[sugar] Education?

[Alan Kay]

Hi Simon --

We think this is a very good model for what should be done. We have 
been experimenting with a similar architecture and think this is a 
good route for providing a variety of editable views/UIs of 
programming facilities for different kinds of users.

Bert's reply to your email has some pointers to papers, lists, etc.

Let's talk some more.

Cheers,

Alan

At 01:27 AM 3/12/2007, Simon Forman wrote:
>I've got something I think may be useful and relevant to this discussion.
>
>I have been toying for several years with a system that I eventually
>named "xerblin" that provides a metaphor for computation that can span
>high level "Desktop" activities down to assembly language.  By that I
>mean that it puts grep and MOV into the same seamless framework.
>
>It works by presenting the user with a super-simple (yet Turing
>complete) model that permits creating new commands out of preexisting
>ones in a straightforward easy to understand direct manipulation
>interface.
>
>This model can be taught to non-computer-literate people; I explained
>it to my dad in about 30 minutes over coffee (he was 72 at the time
>and not very computer literate.)
>
>It also functions as a sort of user-manipulable AST.  There is a
>partial parser that transforms a subset of C into this xerblin model
>and permits exploration and modification of it on the fly.  That part
>is not included in the current demo as it makes use of a GUI widget
>that's being reworked, and because the C parser was in fact terrible
>as it was written under deadline for a conference.  I did manage,
>however, to turn a C for loop into a xerblin model, modify it using
>the mouse, and then execute it immediately with a click.  That went
>over well.
>
>In the current demo there is a much simpler parser for a much simpler
>little language that works the same way.
>
>As I said, this is strictly a proof of concept demo.  The concept it's
>proving is that you can use it with many languages and levels, it
>integrates them into one conceptual world, and then lets you play
>around and discover how to make things with it without getting in your
>way.
>
>Also, as a sort of curious serendipity, it resembles the sugar
>interface:  it makes use of a user-visible "stack" that is very
>similar to the sugar Clipboard and, at least in it's more mature
>forms, it was to make use of a Log to record user history, not unlike
>the sugar Journal.
>
>I plan now to implement it for sugar and then to use it as a platform
>to create some sort of "Children's Garden of Cybernetics" as an
>educational Activity for the XO.
>
>Anyway, there's my two cents.  Nice to meet you all, and if you want
>to look at xerblin, I've spent part of the weekend getting the site
>and demo in shape to mention on this list, but I must warn you that
>this is a simple little hobby project that I made as a proof of
>concept and I'm not too proud of the code quality.  Also, I haven't
>tested it on other platforms, but it should work on linux.  You can
>check it out at www.xerblin.com (sorry about the dot-com, it's not..)
>
>There's a lot more I could say about it, but I don't want to spam the list.
>
>
>~Simon
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