A brilliant idea... Re: [Pharo-project] Pharo Sprint

I would have liked to be a fly on the wall during that, even though I
suspect it was way beyond my comprehension...


Which leads me to one of my most brilliant ideas ever (IMHO)...


With the second life setup used by NPR's Science Friday radio show
http://www.sciencefriday.com/

and the Metanomics virtual world TV show http://www.metanomics.net/

it IS possible to be a fly on the wall during such an event.


My idea: have 2 talented Squeak programmers working on some problem. It
might be a simple one or hideously complex or whatever. Have a skype
connection between the two + a VNC connection.

Now, pipe the skype into Second Life voice. Pipe the VNC into a passive
streaming QT connection. Simulcast on Second Life and a web page.

Leverage the metanomics mega-local-chat for kibbitzing and questions
(highlighted by prefixing QUESTION: to the local chat).

Now let the pair programming begin. Occasionally, one of the programmers
can glance at the comments flowing past from Second Life and the website
and respond (you can writer a filter the comments by the prefix
"QUESTION:", so they can go to a separate window, ditto with "SUGGESTION:").

What do you gain? You gain the ability to let other programmers look
over your shoulder during pair programming and discuss what is going on
quietly among themselves, which could make for a wonderful real-world
teaching tool. You ALSO gain the ability to have an unlimited number of
programmers glancing over your shoulder and making suggestions without
distracting the flow of the programming session.

This wouldn't be hard to set up. I know the people who work on the
Science Friday and Metanomics projects and I suspect they would be quite
interested in working this up. The only issue is $$ for the simulcast
video stream.

You could start small for tests and work up. With "unlimited" funding
you could easily have 500+ passive participants in the session once it
gets going.

Everyone is thinking "why not do this with croquet/cobalt?" The answer
is that you can! BUT, SciFri and Metanomics have already set up the
machinery for this on a large scale in Second Life, and there is a
pre-existing potential audience of many thousands of computer geeks who
lurk in Second Life already at any given moment. It would also be great
advertising for Squeak/Cobalt/Croquet if such sessions showed off some
spiffy aspect of those technologies.

You could have purely beginning level, intermediate level and advanced
teaching sessions, as well as real-world problem solving sessions. They
may or may not be widely watched, but you never know unless you try. And
imagine if such a session were slash-dotted and/or mentioned on Science
Friday...


Lawson (always in marketing mode)








Alexandre Bergel wrote: