New eToys [Was: Re: [Etoys] EToys question -- clearly I'm missing some key concept]

Alan Kay alan.kay at squeakland.org
Thu Jan 25 12:53:01 EST 2007


Hi Milan --

Yes, it is much too early to talk about the new architecture (we are 
still thinking). However, it will be along the lines (but quite a bit 
further) of the WYSIwiki that we did as an experiment last year (and 
is written up in an excellent paper by Takashi Yamamiya, Yoshiki 
Ohshima, and Scott Wallace that was just presented at C5 in Kyoto.

Cheers,

Alan

At 11:03 PM 1/24/2007, Milan Zimmermann wrote:
>On 2007 January 23 16:01, Alan Kay wrote:
> > Right --
> >
> > Well, the next version of Etoys ... (heh heh) ...
>
>trap for the impatient :)
>
>Alan,
>
>Is it too early to share some details about the architecture (I am wondering
>whether the new version will be based on Morphic, Tweak or something else,
>also whether existing projects are planned to be be loadable etc)
>
>Thanks Milan
> >
> > ... will make it much much easier to expose new functionality to the
> > children via the Etoys interface. Currently, this is doable, and
> > people do it all the time (especially in Japan, Germany and Spain)
> > but it is not a smooth process and reveals that Etoys started life as
> > a demo and never got re-done as a real system.
> >
> > The OLPC machine, besides being an impressive result just on its own,
> > is also a strong forcing function for us to expand Etoys to a wider
> > range of users and also to make a better architecture underneath (and
> > these are in progress), Meanwhile, we have to hit the build deadlines
> > of OLPC with the system we have.
> >
> > However, it would be great to hear from you about the project you
> > actually want to do in Etoys.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Alan
> >
> > At 11:50 AM 1/23/2007, Steven Greenberg wrote:
> > >On 1/23/07, Alan Kay
> > ><<mailto:alan.kay at squeakland.org>alan.kay at squeakland.org> wrote:
> > >Hi Steven --
> > >
> > >What you are trying to do is not Etoys, but to do something in
> > >Squeak Smalltalk using one of its graphics systems (called Morphic).
> > >Etoys is a UI that rides on top of Squeak Smalltalk. Its objects are
> > >called "Players" and the associated graphics of a player is called
> > >its "costume". Using Squeak Smalltalk, you can talk to the costume
> > >of a player by saying "self costume blah blah", where blah blah is a
> > >message that morphs understand.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >Hi Alan, thanks for the answer.  I think I actually do want EToys
> > >because I want my objects to be generically scriptable using
> > >tiles.  That example I asked about was chosen because it's something
> > >I already know how to do in squeak :-).  It's not the actual
> > >project, just a learning exercise.
> > >
> > >     Regards,
> > >     Steve
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