[Squeakland] drive-a-car newbie questions

[Ken Kahn]

Andreas -

Hi and thanks.

The alternative that I chose for ToonTalk is that when a user doesn't
care about the relationship of real time and simulation time then they
can do something similar to eToys and just change things by a constant
on each cycle. But when they do care they can move forward a constant
times the duration of the most recent cycle. This makes real time and
simulation time identical at the cost of a bit more complex programming
idiom. (Actually in the case of speed there is a built-in that does this
for you, but the problem then returns if you want to program a constant
acceleration.)

I lean towards the idea of encouraging kids to explicitly program to
account for the passage of real time but my colleagues in WebLabs are
sceptical and rather hide this complexity. Maybe explicitly relating
real time and simulation time is a good learning oppurtunity for kids.

Best,

-ken kahn