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

[Alan Kay]

Hi Milan --

At 11:07 PM 1/25/2007, Milan Zimmermann wrote:
>Hi Alan,
>
>Thanks for the article, very interesting. For the eventual delivery mechanism
>it would be a great "trojan horse" (in a good sense of course) if the plugin,
>when not yet installed, could install itself as 1-click on the page, without
>having to download and install an .exe or .rpm. (That is really not relevant
>to OLPC because it can come with the system there, but great for rest of
>browser users).

Unfortunately browsers don't work that way. If JS and DOM were as 
capable and fast as Squeak this would be easy. But the very reason we 
have to download an executable plugin to run Squeak/Etoys is that the 
capabilities of the browser are still lacking. To me, this is a huge 
problem that needs to be resolved (in part because many American and 
other school children are prevented from any downloads that involve 
plugins and/or executables by the sysAdmins of their school district).

Last year, we did do a Logo entirely in the browser JS and DOM to see 
what could be done. This worked. So the answer is: some things but not enough.

Cheers,

Alan


>I played with Tinlizzie a few months ago it was quite captivating, and
>amazing.
>
>Thanks and later, Milan
>
>On 2007 January 25 12:53, Alan Kay wrote:
> > 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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