OpenEuphoria

1. Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by andi49 May 27, 2015
• 4564 views

A Fairy Tale

I'am on Windows (no matter what Version, even Win7 or 8)

I like to learn a programming language.

Consider i found OpenEuphoria on the Web.

What do i find here (on OpenEuphoria.org)

I find some boilerplate (easy to learn, fast blahblahblah....)

What do i do next?

Download

What do i find? Eu4.0.5 from 2012 with an Editor from the early 80's

Okay, most people are off now. But i go on.

Oh, they have a wiki, let's see.

Ah, Frequently Ask questions...

What do i read mostly? 'Answer me'

Okay, not this worse...

I'am on Windows i like to program GUI programs (on Windows GUI is Basic I/O) ....
Okay, so i go to 'Absolute Beginners' (it's an easy to learn language!)...

They send me to 'Context text editor' why not... and then to the 'context highlighters...' damn page has vanished... okay, forget the rest.

But i really want to use this language, the advertising sounds too good.

Huh, there are links to 'Windows GUI Download' and 'Windows IDE Download'.

I'am really happy now. I have 2 zip files and i like them.

So far for this text:

Euphoria is a powerful but easy-to-learn programming language. 
 It has a simple syntax and structure with consistent rules, and is also easy to read. 
 You can quickly, and with little effort, develop applications, big and small, for Windows, Unix variants (Linux, FreeBSD, ...) and OS X.  

A Fairy Tale

3. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by irv May 28, 2015
• 4468 views

He's hardly a newcomer, been posting here for about 4 years.

I think the points are well taken. AFAIK, other programming languages, such as Python, make no claims to be either easy or simple. Because programming is neither easy nor simple.

Anyone with programming experience is going to want to know why Euphoria is 'better' than what he or she is using. We do have some bragging points there. Why not forget the easy/simple claims, and emphasize the real advantages.

Anyone without programming experience is just going to complain when he picks up the computer mouse, and says into it: "Make me a game!", and no game appears.

We can't help those folks.

5. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by _tom (admin) May 28, 2015
• 4462 views

Thanks for the checklist of things I should be working on.

More importantly, thanks for tinEWG.

The essence of what o[ needs has been solved by Andreas Wagner.

http://euphoria.indonesianet.de/

You get: oE install, UI, editor, and designer.

Sorry about the delay in recognizing what you have accomplished.

(I actively avoid using Windows so it does take a year or two to catch up.)

_tom

7. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by ghaberek (admin) May 28, 2015
• 4485 views

This is absolutely correct. Euphoria is easy to use (for programmers). Programming itself inherently difficult.

No Silver Bullet explains that certain aspects of programming contain essential complexity that cannot be avoided.

Sequences are incredibly powerful and easy to use. I think we need to do a better job of leveraging that in our propaganda.

-Greg

9. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by BRyan May 28, 2015
• 4421 views

It is in the aechive.

http://www.rapideuphoria.com/cgi-bin/asearch.exu?dos=on&win=on&lnx=on&gen=on&keywords=Files+for+ConTEXT+Editor

Bernie

11. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by ghaberek (admin) May 28, 2015
• 4430 views

Go to contexteditor on Google Code. Click Source. Click Browse. The latest source is under svn/0.99.x/src.

-Greg

13. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by irv May 28, 2015
• 4368 views

Speaking of Lazarus:

I created a little program consisting of a window and a button, which closes the program when clicked.

Results:

Lazarus created 16 source files, and the complied runtime was 19.1 megs. EuGTK created the same program with 1 source file, runtime 2.1 megs.

Both are compiled, so they start up with the same observable speed. Appearance is exactly the same.

15. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by Spock May 28, 2015
• 4363 views

Two days ago I d/l Mic's Forth compiler [for inspiration] and try out some examples. One of them is a plain window (I'm sure a button could be added to it). Startup time essentially instant, file size, uh, 3K. Sure, who wants to program in Forth? On the other hand...

Spock

17. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by Spock May 28, 2015
• 4381 views

Although someone might try to deny it the new manual basically was written by experts for experts. In the early 90's all I had was the RefMan and the toy examples which I ran from ed.ex in order to learn the language. Once I "got it" I was away. Why don't you just d/l an old copy of Euphoria and study the RefMan in it? The other thing you'll need is time..

Spock

19. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by Spock May 28, 2015
• 4394 views

 
include ARWEN.ew 
 
 
MessageBox( "Demo", "Hello" ) 
 

Can't help with win32lib code, sorry.

Spock

21. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by jmduro May 29, 2015
• 4331 views

Thank you Greg. I know I can browse source code file by file, but I wanted the complete set at once and SlikSVN didn't find the URL.

Jean-Marc

23. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by irv May 29, 2015
• 4250 views

There's a lot of discussion about the need for a 'plonkable' GUI package to make programming easy for the masses of unwashed would-be programmers out there.

So here's my challenge:

Using the language and 'plonker' of your choice, write and post the code and exe for a program which actually does something useful - a text editor, a point-of-sale program (enter item description and price, have tax and total computed, print receipt), or other program of that scale. Opening a window and displaying "Hello World" isn't really a very good test, you know. It's what happens after you display the window where things begin to get complicated for the programmer (whether beginner or expert).

You don't have to write one especially for this purpose. You could just post some old program you have written, even years ago, just as long as it was , er, 'plonked' and you found that it was easy to write.

We can then vote on which one would be the easiest for a newcomer, and we can put together a Euphoria download that will be as easy - or easier, if possible.

Having a definite goal to work toward would allow for some actual progress.

25. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by GreenEuphorian May 29, 2015
• 4230 views

Does it include the case study of a real program? You see, there are lots of teaching resources on the basic structures and functions of Euphoria, on the sequences, etc.

What we need now is a programming tutorial that builds a Euphoria program step-by-step. From the preliminary phase (design) to the actual implementation. With a commented analysis of the code. Something like an rudimentary airline booking system, or a home library database would be nice. BTW the program could also be one of those already present in the Archive.

Can anyone suggest an already existing program which could be suitable for this purpose? Maybe one you wrote yourself, and used in a commercial environment.

27. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by irv May 29, 2015
• 4227 views

That is what I had in mind.

We choose one - or perhaps several - existing programs. They don't need to be extensively commented - anyone on this forum can copy a line or a function from that program, and ask for an explanation. Those explanations (the ones which are most clear and correct, anyway) are then added as comments in the source.

Rinse, repeat...

Shouldn't take long before the entire thing is commented well enough so that a beginner can follow it.

29. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by ryanj May 29, 2015
• 4176 views

I was actually planning to write a drawing program similar to that for many years, but never felt like i had the appropriate libraries and experience to do it. It seems to be difficult to make a large program and requires proper programming techniques, good organization of source code, and a powerful enough set of gui and graphics libraries.

I think it is finally possible for me to write something like that, because Redy has been designed (or rather, is still being designed) for this sort of thing in mind. The "canvas" widget class allows you to draw graphics as well as handles (mouse event capture areas) in any shape you wish, using a simple sequence-based drawing "language". Entire libraries can be written to control "objects" on a canvas, effectively defining custom widgets, document editors, etc. An application support library will make it easy to store application preferences, manage commands with undo/redo, manage communication between multiple tasks, processes (to make up for lack of multi-threading), and modules, using techniques such as queues, messaging, publish/subscribe, etc. A system of toolbars and panels in the widget library with a complete set of toolbar icons will help make the app more "professional". I intend to make a few programs to demonstrate (and experiment with) these concepts. It would be interesting to discuss some of these ideas and programming techniques (not necessarily within the context of Redy).

31. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by fizzpopsoft May 30, 2015
• 4163 views

I have two requests from a buddy, that could be candidates of a sample Euphoria program:

An inventory of electronic parts. The buddy is always buying more components because he cannot remember where/if he has stored existing parts.
I was thinking a database, but why reinvent the wheel, the parts have datasheets (pdf). So just read in a directory containing the datasheets, then prompt the user as to where they are, and how many. The user search is by part number (pdf filename prefix).
Maybe chuck in some inventory printing. Store the number of parts in a text file.... or a Euphoria database?

Calculating power requirements. The buddy wants to walk in each room of a customer home, note what lighting type and wattage is being used, also stove, geyser etc. The program will determine highpoint of consumption. Then produce scenarios, where if gas stove is used, if solar panels are used, with / without UPS or generator, and of course the approx cost of each scenario.
There is considerable demand in South Africa for those wanting to go "off the grid" due to daily "loadshedding" aka blackouts, btw. But this could be useful for other regions of lesser demand. Maybe the program could even be commercial, with sales going to the Euphoria donations ;)

33. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by jimcbrown (admin) May 30, 2015
• 4123 views

Seconded!

35. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by GreenEuphorian May 30, 2015
• 4146 views

Sorry Bernie, but you are missing the point of what I was saying. The objective was not getting a program written for you. It was learning how to program through the study of a program written by someone else, because a beginner naturally wouldn't be able to write it for himself. And, as I mentioned, the programs in the Archive *as they are* (i.e. uncommented) are not much suitable for this purpose. But of course some of them could be used in a programming tutorial. They key here is the explanation of the code (and of the overarching program design, of course).

37. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by jimcbrown (admin) May 30, 2015
• 4096 views

If you want it hosted on the openeuphoria.org website, then just mail it via the contact admin link and I'll set it up from there.

39. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by jimcbrown (admin) May 30, 2015
• 4096 views

Thank you, it's now available here:

http://openeuphoria.org/fizzbuzz.html

A higher level of access (an SSH account) is required to actually be able to perform uploads.

41. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by irv May 31, 2015
• 4035 views

And, ahem... between THOSE lines I tried to subtly hint that TFM could be a bit more Friendly to newcomers :)

43. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by irv May 31, 2015
• 4040 views

You're right, of course. And actually, making the Eu docs 'friendlier' wouldn't help all that much, since they are - simply because of the size - intimidating.

Even David Gay's "A Beginners Guide", as annotated by Tom C. is pretty big, 200+ pages.

And they aren't geared toward 'teaching programming', anyway. You need to know the concepts already before the above documents will make much sense to you.

A newcomer to programming - or, for that matter, a newcomer to Eu (but veteran of other programming languages) just wants to do something now. IOW, to see some results.

You perhaps remember the excitement of 'writing' your first program - actually, you probably just copied some code from the web (or, if you're old enough, a book) - probably a Basic loop to print the numbers from 1 to 10.

Even someone with years of experience with a dozen different languages is going to want to try something similar. In my case, if a 1...10 loop takes 30 lines of code and a lot of strange squiggly characters to make it work, that's enough to make me look elsewhere. On the other hand, if a language has a feature that makes a common task much easier than other languages I've used, I may be impressed enough to give it a try.

Isn't that what we want: to attract newcomers to Eu, and to convince seasoned programmers to try Eu?

So I suggest a series of simple demo programs - 1 to 20 lines or so - with extensive step-by-step explanation. Anyone could contribute. One person could volunteer to format them neatly so the appearance would be uniform. Make them available here. Preferably each demo should illustrate some Eu feature that makes it stand out from the crowd.

45. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by ne1uno May 31, 2015
• 3989 views

the home page shows code snippits.

lack of a steady stream of complaints from people exposed to the language for the first time leads to a few guesses. the documentation and packaging is fine. we know this isn't always true. there is simply less people curious enough to look for a new language or like in my case, found a bit of euphoria code in an archive that performed a job well and I had to know more about the language. we could be preaching to the choir? publish some code, spread it around.

we also know, not everyone that has problems will take the time to post about it and not everyone that has a good experience will stick around long for a variety of reasons. you'd think a few would now & then. there is enough blame to go around, but it may be more than docs and packaging can fix.

programming is difficult as has been pointed out. bad programs can cause problems and make you crazy. maybe everyone shouldn't do it?

]

47. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by euphoric (admin) Jun 01, 2015
• 3913 views

Why not just create a wiki page?

49. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by ghaberek (admin) Jun 01, 2015
• 3967 views

Or a even whole wiki? I would gladly accept some help with expanding the articles on usingEuporia.com.

I have already drawn out a pretty substantial outline. I can create accounts for anyone willing to assist.

-Greg

51. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by ghaberek (admin) Jun 01, 2015
• 3962 views

You should receive a notification with your account credentials. Check your spam folder.

I think I have the original "EGI" files you had sent me a while ago. I have not looked at them very much so I am not too familiar with their inner-workings.

I believe that system would have to be put back in place to properly display the content, unless you want to pluck out the content manually.

I currently only have the server configured to do rewrite exclusively for DokuWiki. I would have to make some changes to the settings to allow other content to be hosted.

-Greg

53. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by ghaberek (admin) Jun 01, 2015
• 3949 views

I use Ubuntu 14.04 as my primary machine at home and I encounter very few instances where I have to get "down to the metal".

It doesn't seem that I have to do this any more than I would have on my previous Windows 7 machine.

Lately I've been working on a project written in C++ with wxWidgets using CodeLite.

There were a few minor "gotchas" but now I can develop and build the same project on Linux or Windows without having to touch the command line.

-Greg

55. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by Bazzadude Jun 01, 2015
• 3900 views

Right, I'd even say some linux desktop environments like Cinnamon and Unity (each with their respective strengths and weaknesses) provide a far more intuitive experience than some other mainstream OSs.

57. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by euphoric (admin) Jun 01, 2015
• 3885 views

I'll pluck it out when I get a chance.

59. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by ChrisB (moderator) Jun 01, 2015
• 3828 views

Hi

I've just uploaded a sandpit (sandbox) for euphoria to the rapideuphoria atchive. Very simple, created with tinEWG plonkable IDE and editors. Allows you to type in code, fiddle with it and see the results in a console (will also run windows programs too, but with the console running). Allows you to browse to eu programs, load them in, fiddle with them. Allows you to copy and paste code in, and play with it, and see the result. Loads programs non destructively - ie do what you want with them, won't change the original program. Isn't a full editor, just a very quick and simple toy / teaching aid.

Run it, and load up Sandpit.exw to see how simple it is.

Most editors will do this too of course, but this really is click and go.

Chris

61. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by irv Jun 15, 2015
• 3518 views

include std/console.e 
integer a = 3 
integer b = 5 
integer c = 100 
 
for i = 1 to c do  
	if    remainder(i,a * b) = 0 then display("FizzBuzz") 
	elsif remainder(i,a) = 0     then display("Fizz") 
	elsif remainder(i,b) = 0     then display("Buzz") 
	else                              display(i) 
	end if 
end for 

Don't know Creole.

You're right about the above code being more generic and nicer - but that wasn't my goal. I was trying to see Euphoria from the standpoint of someone who knew little or nothing about programming, except for perhaps some Basic from the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

Such a person would most likely try print - and finding it wouldn't work, would look that up in the docs. There's no reference to display there - just "see also" ? and puts. Below print he would find printf, with "see also" sprint and sprintf.

display, as a key word, could potentially have all sorts of meanings other than putting characters on the screen. Display an image? Set the terminal lines and characters? etc....

63. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by irv Jun 15, 2015
• 3500 views

I didn't take your post as any kind of attack. I simply explained why I wrote the page as I did. It wasn't intended to be "the best" way to write a program.

I do think a beginning programmer might try something similar to the steps I used. That same beginner might not stumble across display for quite some time.

65. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Jun 15, 2015
• 3523 views

That's a great idea. I don't see any reason why we can't replace that page with a wiki page. Certainly, it'd make future updates easier.

67. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by _tom (admin) Jun 15, 2015
• 3452 views

Done. http://openeuphoria.org/wiki/view/fizzbuzz.wc

This is Irv Mullins' example converted to Creole. I have also added Derek Parnell's version as an appendix.

_tom

69. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by ChrisB (moderator) Jun 16, 2015
• 3414 views

Hi

So can we add example code to the wiki? Would it be ok to add the hunt the wumpus program, for people to play with?

Chris

71. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by irv Jun 16, 2015
• 3385 views

Looks good.

The only thing I would want is some way to differentiate between source code and program output. A beginner could get confused when they are mixed.

Is there a way to change the text/background color of a section ?

73. Re: Easy Euphoria a Fairy tale

• Posted by _tom (admin) Jun 16, 2015
• 3395 views

Creole is a wiki markup that has been standardized ( see www.wikicreole.org). The standard is at version 1.0 and is considered to be stable and final; the logic and limits of this standard are described in the Creole website.

Derek Parnell created a native Euphoria engine that complies with the Creole standard--which is used in this forum and wiki. He added the <eucode> extension for our own use.

But, we are also using Creole for document publishing. For documentation markup we could create a long wishlist of what Creole could do.

Since Derek Parnell is the only person that understands the Creole engine, the question is "what kind of eye-candy can be added to the Creole engine without making Derek's life miserable?"

I would like to see inline SVG images added to the graphics tags. That should allow images to be viewed in a wiki or forum page without an external server.

So far, Creole has served us well, so thanks to Derek.

_tom