Len,
Your observations are correct and I already have Dan's "Software at
the Speed of thought".
It's just that I'm an occasional user of Rev; I don't use it anywhere
near full-time.
Not coming from a HyperCard background does not prepare one for Rev's
principles.
If there are different ways to achieve the same thing, then let's have
some cross-referenced examples.
I've seen talk of a 'cookbook' on this list. Perhaps it is time for
someone to captalise on that?
Like the Internet, when something is too flexible, it's a job to know
where to start.
Three ways to accomplish a few commonly used tasks may be enough to
introduce novices the various processes.
Three ways to "Launch an application"
Three ways to "Track the path to a file"
Three ways to...
Dans' book, great though it is as a primer, is not as accessible as
many 'QuickStart' guidebooks available these days.
Peachpit Press (http://www.peachpit.com/imprint/series_detail.aspx?ser=335245
) does a good job on many topics such as Java for example.
HyperCarders must be fewer and fewer as time goes by, so something
like that would make Rev far more accessible to newbies.
That's my two-penneth for what its worth. As it's Bank Holiday, I'm
off to fire up the BBQ.
All the best,
Adrian
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On 31 Aug 2009, at 13:05, Len Morgan wrote:
Adrian Williams wrote:
IMHO in the doc for 'launch', right underneath 'Examples', an
additional 'Example in use' would be helpful.
Jim's snippet with its comments puts one of the example statements
into some context...
put the defaultFolder into tOrigDefaultFolder
set the defaultFolder to "C:\theDirTheExeIsIn" -- Put actual dir
the exe is in here
launch "MyProgram.exe" -- Put the actual name of the exe here
set the defaultFolder to tOrigDefaultFolder -- Puts the
defaultFolder back where it was
The problem with the above explanation that the defaultFolder lines
have absolutely nothing to do with the launch command. You could
have just as easily wanted to launch an app that is relative to a
URL which would take
another set of "chunk" explanations that again are totally different
and totally unrelated to the launch command. To write such all
inclusive documentation for every command would be a daunting task
and so verbose that it goes too far the other direction (i.e., so
much to read that no one would read any of it).
It's a fine line that the documentation writers have to walk. In
the future, be sure to look at all the "See Also" entries in the
dictionary and read the WHOLE command description. The See Alsos
can often point you in the right direction but also, at least in my
case, lead me to learn things I hadn't even thought about before so
I end up learning a lot more than if I'd had Scott's example laid
out in front of me, took it verbatim, and left.
You are suffering from the same problem I know I had and I'm sure a
lot of others had: The lack of a good tutorial book on Revolution to
get you over the "hump" when you're new to the language. It's my
impression that a large percentage of the current Rev users came
from a HyperCard (or one of it's derivatives) background and so
they've already been over that "hump." The simple terse Rev
dictionary format is just fine for them. I remember when I started
(from a C/Tcl/Assembly background of MANY years) I couldn't even
figure out where to start. The whole concept of passing messages
and calling handlers it totally different that the in-line code
you'd write in C or Tcl. Once I made that mental leap, things just
started falling into place. I still had questions that the
documentation didn't answer by that's where this mailing list came
in. There was always somebody that could quickly fill in the
"whole" in my knowledge.
I believe you can still get Dan Shaefer's (spelling?) book "Software
at the Speed of Thought" which was written around Rev 2.1 I think
but it was very helpful in getting me over a lot of the rough spots
that the dictionary and user's manual didn't cover (and shouldn't
have). There are also a couple of HyperCard/Talk books by Danny
Goodman that several people here have recommended. I bought them
but haven't really read them so I can't vouch for how helpful they'd
be to you.
You do have a chance to help out humanity though (well, at least the
part of humanity that is struggling to learn Revolution): the user
comments at the bottom of the dictionary. They are there for just
the same kind of problem you were having, in other words, not quite
enough meat around the bone to make it clear. If you feel that
something might need more (or better) explaination, add a user
comment to enlighten the rest of us. If we all contribute a little
here and little there, we should end up with a first class reference
that everyone will benefit from.
len
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