BRAVO
I've been put in a position of learning multiple API's and scripting
languages at once.
I appreciate the below comment. Some documentation is worse than an utter
lack of documentation.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thursday, April 27, 2000 8:47 PM
Subject: [REBOL] RE: REBOL and e-commerce Re:(5)
>Thank you Allen. I plead guilty to not having fully studied the user guide
>which is the closest thing to comprehensive documentation. At least I
scanned
>it carefully (more than you can say for most programmers)!
>
>The Guide takes a worm's eye view of the territory, not a bird's eye view.
It
>reminds me of the old Inside Macintosh books. I tried to learn Mac
programming
>from those books (thick as they were) and got absolutely nowhere. A
magazine
>article hit the nail on the head when it paraphrased the Mac API as the
assembly
>language of interface programming.
>
>I work as a professional software engineer and know several languages,
compiled
>and interpreted. Learning curves are not mysteries to me; I know what they
look
>like.
>
>The real point I am trying to make is that a dictionary-style
documentation, or
>slew of examples, is the hard way to learn anything. I could tell you to
learn
>the English language by reading the dictionary. Technically speaking it
covers
>everything you need to know, but then again -- it doesn't. The Guide takes
an
>approach that is just barely one level above a dictionary. It categorizes
REBOL
>thingys into groups of thingys without saying what makes a REBOL program a
REBOL
>program.
>
>There needs an architecture discussion to lend coherence to the whole
situation.
>Especially useful would be
>
>- background philosophy
> (why REBOL? what's better about it? white paper time!)
>
>- comparison with another language doing the same task
> (esp. Perl which seems to be the main competition --
> comparative examples are often the most important)
>
>- visual block diagrams instead of words
> (show me the chain of evaluation in a flow chart
> not a dictionary presentation which asks me to reconstruct
> the flow based on dry definitions)
>
>- clarification of the 31 flavors of REBOL
> (/core, /view, /whatever /else) - what are they, when
> are they planned to ship, what is the price tag,
> why so many flavors
>
>- clarification of exactly what things are done
> behind the scenes and how
> (memory alloc, run time typing, etc.)
>
>These suggestions are given in a spirit of constructive critique. The
point
>here is to convey the mind of the language designer to the readers. Then
>examples will fall neatly into place.
>
>Mark
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2000 7:15 PM
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: [REBOL] REBOL and e-commerce Re:(5)
>
>
>Hi Mark,
>
>All Rebol scripts are documentation, don't look for all your answers in
manuals,
>spend time reading the example scripts, each one is a mini how-to document.
>[snip]
>
