Hi all, I think this has some bearing on the recent discussion about increasing Leo's mindshare.
Today I successfully completed Gatesphere's Leo "Hello World", and you know what I discovered? Leo, as it's documented currently, is impenetrable to all but the most determined. Take a look at this: http://leoeditor.com/tutorial-scripting.html#hello-world Compare the text there to Gatesphere's expression of the same thing: > 1) Create a node > 2) Fill it's body with the following text: > g.es('hello, world!') > 3) Ctrl-B (execute-script) on that node. Output should appear in the > log pane. Gatesphere's steps make it crystal clear that g.es('hello, world!') goes in the body of the node. The leoeditor.com hosted hello world didn't make it quite as clear, and for awhile I was putting it in the headline. Finally I went back to Gatesphere's description and got it running in 45 seconds. You might think I failed to notice the obvious. But it's a lot more obvious to a Leo user than to a guy who thinks "hey, I wonder if this thing really works, let's try." So next I figured, hmmm, let's try getting the thing to make some Python files. Well, I got as far as putting @others into a headline, and just stone gave up. It was impenetrable as currently documented. Then I tried having three subnodes, each with a different g.ex(), and seeing if I could Ctrl+B their parent. No dice. However one does functional decomposition in Leo, it takes quite a bit of reading to find out. Here's how a lot of Geeks learn: http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/rl.htm#flowchart Start with a proof of concept (Hello World), then keep adding one small thing at a time, so there's never confusion. This is what current Leo docs lack, or at least do poorly. Perhaps everyone who documents Leo is just too familiar with Leo. This is excellent news for Leo. The reason Leo doesn't have the mindshare to be in daily Geek conversation isn't because it has a flaw, or because it's a lousy way to create computer programs, or because everyone wants drag and drop. The reason is that, for all but the most determined Leo newbies, the documentation, and therefore the software, is impenetrable. Think of all the times in the past when an Infoworld writer explored Leo thinking of the possibility of writing about it (and you know they've all heard about it and tried it), and just ran out of time because it just took too long to discover each step along the way. Think of the next Infoworld writer who tries that, with a step by step (and I mean tiny, obvious, completely described, can't miss steps) tutorial that ends with him having made a small but meaningful application. If he likes that software construction method better than Java or whatever IDE Microsoft is using these days, he'll shout it from the rooftops. If Leo is capable of creating a piece of software like Leo itself, Leo is a few tutorials and a couple videos away from fame and ubiquitous usage. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt * http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
