1. Newbies - a proposal
Hi
Just thinking about the Lobelia Overhill thread, and I came up with an idea.
When newbies join the list they are often overwhelmed by well meaning floods
of suggestions, and some comments that regular users of the board will
appreciate the meaning of, but which may be taken the wrong way the newbie.
I would like to suggest a system of personal mentoring / tutoring while
someone takes their first steps with programming and euphoria.
Lets keep it simple.
We take newbies off the list, and onto the Uboard. (William Heimbigner, with
your consent of course).
Perhaps you could create a new area, with threads for newbie sign up.
We create a newbie kit - everything a newbie needs to start programming
in euphoria (eg, euphoria, an editor, and a program to set associations
and paths).
A tutor gets one to one with the newbie, anyone can look, but no one else
can add anything, no matter how bad the style of programming being imparted
to the newbie (this will apply particularly to me 
) - why? It lessens
confusion. Whether this can be set by the tutor, or should be a matter of
etiquette, I don't know.
Tutors could post problems / help to the board, and newbies vould reply.
If live sessions were required, ICQ or AIM (or even game voice et al).
Tutors could guide and advise on how to download / install and get
the myriad of demo programs working.
I am willing to be a tutor. I realise that I am not the brightest spark here,
but I can certainly set a novice on the right steps (generally, I read this
list every day, and by the time I see a problem I can answer, its been
resolved 3 or 4 times!). There are a plethora of very bright sparks on this
list.
Tutors should only have one newbie at a time - if there are more tutors
than newbies, they should wait there turn.
Tutors should sign there names up onto a list on Uboard, so that newbies
can come along and select a tutor, then the tutor / newbie can start
their own personal thread.
I foresee a check on Uboard once daily, with one newbie, at their own
pace, over a period of a few weeks, until they are confident to be
'let off the leash'.
How about it gang!
Chris
2. Re: Newbies - a proposal
- Posted by D L <d1eu at yahoo.ca>
Sep 21, 2004
Chris Burch wrote:
> We create a newbie kit - everything a newbie needs to start programming
> in euphoria (eg, euphoria, an editor, and a program to set associations
> and paths).
I have always wondered why there was no install program to take care of all
the details for you. I like the kit idea, my vote goes out for Crimson as
editor of choice, can't beat the price :).
The tutoring idea sounds nice but the way it is been suggested implies a
level of dedication that not everybody can afford. I agree that some of the
comments are not the best but hey, when you were learning to skate you
probably fell flat on your face a few times and you had to try again.
Encouragement is always good do.
Denes.
3. Re: Newbies - a proposal
I would agree with this idea.... personal tutelage is always a nice
drawcard, too.
Chalk me up as a volunteer mentor.
One thing I would suggest though, is to allow some kind of email
interface. I wouldn't be an active member of euforum unless the email
interface was there, I wouldn't use the web-interface.
Perhaps an intermediary email address could be set up for each mentor,
like a 1-1 mailing list. If the mentor sends a message to the address,
it is sent to the registered newbie. If the newbie sends a message to
the address, it is sent to the mentor.
Any correspondence through it could be logged and displayed.
On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 05:38:43 -0700, Chris Burch <guest at rapideuphoria.com>
wrote:
>
> posted by: Chris Burch <chriscrylex at aol.com>
>
> Hi
>
> Just thinking about the Lobelia Overhill thread, and I came up with an idea.
>
> When newbies join the list they are often overwhelmed by well meaning floods
> of suggestions, and some comments that regular users of the board will
> appreciate the meaning of, but which may be taken the wrong way the newbie.
>
> I would like to suggest a system of personal mentoring / tutoring while
> someone takes their first steps with programming and euphoria.
>
> Lets keep it simple.
>
> We take newbies off the list, and onto the Uboard. (William Heimbigner, with
> your consent of course).
>
> Perhaps you could create a new area, with threads for newbie sign up.
>
> We create a newbie kit - everything a newbie needs to start programming
> in euphoria (eg, euphoria, an editor, and a program to set associations
> and paths).
>
> A tutor gets one to one with the newbie, anyone can look, but no one else
> can add anything, no matter how bad the style of programming being imparted
> to the newbie (this will apply particularly to me ) - why? It lessens
> confusion. Whether this can be set by the tutor, or should be a matter of
> etiquette, I don't know.
>
> Tutors could post problems / help to the board, and newbies vould reply.
> If live sessions were required, ICQ or AIM (or even game voice et al).
>
> Tutors could guide and advise on how to download / install and get
> the myriad of demo programs working.
>
> I am willing to be a tutor. I realise that I am not the brightest spark here,
> but I can certainly set a novice on the right steps (generally, I read this
> list every day, and by the time I see a problem I can answer, its been
> resolved 3 or 4 times!). There are a plethora of very bright sparks on this
> list.
>
> Tutors should only have one newbie at a time - if there are more tutors
> than newbies, they should wait there turn.
>
> Tutors should sign there names up onto a list on Uboard, so that newbies
> can come along and select a tutor, then the tutor / newbie can start
> their own personal thread.
>
> I foresee a check on Uboard once daily, with one newbie, at their own
> pace, over a period of a few weeks, until they are confident to be
> 'let off the leash'.
>
> How about it gang!
>
> Chris
>
>
>
>
--
MrTrick
4. Re: Newbies - a proposal
> I have always wondered why there was no install program to take care of all
> the details for you. I like the kit idea, my vote goes out for Crimson as
> editor of choice, can't beat the price :).
Boo!
M Editor!
</holy war>
--
MrTrick
5. Re: Newbies - a proposal
- Posted by D L <d1eu at yahoo.ca>
Sep 21, 2004
Patrick Barnes wrote:
> Boo!
> M Editor!
> </holy war>
M? pffft!
Pete Lomax wrote
> http://www.jumpstation.ca/recroom/comedy/python/argument.html
6. Re: Newbies - a proposal
Chris Burch wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> Just thinking about the Lobelia Overhill thread, and I came up with an idea.
>
> When newbies join the list they are often overwhelmed by well meaning floods
> of suggestions, and some comments that regular users of the board will
> appreciate the meaning of, but which may be taken the wrong way the newbie.
Thinking about the same thing, I looked thru the posts by Lobelia, and
noticed something interesting. Several people had posted code, ranging
from 'hello world' to a simple working game. Nowhere did Lobelia
say she had actually *tried to run* or *tried to understand* any of
this code. Without some kind of feedback, how is anyone going to be
able to help?
Almost everyone knows at least one thing I don't know.
But no-one but me knows what I don't know.
I don't expect people to read my mind to find out what that might be.
Irv
7. Re: Newbies - a proposal
On 21 Sep 2004, at 5:38, Chris Burch wrote:
> Tutors could post problems / help to the board, and newbies vould reply.
> If live sessions were required, ICQ or AIM (or even game voice et al).
Or IRC, if you prefer a non-proprietary and open-source chat system with
your choice of clients and networks (there's even clients and chat servers
written in Eu in the archives). *Many* irc clients can be found at:
http://www.ircreviews.org/clients/ and *many* irc networks can be found at
http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/networks/servers/
Kat
8. Re: Newbies - a proposal
Kat wrote:
> On 21 Sep 2004, at 5:38, Chris Burch wrote:
> > Tutors could post problems / help to the board, and newbies vould reply.
> > If live sessions were required, ICQ or AIM (or even game voice et al).
> Or IRC, if you prefer a non-proprietary and open-source chat system with
> your choice of clients and networks (there's even clients and chat servers
> written in Eu in the archives). *Many* irc clients can be found at:
> <a
> href="http://www.ircreviews.org/clients/">http://www.ircreviews.org/clients/</a>
> and *many* irc networks can be found at
> <a
> href="http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/networks/servers/">http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/networks/servers/</a>
And there already is a Euphoria chatroom: irc.sorcery.net:9000/euphoria
If you browse through the chatlogs ( http://eulogs.unkmar.com ), you can
see that it's already used a lot for teaching beginners the basics of
Euphoria.
It also has a nice bot (Botmar), that can be used to quickly find some
information about certain Euphoria functions and procedures.
--
tommy online: http://users.telenet.be/tommycarlier
tommy.blog: http://tommycarlier.blogspot.com
Euphoria Message Board: http://uboard.proboards32.com
9. Re: Newbies - a proposal
Finally... now it looks like we're getting somewhere.
>>>a funny, interesting & diverse page of ideas:
http://www.arcterex.net/sig.txt
Even for text, it takes a while to load. It's almost a meg of
data.
"Some people were born idiots, others had to study."
-Robert Heinlein, Stranger In A Strange Land
I'm one of the latter, because some methods of teaching can
destroy a person's interest in learning. I was burned out on
school by the third grade. I just went to get out of the house.
10. Re: Newbies - a proposal
- Posted by Ron Weidner <nova812 at hotmail.com>
Sep 21, 2004
-
Last edited Sep 22, 2004
Chris Burch wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> Just thinking about the Lobelia Overhill thread, and I came up with an idea.
>
> When newbies join the list they are often overwhelmed by well meaning floods
> of suggestions, and some comments that regular users of the board will
> appreciate the meaning of, but which may be taken the wrong way the newbie.
>
> ...
>
> How about it gang!
>
> Chris
>
I would be willing to contribute to this. For example,
I would be willing provide a domain name and hosting for
this project. Additionally I would be willing to keep
up with web site updates and web applications that aid in
learning... (ie EuCode bank, Content management system,
Tutorials/Article repository, forums [if needs be], etc.)
I'm not suggesting that I would use my current domain
name but rather, I'm suggesting that we can vote on one,
I'll buy it, set it up, and provide the hosting. I have
some good ideas and a great feeling about this. So, who
want to start suggesting domain names?
How about tutorEu, weTutorEu, or rapidEuTutor?
11. Re: Newbies - a proposal
- Posted by Pete Lomax <petelomax at blueyonder.co.uk>
Sep 21, 2004
-
Last edited Sep 22, 2004
On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 18:18:53 +0000, Brian Broker <bkb at cnw.com> wrote:
>FWIW, I did actually IM Lobelia last week to help but it soon became
<snip>
Indeed.
I totally disagree with the "personal tutor" idea (see PS)
If we are to try and help newbies, we should have a "fixed course", or
several, that we guide newbies step-by-step through.
Partly RDS tries and mostly succeeds to do this; mostly what /you/ are
now banging on about is those who will just not be helped, imo.
Create a new course/tutorial, and equally guide everyone though it by
all means; but *never* let oddballs like Lobelia discourage you.
If anything, Euphoria needs something that *everyone* can follow.
Regards,
Pete
PS: Keep all this on EUforum, with standard of message headers, eg
[PT] Lobelia: Ping Broker: Re Running my first program
But we *all* have to see it; part of the glory of this message board
is just that: everyone sees it, and if asked <via msg hdr convention>
we will (I am sure agree to) leave the topic alone.
If the student thinks they need an answer *NOW*, then they drop the
header style, and get flooded with help, as they do now.
I think that would work just as well, just needs one person/allocator
of volunteers, and be prompt about doing it to the first message
posted to EUforum by newbies.
Correct me if I am wrong.
PPS: I have been staggered by the quality of (a few) newbies to this
list this summer. I'll name no names, but one or two are so sharp they
scare me! They have _definately_ picked up faster than I did...,
12. Re: Newbies - a proposal
- Posted by Chris Burch <chriscrylex at aol.com>
Sep 21, 2004
-
Last edited Sep 22, 2004
Hi
Ok, I've set up the boards on Uboard, and I've cobbled together a very quick
and dirty website, outlining what I believe to be the basic get you started
kit.
http://members.aol.com/chriscrylex/euphoria.htm
Ron Weidner, you are more than welcome to have it, mess with it, destroy it,
laugh at it whatever. Its very generous to offer a home page.
Note the .eu domain is available now, eg www.tutor4.eu (etc etc)
Why not refer nebies to the site, and thence to Uboard?
(sign up now poeple! (only if you want of course) )
Chris
13. Re: Newbies - a proposal
From: "Chris Burch"
Subject: Re: Newbies - a proposal
>
>
> posted by: Chris Burch <chriscrylex at aol.com>
>
> Hi
>
> Ok, I've set up the boards on Uboard, and I've cobbled together a very
quick
> and dirty website, outlining what I believe to be the basic get you
started
> kit.
>
> http://members.aol.com/chriscrylex/euphoria.htm
>
> Ron Weidner, you are more than welcome to have it, mess with it, destroy
it,
> laugh at it whatever. Its very generous to offer a home page.
>
> Note the .eu domain is available now, eg www.tutor4.eu (etc etc)
>
> Why not refer nebies to the site, and thence to Uboard?
>
> (sign up now poeple! (only if you want of course) )
>
> Chris
>
Nice idea, and *very* nice start Chris!
Some suggestions:
1. "Noobs"??? I think "Newby" would be better understood?
2. First sentence is incomplete; possibly:
This is a list of "things to do" for anyone who is interested in using the
programming Language "Euphoria", but has never programmed before (or has a
little programming experience, but not with Euphoria).
3. I wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea to show setting associations &
running the demos first, or just running the interpreter with a demo
filename, & *then* show how to look at the code?
Dan Moyer
14. Re: Newbies - a proposal
Chris,
I forgot:
of course, make a link near the "...3 easy steps..." to Derek's tutorial
site.
Dan Moyer
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Burch" <guest at RapidEuphoria.com>
To: <EUforum at topica.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2004 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: Newbies - a proposal
>
>
> posted by: Chris Burch <chriscrylex at aol.com>
>
> Hi
>
> Ok, I've set up the boards on Uboard, and I've cobbled together a very
quick
> and dirty website, outlining what I believe to be the basic get you
started
> kit.
>
> http://members.aol.com/chriscrylex/euphoria.htm
>
> Ron Weidner, you are more than welcome to have it, mess with it, destroy
it,
> laugh at it whatever. Its very generous to offer a home page.
>
> Note the .eu domain is available now, eg www.tutor4.eu (etc etc)
>
> Why not refer nebies to the site, and thence to Uboard?
>
> (sign up now poeple! (only if you want of course) )
>
> Chris
>
>
>
>
15. Re: Newbies - a proposal
On 21 Sep 2004, at 20:06, Dan Moyer wrote:
>
>
> From: "Chris Burch"
> Subject: Re: Newbies - a proposal
>
>
> > posted by: Chris Burch <chriscrylex at aol.com>
> >
> > Hi
> >
> > Ok, I've set up the boards on Uboard, and I've cobbled together a very
> quick
> > and dirty website, outlining what I believe to be the basic get you
> started
> > kit.
> >
> > http://members.aol.com/chriscrylex/euphoria.htm
> >
> > Ron Weidner, you are more than welcome to have it, mess with it, destroy
> it,
> > laugh at it whatever. Its very generous to offer a home page.
> >
> > Note the .eu domain is available now, eg www.tutor4.eu (etc etc)
> >
> > Why not refer nebies to the site, and thence to Uboard?
> >
> > (sign up now poeple! (only if you want of course) )
> >
> > Chris
> >
>
> Nice idea, and *very* nice start Chris!
>
> Some suggestions:
> 1. "Noobs"??? I think "Newby" would be better understood?
Or newbie.
> 2. First sentence is incomplete; possibly:
> This is a list of "things to do" for anyone who is interested in using the
> programming Language "Euphoria", but has never programmed before (or has a
> little programming experience, but not with Euphoria).
> 3. I wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea to show setting associations &
> running the demos first, or just running the interpreter with a demo filename,
> &
> *then* show how to look at the code?
I consider how to use the language, and what it can do, to be far more
important than how to set up to run it. Setup is a one-time event, a easy
setup on a(nother) language that cannot do anything isn't worth the read.
4) there is so much capability in the libs that is not in the Eu as delivered by
RDS, such as all win/nix gui stuff, the entire strings lib collection, file
i/o/management using winapi, etc, which should be pointed to soon after the
newbie is introduced to the include statement.
Kat
16. Re: Newbies - a proposal
danielmoyer wrote:
>
> Chris,
>
> of course, make a link near the "...3 easy steps..." to Derek's tutorial
> site.
And don't forget "Jubilation: Programming with Euphoria," the new book
about programming Euphoria at http://www.cklester.com/books/jubilation/.
:)
-=ck
"Programming in a state of EUPHORIA."
http://www.cklester.com/euphoria/
17. Re: Newbies - a proposal
> > 1. "Noobs"??? I think "Newby" would be better understood?
>
> Or newbie.
Yes, I'd say Newbie is the correct spelling
> I consider how to use the language, and what it can do, to be far more
> important than how to set up to run it. Setup is a one-time event, a easy
> setup on a(nother) language that cannot do anything isn't worth the read.
That is true... However if someone can't even set the development
environemt up, they're not going to get to programming. Rob, I really
think you ought to automate this a bit more...
> 4) there is so much capability in the libs that is not in the Eu as delivered
> by
> RDS, such as all win/nix gui stuff, the entire strings lib collection, file
> i/o/management using winapi, etc, which should be pointed to soon after the
> newbie is introduced to the include statement.
That is quite true... one issue with that is the lack of documentation
that some of these things suffer from. Not sure what's the best way to
get around it...
--
MrTrick
18. Re: Newbies - a proposal
On 22 Sep 2004, at 14:07, Patrick Barnes wrote:
> > I consider how to use the language, and what it can do, to be far more
> > important than how to set up to run it. Setup is a one-time event, a easy
> > setup on a(nother) language that cannot do anything isn't worth the read.
>
> That is true... However if someone can't even set the development
> environemt up, they're not going to get to programming. Rob, I really
> think you ought to automate this a bit more...
Lemme try again.... if i don't see the howto of a language, an example of how
the words are used, and what the language words are, i won't bother to
download the language. Presto, no setup. I haveto be already interested in a
language to download a language with no online help, with all the docs in the
download/install package.
And win/dos isn't that nice about installing anyhow, what with the rebooting
and fixed paths and such. I deleted the Eu-specific lines in autoexec, and
just copy a /bin dir everywhere i go.
Kat
19. Re: Newbies - a proposal
Kat wrote:
>
> On 22 Sep 2004, at 14:07, Patrick Barnes wrote:
>
> > > I consider how to use the language, and what it can do, to be far more
> > > important than how to set up to run it. Setup is a one-time event, a easy
> > > setup on a(nother) language that cannot do anything isn't worth the read.
> >
> > That is true... However if someone can't even set the development
> > environemt up, they're not going to get to programming. Rob, I really
> > think you ought to automate this a bit more...
>
> Lemme try again.... if i don't see the howto of a language, an example of how
> the words are used, and what the language words are, i won't bother to
> download the language. Presto, no setup. I haveto be already interested in a
> language to download a language with no online help, with all the docs in the
> download/install package.
>
> And win/dos isn't that nice about installing anyhow, what with the rebooting
> and fixed paths and such. I deleted the Eu-specific lines in autoexec, and
> just copy a /bin dir everywhere i go.
>
> Kat
>
Ouch! Do you do that with every programming environment you use? If rebooting
is an issue then why not just create a batch file to do the minimal environment
setup?
For example:
-- start file Euphoria.bat --
REM -- launch a command prompt for Euphoria programming
REM -- add euphoria\bin to your path
PATH=%PATH%;C:\EUPHORIA\BIN
REM -- add EUDIR environment variable
EUDIR=C:\EUPHORIA
REM -- add EUINC environment variable, for example:
EUINC=C:\EUPHORIA\INCLUDE\Win32Lib\Include;C:\EUPHORIA\INCLUDE\EuAllegro
-- end Euphoria.bat --
Now double-click Euphoria.bat and presto!
Just a thought, no flames required...
-- Brian
20. Re: Newbies - a proposal
Hi
See what I mean about floods of great suggestions!
I have adjusted the website to change Noobs to newbies (which is the correct
plural form of newby (I think) ) - meant entirely tongue in cheek.
I've added the links to tutorials at the bottom -any other suggestions
gratefully accepted.
I did think about the order of getting the program working, includes etc,
and I felt it was important that the new arrival be able to get the demo
programs working with the minimum of setting up, and to see that it was
actually a programming language, as quickly as possible. Includes, downloading
other files etc will come later. I used how I did it as a basis. Includes
came later.
In the meantime, may I suggest that we direct all newbies to the below sites,
as they may appear on the list. And if you want to hand hold, check out
Uboard.
http://members.aol.com/chriscrylex/euphoria.htm
http://uboard.proboards32.com/
Chris
21. Re: Newbies - a proposal
Chris Burch wrote:
> See what I mean about floods of great suggestions!
>
> I have adjusted the website to change Noobs to newbies (which is the correct
> plural form of newby (I think) ) - meant entirely tongue in cheek.
>
> I've added the links to tutorials at the bottom -any other suggestions
> gratefully accepted.
>
> I did think about the order of getting the program working, includes etc,
> and I felt it was important that the new arrival be able to get the demo
> programs working with the minimum of setting up, and to see that it was
> actually a programming language, as quickly as possible. Includes, downloading
> other files etc will come later. I used how I did it as a basis. Includes
> came later.
>
> In the meantime, may I suggest that we direct all newbies to the below sites,
> as they may appear on the list. And if you want to hand hold, check out
> Uboard.
I also modified the 2 newby-categories from UBoard: you can now find links
to the (currently only 3) tutorial websites in the header of the pages.
--
tommy online: http://users.telenet.be/tommycarlier
tommy.blog: http://tommycarlier.blogspot.com
Euphoria Message Board: http://uboard.proboards32.com
22. Re: Newbies - a proposal
> Subject: Re: Newbies - a proposal
>
>
> posted by: Chris Burch <chriscrylex at aol.com>
>
> Hi
>
> See what I mean about floods of great suggestions!
>
> I have adjusted the website to change Noobs to newbies (which is the correct
> plural form of newby (I think) ) - meant entirely tongue in cheek.
>
> I've added the links to tutorials at the bottom -any other suggestions
> gratefully accepted.
>
> I did think about the order of getting the program working, includes etc,
> and I felt it was important that the new arrival be able to get the demo
> programs working with the minimum of setting up, and to see that it was
> actually a programming language, as quickly as possible. Includes, downloading
> other files etc will come later. I used how I did it as a basis. Includes
> came later.
>
> In the meantime, may I suggest that we direct all newbies to the below sites,
> as they may appear on the list. And if you want to hand hold, check out
> Uboard.
>
> http://members.aol.com/chriscrylex/euphoria.htm
> http://uboard.proboards32.com/
>
> Chris
I do agree with this approach. Only experienced computer users are patient
enough to help an installation process, because they know a few tricks and are
not considering a computer as an alien thing. So, they must get something
going fast, just to be convinced that they may use it some day.
However, I think we are mixing together two categories that don't have the
same background knowledge and needs. As they partially overlap, there are 4
categories actually.
Some newcomers had some kind of experience with programming in a very broad
sense. They can understand what is an execution flow, what is a variable, a
routine etc. They roughly know how to translate simple tasks into i/o
statements, variables and expressions. It's just that they don't know the
specifics of Eu. They may or may not have some knowledge, or at least short
experience, of another language, say basic or C(++).
On the other hand, you have people that have trouble translating the problem
they want to solve into an algorithm, because they never got the feeling for
this sort of translation. They may or may not have some experience of another
programming language, say basic or C(++). They possibly know how to perform
some previously taught tasks in that language; they know the recipes well at
best, but hardly any cooking.
Thr two main categories were presented with a deliberately close wording, to
emphasize that the subcategories inside the two main groups are the same. I'd
see newbies as lying inside a large square, the four categories dividing it in
four parts that can be grouped by two in two different ways. There are newbies
in all four smaller squares.
Newbies that have no feeling about how to transform a real-life problem into
some kind of pseudocode need to be informed about how to go about it.
"Jubilation", or the first chapters of B. Aitken's "Euphoric mysteries", do
brush the topic, probably not deep enough to help those who need it.
Such a manual (yes, I think that could be a separate tutorial) would rely on
the demo code supplied with the installation kit, but has to prepare the
reader to be able to inspect the code and start understanding it.
An effort to organize, and kind of loosely standardize, teaching Eu to newbies
must take care of this and cater for the various needs, without explicitly
separating the newbies. We just let them know there are various things to
learn, some particular to Eu, some at the heart of the very idea of
programming, and they decide what they need, asking for advice as freely as
possible.
Otherwise, I'm afaraid we may lose some of them by the roadside, because they
thought they could program without understanding what programming in any
language is. And they are those for whom the (in)famous "simple design" of Eu
is most helpful.
CChris
23. Re: Newbies - a proposal
Kat wrote:
> Lemme try again.... if i don't see the howto of a language, an example of how
> the words are used, and what the language words are, i won't bother to
> download the language. Presto, no setup. I haveto be already interested in a
> language to download a language with no online help, with all the docs in the
> download/install package.
I agree 100%. The most important thing to me, and I suppose to many people
who may be looking for a language, is to see what kinds of things can be
done with the language, and what the code to do those things looks like.
(Something more complex than "hello world", since that looks the same in
many languages.)
If what I see is uncluttered and makes sense, only then will I bother to
download and install it (and work thru the setup hassles).
Having some simple but real programs on view would also help people who
have unreaslistic expectataions, such as what "easy" means when referring
to programming.
Irv
24. Re: Newbies - a proposal
On 22 Sep 2004, at 0:14, Brian Broker wrote:
>
>
> posted by: Brian Broker <bkb at cnw.com>
>
> Kat wrote:
> >
> > On 22 Sep 2004, at 14:07, Patrick Barnes wrote:
> >
> > > > I consider how to use the language, and what it can do, to be far more
> > > > important than how to set up to run it. Setup is a one-time event, a
> > > > easy
> > > > setup on a(nother) language that cannot do anything isn't worth the
> > > > read.
> > >
> > > That is true... However if someone can't even set the development
> > > environemt up, they're not going to get to programming. Rob, I really
> > > think you ought to automate this a bit more...
> >
> > Lemme try again.... if i don't see the howto of a language, an example of
> > how
> > the words are used, and what the language words are, i won't bother to
> > download the language. Presto, no setup. I haveto be already interested in a
> > language to download a language with no online help, with all the docs in
> > the
> > download/install package.
> >
> > And win/dos isn't that nice about installing anyhow, what with the rebooting
> > and fixed paths and such. I deleted the Eu-specific lines in autoexec, and
> > just copy a /bin dir everywhere i go.
> >
> > Kat
> >
>
> Ouch! Do you do that with every programming environment you use? If rebooting
> is an issue then why not just create a batch file to do the minimal
> environment
> setup?
Is this two different topics now?
Re: kat rebooting <<== nothing to do with docs online
Re: using a language <<== nothing to do with rebooting
> For example:
> -- start file Euphoria.bat --
>
> REM -- launch a command prompt for Euphoria programming
>
> REM -- add euphoria\bin to your path
> PATH=%PATH%;C:\EUPHORIA\BIN
>
> REM -- add EUDIR environment variable
> EUDIR=C:\EUPHORIA
>
> REM -- add EUINC environment variable, for example:
> EUINC=C:\EUPHORIA\INCLUDE\Win32Lib\Include;C:\EUPHORIA\INCLUDE\EuAllegro
>
> -- end Euphoria.bat --
>
> Now double-click Euphoria.bat and presto!
>
> Just a thought, no flames required...
No flames needed, but remember that issue i have brought up many times
over the years, the file locking that Eu does? The file locking that RDS says
may occur during the linking, but then stop? It STILL doesn't stop. So pretty
much for each and every application i do, for each running process, i find
there's a lot less problems if i drag/drop the required files to a new dir,
using
a separate everything for each process. It's really annoying to find 6 Eu apps
tried to start, and only the first one succeeded.
Kat
25. Re: Newbies - a proposal
Irv Mullins wrote:
> Kat wrote:
>
>> Lemme try again.... if i don't see the howto of a language, an example of how
>> the words are used, and what the language words are, i won't bother to
>> download the language. Presto, no setup. I haveto be already interested in a
>> language to download a language with no online help, with all the docs in the
>> download/install package.
>
> I agree 100%. The most important thing to me, and I suppose to many people
> who may be looking for a language, is to see what kinds of things can be
> done with the language, and what the code to do those things looks like.
> (Something more complex than "hello world", since that looks the same in
> many languages.)
>
> If what I see is uncluttered and makes sense, only then will I bother to
> download and install it (and work thru the setup hassles).
>
> Having some simple but real programs on view would also help people who
> have unreaslistic expectataions, such as what "easy" means when referring
> to programming.
I agree, too.
When I was new to Euphoria, I appreciated the demo programs very much.
They don't "only" show the Euphoria semantics and syntax, but also
interesting algorithms.
Demo programs that ship with other programming languages which I've seen,
often were written halfheartedly. The Euphoria demo programs IMHO are
written very clean, and many do actually useful things, and show
interesting algorithms.
For instance, I had dealt with some flavors of BASIC for some years.
Beside other books, I also read the entire famous book about BASIC by
Ethan Winer (704 pages in the German edition), and I literally *never*
read something about hashing in any of the books.
I can't exactly remember when I read about hash tables for the first
time. It must have been in a book about Pascal, or in Robert Sedgewick's
"Algorithms" (the sample programs are written in Pascal). So at first, I
thought that hash tables were something specific of Pascal. :o)
Although Euphoria is as simple as (or maybe simpler than) BASIC, RDS
even ships a hash demo program, where I easily could understand the
principle of hashing, and which also is useful.
To make a long story short:
RDS has done a great job with the Eu demo programs. Maybe -- to
supplement the documentation, which is already completely online --
they want to put some of these programs on their website, in order to
quicken the appetite of newbies.
Of course, writing instructive and/or addictive demo programs, is a
challenge for all our new tutorial authors, too.
Regards,
Juergen
--
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26. Re: Newbies - a proposal
Chris Burch wrote:
<snip>
> Note the .eu domain is available now, eg www.tutor4.eu (etc etc)
<snip>
Not really available yet:
http://www.eurid.org/FAQ/faq.html
Regards,
Juergen
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