David Baron wrote:
Just installed it. A very creative but frustrating package. As with too many
of these things, one must be able to read and that in English (or a few
European languages?). Fine print abounds in what at first looks like a very
sparse UI.
The program abounds with objects and widgets. Some very creative and
versatile, others frustratingly crude. Graphic objects like squares cannot be
resized (nothing stops one from reprogramming them and then dutifully
uploading the scalable versions for others to enjoy--smalltalk was once the
rage.)
Smalltalk 80 is, well, 26 years old. Before Unicode so is incompatable with
mutlingual keyboard choices. No Hebrew for my daughter, not in UI and cannot
type it in to text objects either. Truetype fonts (newer than smalltalk80)
are beatutiful but they are also Unicode based nowadays.
I think most kids would enjoy trying various widgets but run out of patience
doing anything more with them. Most adults would as well.
A model (allbeit not an audio app) for a program sutiable for children but
versatile enough to be of interest to their parents as well: Tuxpaint. This
one is superb and is also in use in many schools. (Also needs more languages
in the UI!)
Apart from Alan Kay himself
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viewpoints_Research_Institute), take a
look at the Viewpoint Research Board of Advisors:
http://www.viewpointsresearch.org/about.html
John Perry Barlow, Vint Cerf, Richard Dawkins, Doug Engelbart, Marvin
Minsky, Nicholas Negroponte, Seymour Papert and so on.
Doesn't any of these names ring a bell? Anyway, at VR, they're using and
continuing the development of squeak.
Did you know that you're making ridicule of a big chunk of the history
of informatics?
Ciao,
c.
--
http://www.cesaremarilungo.com
