The XO laptop gets a Windows makeover

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Hi Robert,

On 27.10.2008 00:57, rihoward1 at gmail.com wrote:

> On Oct 26, 2008, at 4:09 PM, Albert Cahalan wrote:
>
>   
>> Booting both into Windows would allow file sharing.
>> Compared to what Sugar does, file sharing is very reliable.
>> It works with **all** programs, without any developer effort.
>> It's compatible between different software versions, different
>> types of software, and even different OSes. It even eliminates
>> the need to maintain a continuous network connection, which is
>> great for kids without wired networks or reliable electricity.
>>     
> As for Windows file sharing I could show you situations in which  
> Windows file sharing fails miserably and

You conveniently claim that you *could* show situations where file
sharing fails miserably, but then you leave out the actual description
of any of these situations. I don't doubt they exist, but in general
Windows file sharing works really well for a rather large number of users.
And I'm fairly confident that sharing (copying/reading/writing)
arbitrary files reliably even in the face of intermittent network
outages is a quite useful capability to have.


>   contrary to what you state  
> Windows file sharing is not compatible between all operating  
> systems.

And here you're refuting a straw man. Nice fallacy. Note how Albert
wrote about "different OSes" and not your "all operating systems" straw man.


> A few of your statements are so bizarre they don't even  
> deserve a response.
>   

You missed the opportunity to actually point out which statements you
consider bizarre. No justification of your statement is given. That
allows anyone to invoke that statement on select yet unspecified parts
of your e-mail.


> Means of file sharing can be setup fairly easily in Sugar if you want  
> to move raw files around. Currently file sharing is performed through  
> activity sharing.
>   

Does "setup fairly easily" mean someone has to write a program
("activity") to do it? If yes, it's not easy (yet). Will it work with
arbitrary binary files? If not, it's just as sensible as people loading
a file into MS Word and saving it at some destination instead of simply
copying the file over. I have seen that, and while I admire the
creativity inherent in that action, it is slower and forces users to
look at the contents of the file which may not be desirable. And yes,
I'm going to give you an example: If someone shares an image via the
paint program ("activity") with you and you find the image offensive,
your only way to show/share that with the teacher is to look at the
image again.

Anyway, I am looking forward to your enlightened and detailed response.


Regards,
Carl-Daniel