Internationalization - do we have a plan?

> From the tenor of your comments in our conversation thus far I'll take leave to
> doubt that you will be interested in the Tommelise project at any time under any
> circumstances whatsoever.

You are free to doubt :-)

The one sentence you quoted before expressing such doubt was preceeded by two others, each of them containing specific expressions of interest. You apparently chose to ignore or discount those. (Along with several other specific questions I have asked along the way).

Simplified electronics and using lower cost motors both sound really good to me, for example. Those sound (to my non-hardware-expert ears) like clearly useful improvements. But only if their designs and associated firmware/software are published, open source, and so replicable. Otherwise they are not of value to Reprap, which has "Rep" in its name and replication at its heart.

It seems to me, rank amateur though I am at electronics, that it might well be possible to take a board using a single powerful 18F series PIC and 3 motor controllers, and program it to appear on the SNAP network as being 3 Reprap Darwin stepper controller boards, for example. If so, then such a board could be used as a drop-in replacement for those 3 boards, lowering both electronics and motor costs. That would be great to see in Reprap v2.x or so, IMO. [It saddens me that Tommelise has apparently diverged so far from Reprap that your board won't just drop in to a Reprap setup in this kind of fashion already; there is now significant extra development cost in incorporating those improvements, work that might have been avoided].

I'm most definitely not qualified to look at electronics and motor and mechanical designs and determine their quality, precision, ease of construction, etc. OTOH, I *can* look at code and read a lot from it. But doing so when the codebase concerned is not public, and whose author apparently does not (yet) want it made public, for a project with replication at its heart, simply doesn't make sense to me. So I'm not interested in doing that. And I have made that clear.

I repeat: when that codebase becomes public, I'm interested enough to read it.

Jonathan

> Look, I could make similar remarks about both Java
> and C with considerable justice. I mean, Java3D,
> puleeze!

Possibly. I am not the one who stated that software should be written to be as simple as possible, though. That was you! Your choice of toolset does not seem to match your stated principle.

> BASIC is what I've chosen mostly because the
> syntax is quite simple and is regularly used
> successfully by very young kids.

So is Python. So are some dialects of LISP that were expressly designed for young kids, like PLT Scheme from Rice University. Ease of learning BASIC is not so superior to learning Python or Scheme that it justifies proprietary (non-replicable) development tools. There is quite a bit of work on Python as a first programming language going on at both high school and college levels, and there has been for several years now. The online papers I have read seem generally very positive.

It's amusing, you mock Linux as being based on a 1970s design, but feel that a 1960s-designed programming language is superior to all the modern alternatives for learning how to program? Can you point to recent studies justifying that superiority of BASIC as a first programming language?

> There's nothing stopping someone from using a
> machine translator to take the code into Java.

True, but only at an "end user" level, unless they wish to turn their backs on all the BASIC-using folks completely.

As software developers, once the code is translated, its developers can't contribute back to the BASIC codebase, and every time they grab an updated BASIC codebase (and retranslate it to Java/Python/LISP) they have to re-merge their changes. So much for teamwork and collaborative development!

Jonathan

Forrest Higgs wrote:

> As I said, I've already given out several copies.
> No strings or NDA's. If you want to characterise
> that as "not public". Fine. Don't, however,
> expect the rest of the world to agree with you.

Let me do a quick check, maybe I misused or misunderstood the word "public". I'll use a well known online dictionary... [www.m-w.com]

Webster defines the adjective public as follows:

> Main Entry: 1pub

Zach,

Let's see. I've been replying to a bug report on the setup script, enhancing the setup script as a result of that feedback and re-publishing it, and playing with some initial ideas about repackaging Java3D and RXTX libs for simpler installs, all while engaging in this dialogue. Oh, and trying to point Eric towards a solution to a current issue with Lamarck once or twice. And exchanging a couple of private msgs with you. I've answered a few emails. Oh, and getting a little real work in, too...

I've learned much about Forrest and Tommelise from this dialogue, most of which is not published at his site. I have done that without calling anyone names, being disrespectful, or using offensive language in any way (I sincerely *hope*!).

And... it's been fun! :-)

Jonathan

RepRap Forum Mailer wrote:
> Author: jmarsden Username: jmarsden
> (pool-71-103-170-244.lsanca.dsl-w.verizon.net) Subject: Re:
> Internationalization - do we have a plan? Forum: Developers Link:
> [forums.reprap.org] Approved: Yes
>
> Zach,
.
.
.
>
> And... it's been fun! :-)

I don't know. I go offline for a few days to mark some exams, then
discover that a Heated Debate has been going on about - well - L., the
U. and Everything...

It was quite entertaining to read, and it did fill up my inbox and stop
it looking all empty and unloved...

Can I call time on it now? :-)

--

Best wishes

Adrian

Dr Adrian Bowyer
[staff.bath.ac.uk]
[reprap.org]
_______________________________________________
Developers mailing list
Developers@reprap.org
[reprap.org]