On 1/12/06, Nando <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Mach-ii was released in a different way. It was the first OO framework for > CF, so the fact that it broke new ground made it look more difficult. No > quickstart guide. You could sign up for a training with Hal and Ben. I'm > REALLY SURE it's well worth it but any way you slice it, earning the money > or getting your boss to pay for it or trying to find enough developers in > your area to join you so you could invite Hal and Ben out to your area, and > taking the time out for travel and the course IS harder than reading through > Joe's quickstart guide and starting to experiment. > > So that's more than perception. Mach-II is simply harder here.
Understood, and this is something we're working on improving. I think you'll find that the new Quick Start Guide and some of the other Intro docs are helpful in this area. > The other way is to tough it out and study the source code of the framework, > search thru the list archives and ask a series of somewhat embarrassing > newbie questions on the list, which nobody likes to ask. I hate appearing as > clueless as i am. You gotta want it to take that route. Isn't that a big part of what being a developer is all about? If we don't get in and break stuff, and ask for help when we need it, I'm not sure how we'd ever learn anything. A huge part of being a developer in my mind is experimentation and persistence. That's one way we learn. > And it could be made a lot easier to learn. Lots easier than MG is today. > For instance, someone could set up a series of simple online courses and > charge for them. You or Peter, Phil all come to mind. And people would pay > for them. And it wouldn't necessarily take you more time than the quickstart > did. All you'd need is Camtasia or even SnagIt would do. I've been considering doing this with a couple of the presentations I've done, without the price tag. :-) I'll take that as a bit of motivation to get off my rear and do something like this in the not-too-distant future. [snip] > But more importantly, because we all know that our time spent with them is > much more worthwhile if we come knowing the basics. It just isn't right to > learn addition and subtraction from a calculus professor. "Let me learn that > on my own and then i'll go to the class." we say to ourselves. "I don't want > to be embarrassed." Which makes the basics hard to learn for most people, > doesn't it? > > The fact that there's no easy entry for beginners is a barrier. Good point and again, I've received quite a bit of "thank yous" from people for the couple of beginner-oriented documents I've done, and I'm sure Peter's FAQs are equally helpful to beginners. We'll try to get even more helpful stuff out there as we have time. [snip] > I'm talking the time to write all this out because i'd love to see a bunch > of audio visual courses online for all this stuff avalanching down on us to > learn in the CF world. Excellent thoughts. I thought the same thing when I saw the Ruby intro video (as well as other things, but that one comes to mind in this context) and I think you're absolutely right that this would be helpful. Maybe some of the Mach-IIers can get together and do a "Car Talk" type thing for Mach-II. :-) I think keeping it fun particularly for beginners is the way to go, and it sounds like this sort of thing would be helpful and well-received. [snip] > I hope that came across as well-intentioned as i mean it to be. Absolutely Nando, and thanks for taking the time to express your thoughts in such detail. This is EXTREMELY helpful. Knowing what people want is a huge part of the battle; the other part is just finding the time to do it. As we make progress in this area we'll definitely keep everyone posted. Thanks again, Matt -- Matt Woodward [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mattwoodward.com ---------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to [email protected] with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' as the subject of the email. CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by CFXHosting (www.cfxhosting.com). An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
