I did the tutorial about 3 months ago when I first started using RB. I
thought it was well done I think it would be especially great for
people who have no programming experience at all. For a lot them, the
Wow Factor (Wow! Isn't that cool?) would be met and they would also
learn something.
I am disheartened at how few books there are out there on RB. Some of
them I'm afraid to even bother with and others are outdated. I know
putting books together is not exactly an easy thing to do and it's not
necessarily cheap. Keeping them updated would also be quite a chore. I
think it would be in RB's best interest to start publishing more
in-depth and solid coding examples with theory that is also equally
detailed and solid. Relying on users to carry this load seems to be
rather limited, sometimes misleading and possibly even detrimental to
the success of RB, the company.
I think this would be a huge undertaking, but I bet that in the end, RB
would benefit from it.
Windows support also needs to be extended and/or documented more
thoroughly. Actually, lots of things need to be more thoroughly
supported and/or documented.
I really like the idea that Kim just suggested. I think this would be a
great way to REALLY show what RB can do. Sometimes I feel like RB is
hiding all its secrets.
At this point, the only reason I'm using (trying to use--I can be very
dense) RB is because it's the best cross-platform programming language
I've seen, but I don't want this to be the only reason I use it.
-----Original Message-----
From: gettingstarted-bounces at lists dot realsoftware dot com
[mailto:gettingstarted-bounces at lists dot realsoftware dot com] On Behalf Of
Kim
Kohen
Sent: Saturday, September 11, 2004 5:03 PM
To: RealBasic
Subject: Re: Survey: Did you do the REALbasic tutorial?
G'day Geoff
> If you did, what did you like and/or not like about it?
€€€€
I first did it years ago with version 3 and then again after getting
version 5 (V3 lacked some stuff I need so sat on a shelf unused)
I agree with whoever (joe?) suggested a modular approach. Whilst the
tutorial is reasonably thorough, it does take a while to go through it
and by the end has become parrot programming - read this, type this,
you're done. People with programming experience will probably find this
sufficient to pick up the RB syntax but for the actual programming
newbie they're probably not a lot better off than when they started.
Sprinkled throughout needs to be small challenges (with answers later)
to make sure their brain is 'getting it'.
I'd like to see the current tutorial remain but modularised. Each module
would be self contained but with the ability to be integrated with each
other.
Start with the basic window and plain text (I've read numerous requests
on this list along the lines of "how do I get the tutorial to save as
plain text?"). That way starters could have a working plain text editor
in say 30 minutes. Finish with good programming practice like checking
if a doc has been modified, saving etc.
Another module could handle RTF.
Another module could be "Now what if you want to save this into a
database for later reference". Now it's in the database, how do I get
it out and
display it? What about using a different database like MySQL.
Another module could be "Now what if you want to be able to email this
to someone?". This would NOT REQUIRE the person to have done the
database or rtf module! They could just email their plain text doc.
More advanced modules could be things like "Creating custom tags for
styled text" so people who want to create HTML or Quark text editors
can. This could be followed by how to FTP a saved document to another
machine so all those new HTML editors can be useful:)
Doing it this way, people can be introduced to sockets and databases and
advanced text crawling but only if they feel they need to. Currently
you're forced to make an RTF editor even if it's not relevant to your
needs.
I think the graphics/canvas parts of RB (which, BTW, I have never even
tried) should be an entirely different tutorial. Perhaps you could start
with a window and show how to load an image into it and eventually build
it into an image database. An advanced tutorial could somehow join this
and the text editor together to introduce the user to database
relationships. We could end up with a content management system.
The Office integration should be standalone also - because not everyone
is going to be needing it.
I guess what I'm saying is I'd like to learn what I need for what I'd
like to accomplish now. This would hopefully result in more satisfaction
and less frustration for beginners.
Oh, and finally, some clearer, newbie based class implementation stuff.
I have a very old and procedural mind and struggle with classes. I think
if the whole class thing could be made easier then people like me would
use products like yours a lot more.
I don't mean to be disparaging of the current tutorial - it does a
pretty good job whilst trying to appeal to the broadest audience - but
in trying to do just that, it can overwhelm the very people it's trying
to help.
I just realised how long this response is - the many feature requests
will have to wait for another day...
But hey, if you decide to implement any of this sort of stuff, I'd be
happy to road test it.
cheers
Kim
_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode:
<http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/>
Search the archives of this list here:
<http://www.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode:
<http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/>
Search the archives of this list here:
<http://www.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
|