RE: Book outline
I wasn't going to reply just yet; but this is supposed to be about
discussion 
.
> This seems to be a very useful outline.
Thank you.
>...(although it
>almost begs for Euphoria to be immediately available... possibly as a
>pack-in disk if the book is printed?)
Either that, if in printed form; or with hyperlinks if in HTML or PDF
format.
> I'm surprised you didn't follow it up with a single unit/chapter on
sequences.
True. Lists / arrays / sequences are a pretty advanced topic. It
would probably make a nice fit in the numbers chapter, with a grade or
price averaging routine as an example use.
> My only concern [about exercises] 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.
Assuming we're focusing on a newbie of average intelligence, the
exercises would be one or two tasks that would allow the reader to make
the examples their own. I was thinking 2 or 3 at the end of each
chapter, limited to half a page. The unit reviews would be an
opportunity to answer the frequently asked question, "What kind of
projects can I do?" Guided creativity often spawns full creativity. As
to the location of these activities, an editor would probably relegate
them to an appendix at the back of the book. There if you want them,
out of the way if you don't.
> There seems to be an emphasis in graphics with the DOS stuff (and
> something of a gaming emphasis at that.)
Based on the mailing list discussions, it seems that there are 4
general areas most people program in Euphoria for: business (database)
apps, games, quick & dirty data crunching, and library development.
Euphoria is such an easy language to use, there is no reason why any
newbie of average intelligence can't quickly start writing programs in
the first three areas.
> Mentioning third-party libraries doesn't seem necessary, with the
sole
> exception of Windows IDEs. ...is your view of the book geared more
toward DOS or > Windows?
I personally couldn't imagine playing .WAV files in DOS without sfx.e,
using graphics in Linux without euengine.eu, or writing Windows programs
without Win32Lib. The libraries I mentioned were all written because
some skilled programmers asked, "Why should I need 1000 lines of code to
do what an include file and 2 procedures calls could accomplish?" My
outline was written from the point of view of the user trying to meet a
specific programming goal, with the minimum initial programming
experience (none), in the shortest time possible.
> Rod Jackson
Michael J. Sabal
Disclaimer: These are the opinions of the author alone, and may change
without notice .
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