[Tuxpaint-devel] [fwd] Tux4Kids project(s) and Google Summer of Code

[Bill K. <nb...@so...>]

David from the TuxMath project responded over on the tuxmath-devel list
(used for TuxMath and Tux Typing both, I believe)

Fwd'ing to tuxpaint-devel...

-bill!

----- Forwarded message from David Bruce <db...@ta...> -----

Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:19:35 -0400
From: David Bruce <db...@ta...>
Subject: Re: [Tuxmath-devel] Tux4Kids project(s) and Google Summer of Code
To: tux...@li...

Hello,

On Tuesday 11 March 2008 06:17:44 am Tim Holy wrote:
> On Tuesday 11 March 2008, Bill Kendrick wrote:
> > Seen on the libSDL mailing list.  I happen to know two of the people
> > at Google (Chris DiBona and Leslie Hawthorn), and had mentioned Tux Paint
> > participating in GSOC to Leslie.  She suggested applying.
> >
> > Would the Tux Paint, TuxMath and/or Tux Typing projects like to
> > participate? I'd be happy to act as the 'administrator/main contact' for
> > Tux4Kids.

Last year, Mobin Mohan and some colleagues added Indic language support to Tux 
Typing.  At least initiallly, it was going to be a GSoC project, although I 
don't know if it was officially submitted as such.

> I could act as a mentor for some or all of these. Some of these involve
> things that I'm not an expert at (i.e., I've never really built a C/C++
> GUI), but I'm sure we could figure it out. Obviously, if David (Bruce) has
> the time & interest, he'd be a great mentor, too.

I'm happy to help, although I must point out that I'm not formally trained as 
a programmer - my CS courses were in the early 1980s on punchcards in AlgolW 
before I went to medical school (when dinosaurs walked the earth...).  I also 
will be moving to a new job and city over the summer.


Thoughts on things to fix or implement:

TuxMath -
1. Agree with Tim's suggestions.
2. It would be great to make the game more themable - support both the 
penguin/igloo theme and the old cities theme.  My daughter has suggested we 
could have an "Islands" theme with small islands/palm trees, an "Egyptian" 
theme with pyramids and sphinxes, etc.
3. Add a new game or activity(ies) concerning factors and fractions.  I've 
been kicking around the idea of an Asteroids-inspired factoring game, which 
could be called "Factoroids", where the big rocks (products) get split into 
little rocks and they get eliminated when they are completely factored into 
primes.
4. svg and higher resolution graphics - although lots of schools have old 
hardware, 640x480 is getting to be really ancient for fullscreen.

TuxType
1. The source tree needs to be rearranged into a more sane state.
2. Use standard GNU gettext instead of the homebrew version.
3. Autodetection of what chars are "typeable" through SDL and the OS rather 
than the theme-specific keyboard list files - it looks like SDL 1.3 will 
allow this, from some of the threads on the SDL list.
4. More "content" - practice sentences, finger exercises, etc.
5. Better graphics as mentioned above for tuxmath.
6. In-game support for editing word lists and practice sentences.

Some of these are obviously better suited to a summer project than others.  I 
think a good project would be something quite modular, such as the factor 
game idea.

> >
> > We have until TOMORROW to apply (March 12th!)  See the various links
> > below.

Meaning TODAY! - yikes.  I'm just heading off to work, but I may have some 
free time.  I'm glad I'm in the Eastern time zone, so that gives me until 
3:00 PM...


-- 
David Bruce

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-- 
-bill!
bi...@ne...
http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/