Educational software [Fwd with permission]

[Douglas Loss <dloss@csrlink.net>]

I got this in response to my message about educational software, which
was reposted on Linux Weekly News yesterday.  With Michael's permission
I'm reposting it here.

Michael A Hamblin wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, Douglas Loss wrote:
>
> > I did see that my message to the seul-dev-apps
> > mailing list was picked up by Linux Weekly News.  Where did you see it?
> 
> I saw it in the LWN.  I have thought about the subject off and on but I
> haven't ever posted anything anywhere (I'm alregic to posting to Usenet :)
> I also thought about some sort of bindings between a common easy to
> program language (like Perl! I love perl..) to a graphical vector&bezier
> sprite-like environment... too bad I don't know how to do vector/bezier,
> X11 programming, or language binding :)  But a bit of stuff that did that
> would be good start to a toolkit for doing educational software.
> 

> A toolset that
> was free and based on
> an already stable programming language would make it possible for other
> Linux'ers to develop educational software.  This would also be cool
> because I could finally have that Calculus Trainer program that would've
> been so handy a few years back when I was struggling :)
> 
> What do you think? 
> I think it needs to be based on an
> existing language/s, for stability, and preferable something simple so
> people without much programming experience (schoolteachers) can use it.
> 
> I also haven't mentioned sound system yet, first step would be a midi
> player with on/off and instrument control and a simple soundfile playback
> (like a wav).  Next would be something to allow mixing of several sound
> events with digitally mixed midi and CD playback, and then probably last
> would be a text to voice sound system which doesn't sound weird :)  7th
> Level's games did used some sort of text->speech system that didn't sound
> like War Games :).  But that way any teacher/developer could download a
> voice to use and apply it with a minimum of effort.  That's a bit in the
> future... if you were to code it all from scratch.  I think the pieces are
> out there they just need to be put together and refined.
> 
> For the video system, vectors with beziers would be nice because they
> would allow scaling rotation and sprite changes fairly simply.  It should
> be set up so that a sprite can be a collection of sprites that can be
> changed quickle (to control blinking eyes and other facial features, a
> tapping foot, canceling variables in equations, etc).  Also further
> complicating things sprites will have to be able to pixmap based (with
> alpha support).  But unlike other such systems, there wouldn't be an
> arbitrary limit on the number of sprites :)  Of course, they would have to
> be nameable with stuff like "bean", "Wilber Gimp", "PuzzleCell 12,0",
> "Equation 2.1", etc.  That would make Perl most excellent for such a
> system :)
> 
> So I guess that a simple program would be something like...
> #!/usr/bin/xedsoft
> 
> $screen = new window()
> {
>    $width = 640;
>    $height = 480;
> 
>    clear
>    {
>        box (0,0)-($width, $height), black, solid;
>    }
> }
> 
> $text = new sprite()
> $text = vector_text( "Hello, World!", "Helvectica" , white);
> 
> $screen = put_vector $text,
>                      ( $screen.width / 2) - ( $text.width / 2),
>                      ( $screen.height / 2 ) - ( $text.height / 2 );
> 
> which would put up a 640x480 windows with the text "Hello, World!"
> centered in the middle, pretending the text is a sprite so we can move it
> around cleanly. (btw I've implied an interpreter here... I don't know of
> any non-programmer who wants to wait for compiling to go on...)
> 
> Well those are my thoughts on the matter :)  Too bad I'm up to my ears in
> school work or it'd be a really fun project... if I knew anything about X
> programming :)  maybe someone will be interested in working on it if they
> see this kind of thought behind it...? :) don't worry I didn't spend too
> long typing this up this morning.  My problem is I have plenty of really
> good ideas but no time or lack experience to implement them.

-- 
Doug Loss                 The more you observe politics, the
Data Network Coordinator  more you've got to admit that each
Bloomsburg University     party is worse than the other.
dloss@bloomu.edu              Will Rogers