% Defining Sugar
% Michael Stone
% July 11, 2010

Once upon a time, I asked some friends[^friends] to help me to distill my
thoughts on Sugar into a definition short enough to be (potentially) memorable.
On the off chance that it's still relevant, here's what we worked out:

  > *Sugar is a collection of affordances for action, reflection, and communication
  > chosen for their significance to learning.*
  >
  >   * *Sugar promotes action because people learn by doing.*
  >
  >   * *Sugar encourages reflection because people learn by discovering and
  >     resolving confusions[^confusion].*
  >
  >   * *Sugar stimulates communication because people learn from one another.*

[^friends]: Most of the usual suspects pitched in; namely: [Walter], [Brian],
[Bernie], [Asheesh], [Scott], [Chris], and [SJ].

[^confusion]: This linkage between reflection and confusion is inspired by John
Boyd's 1976 paper ["Destruction and Creation"]. References to better
explanations of the learning-value of reflection are most welcome.

["Destruction and Creation"]: http://goalsys.com/books/documents/DESTRUCTION_AND_CREATION.pdf

[Walter]: http://walterbender.org/
[Brian]: http://evenmere.org/users/bts/
[Bernie]: http://codewiz.org/
[Scott]: http://cscott.net/
[Chris]: http://printf.net/
[Asheesh]: http://asheesh.org/
[SJ]: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/sj/