In a message dated 2001-09-26 7:15:47 PM, gafisher@sprynet.com writes:
The implication that there was something bad in the interface because it was intuitive after second or third attempt strikes me as the comment of someone who doesn't want to take chances, but taking chances is the foundation of most learning.
As is often said, the only intuitive interface is the nipple; everything else is learned.
I haven't gotten the hang of Smalltalk AT ALL yet, but that's not going to keep me from reading this list, getting all the goodies and updates and following links to more information. Someday, I'm sure I'll get the hang of it, and be grateful for "hanging in there." - Regardless, I know I'm not really such an idiot either, even though I strongly feel that Squeak is very powerful, easy to use (for the rest of you, obviously) and innovative. Oh, and complaining that the English-only interface is a hindrance, well, Computerchannel.de is German-only, but I was still able to figure out what they were talking about. Nice site ("optically" anyway ;) --Flee
Fleeberz@aol.com said:
Oh, and complaining that the English-only interface is a hindrance, well, Computerchannel.de is German-only, but I was still able to figure out what they were talking about.
What a dumb remark. They're talking about kids here, and I can assure you that the average kid's English outside the US or UK is by far not enough to use Squeak. If Squeak aims to be something for kids, it needs to be internationalized.
Cees wrote:
They're talking about kids here, and I can assure you that the average kid's English outside the US or UK is by far not enough to use Squeak.
Yes, and unfortunately, 3.0 doesn't include any of the cool stuff that we've just started to do for eToy localization. If you're on the latest 3.1 then do the following: * open a viewer (you don't have to but its much more impressive) * go into the world's help menu and choose "set language"
BTW, when giving demos I found that some (adult) people in Germany didn't respond to an English to German switch as I had expected. I then changed the demo to start with Kiswahili viewers and going from there to German turned out to do the trick and help them understand what kids *see* when they look at a foreign language ;-)
If you're interested in localizing the eToy system then have a look at #addKiswahiliVocabulary and #addGermanVocabulary. It's very simple and it would be nice to get some more languages into (at least) the eToy system.
Cheers, - Andreas
Andreas Raab Andreas.Raab@gmx.de said:
If you're interested in localizing the eToy system then have a look at #addKiswahiliVocabulary and #addGermanVocabulary. It's very simple and it would be nice to get some more languages into (at least) the eToy system.
Cool. It's probably about time I lift my head from dusty ol'VW and grab a fresh copy of Squeak anyway - I'll see whether I can produce a Dutch vocabulary.
Regards.
Cees
Anyone contemplating doing such a translation will benefit from first reading the preamble to update 4340, particularly the section that begins "Attention translators".
There is a single template method provided that you can edit into your translation method.
-- Scott
At 1:31 PM +0200 9/27/01, Cees de Groot wrote:
Andreas Raab Andreas.Raab@gmx.de said:
If you're interested in localizing the eToy system then have a look at #addKiswahiliVocabulary and #addGermanVocabulary. It's very simple and it would be nice to get some more languages into (at least) the eToy system.
Cool. It's probably about time I lift my head from dusty ol'VW and grab a fresh copy of Squeak anyway - I'll see whether I can produce a Dutch vocabulary.
Regards.
Cees
On Wed, 26 Sep 2001 Fleeberz@aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 2001-09-26 7:15:47 PM, gafisher@sprynet.com writes:
The implication that there was something bad in the interface because it was intuitive after second or third attempt strikes me as the comment of someone who doesn't want to take chances, but taking chances is the foundation of most learning.
As is often said, the only intuitive interface is the nipple; everything else is learned.
[snip]
And when one says it, one is saying something that is (likely) false, or at least misleading, about the nipple.
Many babies need some assistence and guidence with latching on. They have reflexes, of course, and there's an amazing feedback loop.
But, for some understanding of "learned" there's some sort of "learned" behavior there.
"Intuitive" doesn't mean "unacquired" or "obvious". Hell, "obvious" doesn't mean "obvious" (for some sense of obvious). After all, we *miss* obvious stuff *all the time*.
Logic joke: A logic prof was working through a proof for a class and at one point she said, "...and the steps between here and here are obvious...". A student asked, "Are they really so obvious?" The professor looked at the board. And looked at the board. Then, startling the class, she smacked her had to her forhead and walked out the door.
45 minutes later she rushed back in and said, "Yes, it's obvious!"
Cheers, Bijan Parsia.
Bijan Parsia bparsia@email.unc.edu said:
Many babies need some assistence and guidence with latching on. They have reflexes, of course, and there's an amazing feedback loop.
Don't forget the mother here - not only the baby needs to learn :-)
Fleeberz@aol.com wrote:
I haven't gotten the hang of Smalltalk AT ALL yet, but that's not going to keep me from reading this list, getting all the goodies and updates and following links to more information. Someday, I'm sure I'll get the hang of it, and be grateful for "hanging in there." - Regardless, I know I'm not really such an idiot either, even though I strongly feel that Squeak is very powerful, easy to use (for the rest of you, obviously) and innovative.
The way I learned was by finding a simple morphic demo or program, change a few parameters, open the morph and see what had happened... Do this over and over again until you know what to change to get what you want. Then expand by cutting and pasting in code from other places, testing and debugging a few thousen times you will suddenly just know how to do it the next time.
I allways browse with optinal buttons on and use the senders of and implementors of all the time to see how stuff is used elsewere in the image.
Karl
On Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 09:00:36PM +0200, Karl Ramberg wrote:
[snip]
The way I learned was by finding a simple morphic demo or program, change a few parameters, open the morph and see what had happened... Do this over and over again until you know what to change to get what you want. Then expand by cutting and pasting in code from other places, testing and debugging a few thousen times you will suddenly just know how to do it the next time.
Ditto for me, too. I can't quite remember where I started...I think I began dissecting some of the simpler stuff like Tetris, and then Celeste. I learned a lot in a very short time, which really amazed me. And this includes the classes that don't even have class comments!
It always amazes me how Squeak-- Smalltalk-- is so 'self educating'. Heck, the only Smalltalk book I have is the old Purple book, which I've only read about half of...and I only recently acquired both the "white" book and the "dark blue" book (which are all excellent reading, I must say).
I allways browse with optinal buttons on and use the senders of and implementors of all the time to see how stuff is used elsewere in the image.
Karl
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Scott Wallace