Hi,
My six-year old daughter, was playing with the Star and Mixed objects in 3.9. I showed her SHIFT-CLICK short cut to turning handles on/off and then stood aside to observe her. She was thrilled to discover that regular polygons change into stars when alternate corners are moved towards center ('big stick, little stick, big stick. little stick and so on'). But when she discovered that a 'triangle' could change into a 'circle' by increasing the number of vertices, she got so excited and started jumping up and down in her chair! It was a big 'aha' moment for her.
This is something that could not have been done with her play sticks. Squeak is unique in its ability to enable such discovery processes.
My daughter won't sit before a computer for more than a few minutes at a time (except during 'aha' moments when she will keep repeating that action for many minutes). Objects like star ('sticks') and the mixed curve ('dough'), line ('rubber band'), in 3.9 make it easy for children to move smoothly between real-world play and virtual play on Squeak. The Squeakland plugin is much easier for children in many other aspects but misses out on such handles in objects.
What does it take to see such upgrades in Squeakland plugin?
Regards .. Subbu
squeakland@lists.squeakfoundation.org