>> - Eben
>>
>>