EdTechDev

developing educational technology

Developing Interactive, Scalable HTML5 Apps on the Cheap: Serverless, Unhosted, No Backend, BAAS, PAAS, Oh My

I’ve written before how HTML5 is the platform of the future for developing interactive educational apps, and you can even develop (code) in your browser (or chromebook) now.  Well, the future is here, and HTML5 is still looking to be the best option, but there are some wrinkles.  One is the slow pace of multimedia support in HTML5, in particular audio (a counterexample is 3D, in the form of WebGL, which is coming along faster than I expected).  Two other things are actually good, but still challenging problems – 1) the explosion of HTML5 and Javascript frameworks: Meteor.js, AngularJS, Ember, Backbone, CanJS, Knockout, yadda yadda yadda (I’m particularly excited about Meteor, but none of these frameworks seem to have “ease of use” in their vocabulary, and accessibility is usually an afterthought, if considered at all – Dojo being one exception), and 2) the explosion of languages that compile to JavaScript: Coffeescript, Dart, TypeScript, yadda yadda yadda (Dart is one that interests me at the moment).

But one problem in particular has been my biggest hurdle, which I discuss more here: the cost of scalable hosting.  With “old-fashioned” desktop apps or single-user applets or web animations or games, you can fire and forget it.  Develop your app or site, slap it up on the web, and people download it or visit it and use it.  Static web hosting is practically free (like this WordPress blog).  However, if you want social features, persistence (database), or other things like that, you need to have a database or other backend at minimum, and it needs to be able to scale.  I’ve always had my hopes up for Drupal - it is still my favorite go-to solution for social but non-interactive web applications, and several folks are using Drupal as a backend for HTML5 or mobile apps, but it is not so easy or so cheap to scale up.  A lighter weight alternative to Drupal, perhaps built on node.js and MongoDB, has not yet emerged.

nobackend logo unhosted logo

The Serverless, Unhosted, No Backend Options

Anyway, so, one hurdle to developing interactive educational HTML5 applications on the web is the cost of scalability.  Web hosting is cheap (or even free) at the beginning, but can quickly spiral out of control and sometimes lock you into a proprietary platform (like google appengine).  I could get a grant, but what about when the funding runs out?  I could beg for money by posting my ugly mug at the top of every page like Jimmy Wales did on Wikipedia, but I’m not a sadist.  I’m not a venture capitalist/entrepreneur, and unfortunately, I’m not at a university that supports or provides web application hosting (I used to be able to just run apps off the computer under my desk as an undergrad, grad, and professor, or by running cheap virtual private servers for as little as $15/year when scaling up wasn’t much of a concern).

Here are some sites that describe lower-cost, open source, and scalable cloud hosting solutions, by either letting visitors host their own data (in their browser’s local cache, or on dropbox or google drive or another site), or by using a cheaper backend-as-a-service that your front-end connects to. [Really, none of these (except WebP2P) are completely "serverless", and many do not eliminate the costs, either, but it is progress.]  Various terms have been used for some of these concepts: serverless, no backend, unhosted, and there are also new and cheaper cloud hosting services that provide a backend-as-a-service (BAAS) or a platform-as-a-service (PAAS).

  • No Backend – “a new approach to build data driven apps without thinking backend.” See the solutions and examples listed.
    • Firebase and deployd, for example, while not removing cloud hosting costs, make it much easier to develop the backend for web and mobile apps.
  • Unhosted – “freedom from web 2.0′s monopoly platforms” – came before the “No Backend” movement and looks to be completely open source and not tied to one third-party platform. Their site also lists various tools and example apps that let users control their own data.
    • Nimbusbase is an interesting option that uses Google Drive or Dropbox to store your user’s data.
    • And here’s a sample PouchDB & CouchDB-based conference scheduling app that also works offline. (Just as some have stated a mantra that we should develop HTML5 applications “mobile first“, some have also stated that we should try to develop with “offline first” support, too, and to that I would also add “accessibility first“)
  • WebP2P (peer-to-peer) is an effort that builds on top of WebRTC (real-time communication) to allow for truly serverless web apps – apps that connect from browser to browser.  It is still very new, and only supported by bleeding edge versions of Chrome and Firefox (although there is a WebRTC datachannel polyfill to fill in some of the functionality for other browsers).  See the WebP2P mailing list and WebRCT Google+ page for more info and examples.
    • ShareIt, based on DirtyShare, is a proof of concept that allows you to share files from your browser
    • PeerJS wraps the WebRTC implementation to provide a complete, configurable, and easy-to-use peer-to-peer data API.
    • Open Peer is another WebRTC-based P2P Protocol & Specification
    • GrimWire is a RESTful Browser OS that does Peer-to-peer over WebRTC.  It is built on the Local framework, which allows you to securely run user applications on the page using Web Workers.
    • KadOH (Kademlia Over HTTP) is a framework to build P2P applications for browsers and node.js. By implementing the basis of the Kademlia DHT used for decentralized peer-to-peer networks.
    • hackview is a webRTC based multi-person video chat with a collaborative editor
    • There are several other WebRCT based video chat apps and demos: appRTC is a basic demo, veckon is more polished, conversat.io adds a lunar lander game for you to play while waiting for others to join you, and the folks at Mozilla have a widget to embed video chat into your own website.
    • There are various WebRCT SIP/VOIP gateways becoming available.
    • The AirTheremin uses WebRTC and the Web Audio API to let you control sounds using gestures in front of your webcam
  • Data URIs – New browsers support very long URLs, and you can actually store quite a bit of data in it, such as text or even an image.
    • Shortly is a serverless pastebin service that uses this technique
    • Jot is a note-taking app that also lets you encrypt your notes with a password through a client-side javascript encryption library
    • The webSemantics Data to URI Converter will convert your image to a data URL
    • DataURL will similarly convert files or images to data URLs for embedding in HTML or CSS files
  • Back toward more server-centered strategies, the Backend-as-a-Service (BAAS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PAAS) Wikipedia pages list several cloud hosting providers, none of which really solve the cost issue, because you still have to pay for scaling up, but they can be cheaper on the whole than prior solutions.
    • OpenShift by RedHat is an open source PAAS that I have found very interesting, and it appears to be very reasonably priced (and free for the entry level).  You can host anything with it, node.js, Drupal, Java, etc.
    • The BAAS market appears to be a very hot topic at the moment (see this BAAS ecosystem map), especially after one provider, Parse, was bought out by Facebook.  But Apstrata is one that looks interesting, because you only pay by the number of users you have (under 500 is free), and it is made to work with Dojo Toolkit (and other options), which as I mentioned is accessible and also incredibly full-featured.

For an older article that hinted on this “serverless” trend, see Why The Future Of Software And Apps Is Serverless, and a newer article explores the No Backend movement in more detail: NoBackend: Front-End First Web Development.

May 10, 2013 Posted by | drupal, html5, opensource, programming, software, technology | , | Leave a Comment

Considering MOOCs: Pros, Cons, Questions

Here are slides for a talk I’m giving to my university about issues to consider before offering MOOCs or accepting MOOCs for credit.

Considering MOOCs: Pros, Cons, Questions from Doug Holton

I also participated in a webinar about MOOCs for corporate learning, hosted by Jeanne Meister of FutureWorkPlace. A few slides related to that are at the end of the above presentation.

My last advice to both groups is that, even if you decide to not go with MOOCs today, keep a close eye on them.  MOOCs are evolving extremely rapidly, both technologically and pedagogically.  See for example these MOOCs that are pedagogically more interesting than just videos and quizzes: Passion Driven Statistics, Learning Creative Learning, and the Open Learning Design Studio MOOC I mentioned in my previous post about pedagogical issues with MOOCs.  There are also millions of dollars being invested in MOOC development, with both new and old tools evolving to accommodate the unique demands of MOOCs.  Several MOOC platforms are emerging, both free (Instructure’s Canvas.net, Blackboard’s CourseSites, Google+ Communities and Hangouts and other Google Apps) and open source (Class2Go, OpenMOOC, CourseBuilder, edX, P2PU, WordPress).

So 6 months from now, a year from now, MOOCs may look quite different.

And my first advice to everyone is: try a MOOC out for yourself.  That’s the best way to better learn about them.

February 28, 2013 Posted by | edtech, education, moocs, opensource, teaching, technology, Uncategorized | , , | 3 Comments

ContentNotEditable: What the “death” of the mouse and keyboard means for content creators

First let me start with some disclaimers to try to make sure this post is not misinterpreted: I am not arguing that the mouse and keyboard are really dead or that the lack of a mouse on tablets is a bad thing.  I am not arguing that the ipad or similar devices are awful for education or content creation.  I am just thinking about how to make them even better in these areas, and conceptual and technological roadblocks in the way.  Some of the criticisms of the ipad as a content consumption device (here, here), have been addressed with the ipad 2 and other new android tablets with their inclusion of cameras and input ports, and some tablets are even coming out with a stylus, like the HTC Flyer.

But imagine any creative person – creating a 3d character for a game, drawing a picture, composing a music score, creating a graphically rich document or presentation, etc.  They likely have something in their hand, or their hands are busy doing something.  When that involves interacting with a computer they are likely clicking the mouse to drag something around or edit text, for example, or using a stylus on a digitizer surface (like a wacom) for drawing, or typing away on a keyboard.

These input devices are all essentially gone on new tablets and smartphones.  You can still type (slower) on virtual keyboards, and you can click like a mouse with your finger (tap).

An example of the impact of this is rich text editing, like with a word or openoffice or google docs document.  Many browser-based wysiwyg editing tools, which are used virtually everywhere, such as in moodle (which uses the TinyMCE editor) or drupal, no longer work when you access them from an ipad or iphone or android device (or other mobile platforms like blackberry or palm webos).  Even the newest “HTML5″ editors, such as Aloha Editor, pop up an error message if you try to access them from a mobile device.  Other browser-based editing and drawing tools also no longer work on these new platforms, or you have to draw with your fingers.  Most of Google’s and others’ tools like Google Presentation do not work on mobile platforms.  Really, just imagine most any software people use on a desktop to create stuff – like office, or the flash ide, or gimp/photoshop, blender 3d, etc.  Even when programming, which really is just typing in plain text, we usually prefer to use IDEs that popup suggestions and corrections to help us out.  For many of our desktop apps its hard to even imagine them working on a tablet or phone.

The rich text editing tools in browsers like TinyMCE or CKEditor primarily rely on the contenteditable HTML attribute to support editing.  Add that attribute to an HTML element, and the contents of that element become editable inside the web browser.  It works in all browsers, including old Internet Explorer versions. It doesn’t really work well or even at all on mobile browsers though (see here, here, here, here).

Newer versions of android, webkit, and mobile firefox have been slowly improving their support for contenteditable, and maybe they will eventually “fix” the issue, but I’m not sure that this will be fixed through engineering alone.  Some code editors like codemirror 2 and the ace editor are trying out workarounds like using a hidden textfield that captures key presses.  Codemirror 2 works on an ipad somewhat, the ace editor does not.  It remains to be seen if a similar trick might work for a rich text editor (it’s tricky enough just to do it for plain text).  And like I said, the HTC Flyer and other tablets (esp. those being designed for medical and other professionals) are starting to include a stylus, and it remains to be seen if that will catch on (it didn’t before with older tablets).  Others are coming out with dual screen tablets, where the second touchscreen can work like a touchpad on a laptop or nintendo ds, but that also may not catch on.

Another more general alternative strategy to this issue of tablets having no mouse or other input devices other than the touchscreen and the camera (which can be used for gestural or other input), might be to conceptually rethink how to support multimedia creation on these mobile platforms.  Perhaps we should drop the notion of “documents” or “pages”.  After all, you don’t think of a flash widget as a page or document.  You don’t think of a game as a set of pages or documents.  And Apple and other developers have already created apps for some specialized types of content creation and creativity, such as musical instrument simulators and so forth.

So, this may be a pre-paradigmatic moment where we’ll see what catches on: will we try to perfectly “emulate” the mouse and stylus and its supported interactions via other means such as gestures, or will new and unique types of interactions continue to catch on (like multitouch stuff).  Probably a combination of both, but so far the camera is hardly being used at all for input, other than recording videos or taking pictures.  And some may dismiss the idea of a stylus ever catching on again, but Apple has occasionally made “mistakes” before (the first mac didn’t have a floppy drive, for example), and others have been successful in incorporating a stylus, like the Nintendo DS, which my little boy continually loses :)

March 3, 2011 Posted by | android, computers, development, edtech, html5, opensource, software | 2 Comments

Some Exciting New HTML5/Javascript Projects

This an update of sorts on some things happening in the HTML5/Javascript world.  First, here are some previous posts on this topic, to catch you up to speed:

Some Exciting New HTML5/Javascript and Related Projects

Here are some interesting new software projects and libraries and tools I’ve run across since my previous HTML5 post:

January 14, 2011 Posted by | development, html5, java, opensource, programming | 2 Comments

Android Tips, Open Source, Educational Apps

Like I mentioned in the previous post, the CES show next week promises to reveal a slew of new android tablets and phones, so we’ll see what is announced (and what is actually released).

Here are some android tips & resources I’ve run across in the past year:

Some free educational apps:

Some free games:

  • angry birds, of course
  • minisquadron
  • hungry shark
  • falling ball
  • sliceit
  • hit the penguin
  • air attack
  • hyperspace
  • my paper airplane
  • toss it
  • winds of steel
  • flying high

December 30, 2010 Posted by | android, children, opensource, technology | 1 Comment

A Snapshot of the HTML5/Javascript Universe

This is a follow-up to “What’s the Platform of the Future for Developing Interactive Graphical Educational Software?“, which I argued is HTML5, especially since java applets and flash don’t work or aren’t well supported on mobile and emerging tablet platforms (like the ipad and android tablets).  I’m lumping many things under the “HTML5″ moniker, including the HTML5 Canvas element, WebGL for 3D, and various Javascript and CSS frameworks and libraries, even though most of the latter weren’t designed for HTML5 in particular.

Here’s a taste of the current tools and frameworks out there for developers interested in learning more about this platform.  Probably the first thing you have to decide though, is are you more interested in running your HTML5 app on mobile phones and tablets (iPhone and iPad’s iOS, Android, and to some extent Blackberry and Palm), or in a regular desktop browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, IE…), or both?  Some tools for mobile web app development are listed below.

Keeping Up with the HTML5/Javascript/CSS Universe

First, here are some places to keep up with this rapidly evolving field:

General Javascript Application Frameworks & UI Toolkits

  • JQuery – most popular and almost universal javascript framework.  It lets you ‘select’ elements in the DOM to operate on, in a very functional way. See numerous jquery tutorials, books and plugins and jquery.ui.  Has a little mobile support (touch/swipe).
  • YUI – very java-like user interface toolkit from Yahoo, very complete and accessible.  They have started adding mobile support (touch/swipe/etc).
  • See this comparison of javascript frameworks for others such as Sproutcore, Dojo, qooxdoo, mootools, etc.  Some other frameworks listed on that page actually involve coding in Java (or another language) which is converted to javascript, such as GWT and pyjamas.
  • JS Optimizers – to compress/obfuscate and combine into one file your js code see Google Closure Compiler, YUI Compressor, JSMIN
  • Mobile application frameworks – these frameworks are specifically for creating mobile applications (iphone/ipad/android) using javascript/html5, although usually that doesn’t include the canvas yet, and also unfortunately most of their demos work ONLY on mobile platforms, not on the desktop.  The main problem is that on the desktop with a mouse you can click and drag and drop, whereas on mobile/tablets with no mouse you touch and swipe and so forth instead. One decision you also need to make is, do you want to access native elements of the mobile platform (like camera, tilt sensor, etc.).  If so, see the first two options (PhoneGap and Appcelerator).  The latter options often work with PhoneGap, too.
    • PhoneGap – has an open source permissive license. They support Blackberry and Palm and Symbian and so forth, as well as iOS and Android.  They create a native webview wrapper for your HTML5 app, so that you can access native things such as the camera or sensors.
    • Titanium from Appcelerator – also has an open source permissive license, for fast, native mobile apps developed with javascript/html5 that can access native sensors and so forth, too.  See their kitchen sink demo and other demos.
    • Sencha Touch – built off of ExtJS and JQTouch – any app you develop with it either needs to be GPL or else you have to pay for a commercial license from them.  Can work with PhoneGap, they have some nice demos, esp. for the iPad.
    • Ansca Mobile – Corona SDK, better for game development, commercial license.
    • appMobi – commercial, too, I believe
    • Rhomobile – you actually develop in Ruby and it converts it to a javascript/html5 mobile app

HTML5 Canvas & Javascript Drawing / SVG Libraries

There are hundreds of html5 canvas demos out there if you search around.  Again, unfortunately many canvas demos do not work as well on mobile or tablet platforms, or lack interaction support (drag or swipe or whatever).  The harmony demo listed below is one exception.  Android 2.2 will incorporate a much faster v8 javascript engine from google, and future versions of the webkit browser used by most mobile/tablet devices will hopefully add support for 3D with webgl, too.  See the WebGL / game development stuff in a later section below.

Alternate Languages/Parsers/Class systems for Javascript/CSS/HTML

As I mentioned in the previous post, one potential downside of the HTML5 platform (at least from a beginner’s perspective), is that you are stuck with the javascript language (as well as HTML and CSS).  Well, that’s not always the case now.  There are alternate languages that compile to javascript (like coffeescript) or css (like Sass and Compass) or even HTML (like HAML).  Javascript, in a sense, is the new C.  Many of the types of tools we used to mainly see in Java-land are also now available in javascript, such as parser generators.

  • Coffeescript – alternate language that compiles to javascript.  It is still mostly like javascript, but adds some things that make your code much more concise.
  • Sass and Compass – alternative to CSS – adds some smarter features to CSS like variables and so forth
  • HAML – alternate to HTML, not as popular perhaps, or as needed as the above two, since there are 2000 HTML WYSIWYG editors out there.
  • Javascript parser generators – if you want to create your own DSL or language:
    • jison – used by coffeescript
    • PEG.js
    • canopy – ties you to his ruby-like JS.Class library
    • ANTLR‘s javascript target – not so lightweight, but has a lot of advanced functionality and features, such as being able to create better error messages
  • Actionscript to javascript – see Jangaroo and Gordon
  • If you want a more ruby or java-like class system (inheritance, traits, mixins, design by contract,etc.) to use rather than javascript’s built-in prototype object system, see:

Server-Side Javascript

Javascript is no longer a language that only runs in the browser.  It has become a first class language for the server / desktop, too.   Just run “node myscript.js” for example like you would any other kind of script on a server or linux box.  Coffeescript works with node.js on the server or desktop, too.

  • node.js – Uses Google’s fast V8 javascript runtime.
  • narwhal – an alternative to node.js
  • CommonJS – a standard library for javascript, mainly meant for the server-side at this point.  node.js and narwhal implement commonjs.
  • npm – a package manager for node.js, similar to gem for ruby
  • I’m still waiting to see a drupal-like content management system built all in javascript.
  • Jake – a build tool for javascript (like make, rake, etc.)
  • WebSockets – a new HTML5 feature that allows for better persistent server-client connections.  You’ll find some demos around of multiplayer games and web pages that use websockets, and on github there are node.js websocket server examples.  You need the Chrome browser or Safari or  Firefox 4 beta.
  • ExpressJS – server-side web application framework

Javascript Game Development, 3D & Physics Engines

Further evidence that javascript is the real deal, you can do 3D and interactive games with it.  To run the WebGL stuff you’ll need a recent build of the Chrome (or Chromium) browser or Firefox, see the Learning WebGL FAQ section.

Browser-based Development Environments

  • See my earlier post Browser-Based IDEs, but also these:
  • jsdo.it – Has built-in support for javascript libraries such as processing, jquery, etc., and you can share/fork/rate code.  jsFiddle is a similar tool.
  • http://sketchpad.cc/ along with hascanvas and others work with processingjs for creating animations
  • I mentioned it in the previous post, but the bespin editor continues to evolve and improve.  It now supports code completion using jsctags.
  • GUI Designers – really nothing out there that is finished and free and open source (see Ext Designer for a commercial option), other than of course free WYSIWYG HTML designers, but see these rough demos:
    • Opus-js – see the composer demo
    • Blok – rough demo for Joose, runs on google app engine

August 1, 2010 Posted by | android, development, html5, opensource, programming, software, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Setting Up and Maintaining Netbooks/Laptops with K-12 Students

I currently have a small set of netbooks with Ubuntu Netbook Remix (download) installed that I use for various projects.  If I were to set up a classroom netbook/laptop cart for a K-12 class or a school-wide 1-to-1 netbook/laptop program, I would follow what Jim Klein did as part of the SWATTEC program at the Saugus Union School District.  They also used Ubuntu Netbook Remix, but with nice extras like a nice 10 second recovery system (by keeping system files in a read-only partition using UnionFS) and battery-life optimizations.  The philosophy is, instead of locking down the machine, make it easy to recover from any mistakes (even the teacher can recover a netbook without needing tech support).

See Jim’s Linux on Netbooks instructions on how to setup such a netbook program for your school.  Jim also has shared various presentations and other resources related to the program.

Karl Fisch blogged about how he implemented a variation on Jim’s program.

By the way, if you are in the market for school netbooks, or suffering from iPad envy, you might check out the $500 Eee PC T101MT touchscreen netbook, described in this liliputing post.  It’s been reported to work perfectly fine with the latest version of Ubuntu (10.04, Lucid Lynx, due out later this April).  Students can draw notes and pictures on the device (with a stylus), plus it has USB ports and a webcam, unlike the iPad.

April 3, 2010 Posted by | computers, opensource, software, technology, ubuntu | Comments Off

What’s the Platform of the Future for Developing Interactive Graphical Educational Software?

So, what is the platform of choice for folks who want to create interactive graphical educational software (see for example all the stuff at PHET and NLVM). Currently, there are two primary options: Flash and Java Applets. I’m not covering in this post web applications, which can still use just about anything you want: PHP, Java, Ruby, Python, .NET, etc., or business/office/administrative software which can either be web apps or desktop apps coded in C++/Java/.NET/Python, etc., or 3D desktop games, usually coded in C++/Java/.NET/Python. I’m centered on interactive, graphical educational software like you see all over the web now.

The PHET project, for example, uses both java and flash. These haven’t always been the main options, however, and I suspect it will change again in the near future. Here’s a short history of some of the development tools I’ve leaned on for educational software development over the past 15 years:

  • early 90s – hypercard / supercard, Perl/CGI for web apps
  • late 90s – java, visual basic, real basic, PHP emerges for web apps, javascript in the browser
  • early 00s – by this time, commercial options no longer cut it for me, too many bugs, ignored feature requests, too expensive, vendor lock-in – free and open source is king: python, java (later open sourced), C#/vb.net (esp. the Mono open source clone). Unfortunately there is no alternative to the commercial, proprietary flash, which becomes king of RIAs (rich internet applications) instead of java applets.
  • late 00s – by this time, desktop apps no longer cut it. RIA is king for creating interactive graphical educational apps – java and JVM languages like scala, and still no real alternative to flash (there is javafx, but it hasn’t largely caught on yet, and just about all the demos so far require you to download the app (JNLP) rather than run in the browser, despite support for JNLP applets). The move to RIA means no more Mono/.NET since it doesn’t run in the browser – support for silverlight is weak/non-existent on many browsers/platforms. And no python, although perhaps one day browsers will support it as an alternative language to javascript. I’m not holding my breath on that though. Mono/.NET is emerging again now in 3D virtual world space, however, because it is the basis for Second Life / OpenSim, and its only open source competitor, the java-based Project Wonderland is no longer supported by Oracle, who bought out Sun. The project is continuing outside of Oracle, but it’s future is unclear.
  • early and late 10s? – This is the question of this post. Mobile platforms can no longer be ignored, and that means no java. Actually android is essentially java (dalvik), but standard java applets do not work. Flash is only just now being ported to work on android, and it may become available for the iphone as well, although Apple is hostile to it (as well as java). Since google doesn’t support browser applets (even android applets), and Apple wants total control of their platform, Flash is only increasing its dominance and importance.

HTML5

Since Oracle bought out Sun, and there is no support nor any planned support for java on the android and iphone platforms, it appears the only open source alternative for the future of RIA apps may be HTML5. But that cannot be used for creating the kind of highly interactive graphical educational software that you can create in java and flash. For this to work in HTML5, it would require WebGL, a 3D (OpenGL ES) canvas for HTML5. WebGL still does not work out of the box on any mobile platform, but it has been or is being ported to work on WebKit (the browser engine for Palm’s WebOS and the iphone web browser) as well as android. Currently, to run WebGL you need to grab a nightly build of Firefox, WebKit, or Google Chrome (I’m trying out the last one). Official builds will have likely have built-in support for WebGL come November 2010 or so perhaps (Firefox 4). Here are some more resources on WebGL:

The main drawback to the HTML5 platform is that javascript is the only language supported. That’s not a problem for me, personally, I’ve been using javascript since when it was called livescript. But my interest also is in programming languages/tools that make it easier for students, teachers, and other non-CS types to develop interactive educational software, as discussed in this chapter (pdf). A workaround for now would be to create a to-javascript compiler for alternate languages, as has already been done for java with the GWT project (which has various WebGL controls in development: WGT, GWT-G3D, GWTGL, GWT-WebGL), but in the long run it would be best if a common runtime were developed for WebKit and Firefox to support other languages than javascript, but then we are just re-inventing java and the JVM. So I don’t dismiss the java platform at all just yet, but it’s definitely not having a good year so far :)

February 7, 2010 Posted by | android, development, html5, java, opensource, programming, scala, software | 14 Comments

Using Ubuntu as your sole operating system in academia

I’ve been using Ubuntu Linux as my sole operating system for two years now, ever since before I became a professor. The switch was completely painless as I had already been using the same software on Windows and the Mac for years (such as OpenOffice, Firefox, VLC, Pidgin, Netbeans, Eclipse, JEdit, Inkscape, Gimp, etc.). I wrote about making the switch to Linux gradually over 6 years ago, and I dual-booted to Windows and Linux for a long time, but Windows was still my primary OS until 2 years ago.

There was some software I had to change when I made the switch, but I was planning to do so anyway. For data analysis instead of SPSS, I learned R, which is more powerful (see these notes for getting R and a GUI interface installed on Ubuntu). I had to find a different tool to make screencasts. Luckily they are all free in Linux. I used gtk-recordmydesktop, but there are also Istanbul, WebcamStudio, and others. For music instead of Winamp there was the winamp-clone xmms (and now Audacious). Of course there are itunes alternatives too. Wine can be used to run any Windows-specific software, including games. Second Life has a Linux version that works just fine, too, and Adobe AIR applications like Tweetdeck, Thwirl, and Seesmic Deskop work just fine. All web-based applications from Youtube to Google Apps to whatever work great in Firefox – you can install the latest Adobe Flash and Sun Java 6 plugins too.

The only reasons I’ve been still booting to Windows occasionally now are to make screencasts that show how to do things in Windows (which most students are using), and also to use the Wimba whiteboard/chat application that our university uses. Wimba is a Java applet-based application and should work on Linux fine, but it runs a “check my system” test first which complains and fails.

Also, our university stopped its proxy server that I was using to get off-campus access to journal articles in favor of a VPN instead that doesn’t work in Linux, but now I just use an ssh tunnel to campus instead which works just fine (see these instructions for ssh tunneling).

June 19, 2009 Posted by | opensource, research, technology, ubuntu | 9 Comments

Platforms for Developing Open Educational Software

Below is just a basic list of what software tools are popular now for creating various types of applications. I only post it because it changes from year to year and not everyone keeps up with this kind of stuff. I was also interested to see how well the Java platform could serve as an all-purpose open source stack for developing all kinds of educational software. It’s not always the best or most popular solution for some types of applications, but it does have the widest presence overall. Of course Sun, which controls Java, is being bought out by Oracle, which may have an impact on some of the below options (like perhaps project wonderland or javafx). I have nothing against .NET either (and esp. its open source clone, Mono). In fact for a good while I was the 2nd most active contributor to the Boo programming language and compiler that ran on the .NET/Mono CLR platform. But the fact that it still can’t do browser applets is a big strike against it for my purposes of creating educational software. Silverlight (and open source clone Moonlight) are making progress but still not there. Flash/Flex and Java are still the two best options there (with HTML5/Canvas being another up and comer). Google’s Java-like platform (such as Android) is becoming more dominant as well. They just released O3D, a new 3D multi-user browser plugin, replacing their earlier discontinued Lively tool. However it only runs on Windows and Mac and is still in early development. If they released a browser plugin for running Android applications they’d almost have the total stack as well, but I have a feeling Sun/Oracle wouldn’t be happy about that.

I didn’t have time to hyperlink everything – you can google to see the various tools in more detail.

  • Learning Management Systems
    • Moodle (PHP)
    • Sakai (Java)
  • Web-based application frameworks
    • Rails (ruby)
    • Grails (groovy)
    • Turbogears, etc. (Python)
    • Cake, Symfony, etc. (PHP)
    • JSP, Struts, Velocity, Tomcat, etc. (java)
    • ASP.Net (.NET/Mono)
  • Cloud computing services
    • Google Appengine (Python, Java)
    • Amazon EC2
    • Sun cloud
  • Content management systems
    • Drupal (PHP)
    • Joomla (PHP)
    • Plone (Python)
    • DotNetNuke (C#, .NET/Mono)
  • Browser-based Ajax/Javascript frameworks
    • GWT
    • JQuery
    • Mootools
  • Browser applets
    • Flash/Flex
    • JavaFX, Java
    • Silverlight (.NET) Moonlight (Mono)
  • 3D multi-user virtual worlds
    • Second Life / OpenSim (.NET/Mono)
    • Project Wonderland (Java)
    • Croquet (squeak/smalltalk)
    • O3D (Javascript, new from Google)
  • 3D games
    • Java – JMonkeyEngine, JOGL, LWJGL, etc.
    • C/C++
    • .NET – XNA
  • 2D games/simulations
    • Netlogo, Starlogo, Repast (Java)
    • Pulpcore (Java)
    • Processing (Java)
    • PyGame (Python)
  • Cell phone applications
    • Android (uses java-like language and runtime by google)
    • iPhone (apple)
    • JavaFX mobile
    • Java ME
  • Desktop applications
    • .Net/Mono System.Windows.Forms
    • Java Swing
    • C/C++ – GTK, QT
    • Python – PyGTK, wxPython, etc.

May 24, 2009 Posted by | development, java, opensource | Comments Off

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