OpenEuphoria

RE: Book outline

• Posted by Rod Jackson <rodjackson_x at hotmail.com> Feb 15, 2002
• 474 views

This seems to be a very useful outline.

You seem to start out by getting the user up-and-running with a program 
immediately; a lot of books save all I/O references for later. Having 
the first chapter go over the installation sounds good (although it 
almost begs for Euphoria to be immediately available... possibly as a 
pack-in disk if the book is printed?)

I like the idea of lumping together a single look at numbers, whether 
literal, constants, or in expressions. I'm surprised you didn't follow 
it up with a single unit/chapter on sequences. That would seem the 
logical progression.

I also like the idea of including exercises; I think a textbook-ish feel 
would work well for a Euphoria book. My only concern would be whether or 
not "serious" users would be put off by them, so I'd certainly keep them 
short, few in number, and unobtrusive. I'd also stay away from unit 
reviews. As a teacher, I tend to pay such sections mind only when I see 
the need (otherwise reviewing, say, unit 1 and half of unit 2 with the 
class if that's where they're at.) As a reader, I usually find the 
forced breaks (more intrusive than exercises) somewhat annoying.

There seems to be an emphasis in graphics with the DOS stuff (and 
something of a gaming emphasis at that.) This makes the book seem more 
suited for the intermediate than the beginner (which may be what you 
want. If not, I wouldn't take it that far.)

Mentioning third-party libraries doesn't seem necessary, with the sole 
exception of Windows IDEs. Kind of like an introductory C book 
mentioning a few specific graphics libraries. That also begs the 
question, is your view of the book geared more toward DOS or Windows? 
I'm not sure mixing the two would be a good idea. In fact, it seems to 
make the book bigger than it should be.


Rod Jackson