[sugar] The XO laptop gets a Windows makeover
Albert Cahalan
acahalan at gmail.com
Sun Oct 26 21:54:54 EDT 2008
On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 7:57 PM, rihoward1 at gmail.com
<rihoward1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> File sharing is not an active real time collaboration tool by any means.
Right. Active real-time collaboration is nice, and I wish my
own editor had it, but I think you're overvaluing it greatly.
> In sugar multiple children can work on the same write document, paint
> document, etc. at the same time and a copy is saved locally.
Last I heard, this is not true regarding the paint program.
It's not true regarding most programs in fact. Peer-to-peer
collaborative software is far from trivial to do decently.
> 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.
Right, it could be fixed. There has been recent effort,
but Windows is still way ahead in this critical area.
> Just because MS Excel is used by some for science, engineering and
> statistics does not mean it is the correct tool for the job. There are too
> many serious problems with MS Excel that have never been fixed and have
> caused serious problems with a number of scientific projects, etc., that
> relied on MS Excel. I too can use a screw driver to hammer a nail into a
> wall but does not mean it is the correct tool.
It often is the correct tool, especially when you consider
things like ease-of-use and versatility. Turning your data
into pretty graphs in a report is easy with Excel. There is
even a built-in programming language, just in case you
should feel the urge to use one.
You can do your science while becoming familiar with a
typical business app. That's an excellent deal.
> I agree with you that there has been a dearth of decent educational software
> on all platforms. There is a chance to start a fresh with a new platform
> that is not encumbered with a legacy of poor offerings in that area.
Many have gone down that path, generally resulting in
a fresh new legacy of poor offerings.
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