Actually, thanks for that, I didn't know about that stuff, and it looks really useful. If I can figure out how to get the drawings to move then it will do what I want. (to visualize the action of unitary matrices on Hilbert spaces)
But my point was that in 1982, my non-technical parents bought me a computer and then I was away. A couple of months later I had an animated model of the solar system. And I hadn't read anything except the spectrum manual (and the equivalent one for the TRS-80).
I can work out how to do the above installation for my hypothetical 12 year old son, but my poor father wouldn't have had a chance. And I suspect that the same would be true for most non-techie parents.
And how is the hypothetical son supposed to go from the pretty blue curve created by the magic plotting program to an animated solar system?
I can't see how to make the graphs move. Perhaps it can be done. Perhaps it can't and I should use SDL instead.
The point is that it is not obvious to me. Whereas the equivalent questions were obvious to a child thirty years ago.
Regarding a minimal setup python environment, which requires nothing more than a newbie parent to download, PythonTurtle or Squeak is probably what you want.
I think the issue is mainly just lack of knowledge that truly newbie friendly environments exist. Perhaps the solution is simply better advertising of squeak, or perhaps having it come preinstalled (as OLPC did)?
Incidentally, the animation info you seek (admittedly, not suitable for newbies):
for i in range(numframes):
[...code to make frame...]
savefig("framedir/" + str(framenumber).rjust(8,"0")+".png")
os.system("mencoder -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video:vbitrate=1500 -mf type=png:fps=16 -nosound -of mpeg -o movie.mpg mf://framedir/\*.png")
sudo apt-get ipython sudo apt-get install ipython ipython -pylab sudo apt-get install pylab sudo synaptic (<--used it to find pylab packages) sudo apt-get install python-matplotlib sudo apt-get install python-matplotlib-data sudo apt-get install python-matplotlib-doc ipython -pylab
And then the program works.
Actually, thanks for that, I didn't know about that stuff, and it looks really useful. If I can figure out how to get the drawings to move then it will do what I want. (to visualize the action of unitary matrices on Hilbert spaces)
But my point was that in 1982, my non-technical parents bought me a computer and then I was away. A couple of months later I had an animated model of the solar system. And I hadn't read anything except the spectrum manual (and the equivalent one for the TRS-80).
I can work out how to do the above installation for my hypothetical 12 year old son, but my poor father wouldn't have had a chance. And I suspect that the same would be true for most non-techie parents.
And how is the hypothetical son supposed to go from the pretty blue curve created by the magic plotting program to an animated solar system?
I can't see how to make the graphs move. Perhaps it can be done. Perhaps it can't and I should use SDL instead.
The point is that it is not obvious to me. Whereas the equivalent questions were obvious to a child thirty years ago.