On 03.07.2004, at 21:56, Judy Perry wrote:
Novice programmers can't be expected to 'dig for diamonds' because they
(a) don't know how to dig, (b) don't know what to dig with or for, and (c)
don't know how to ask relevant questions.
One of so many great postings about this theme!
List,
sorry for my delay, i had a terrible crash here and maybee lost some mail documents of one or two days. Unfortunatly these 2 examples I promised, based on the thema whats an array? too. A "thing" I saw often but still dont understand since... My english dictionary ist still not reactivated ;(
The reaction to my posting surprised me, The crash and other priorities stopped me for some days.. Sorry.
Sorry agin that I have to "reply" some posts from my memory, because the last mails are lost and I havnt time to search all the pipermail...
Judys,
Thanks to your postings, I really loved what you said about this theme; its nearly exactly as I see it.
A posting said (paraphrased): rev has no real target market. Its to difficult for real beginners and not "pure" enough for the real hardcoder or C++, Java freaks...
Agree with that why?
Let me do a small step to "my" rev history-
I was "evangelising" rev here in Austria, wehen I found it some years ago as a GUI for the great Idea (crossplatform-engine!!!) Metacard. I hoped that rev will go in the direction of a real kind of different GUI�s based on the underlaying crassplatforom egine. Also a crossplatfrom tool for the rest of us (no coder). But I have lost all my hopes that this will happen once.
What do I mean with this?
Splitting the existing UIS in 3 Kinds of "distributions":
1 A puristic UI for MC User as it was in MC, with his documentation
2 A kind of Xtalk/HC/Direktor, RB Alternative, with his documentation
3 A kind of real beginners simple GUI, with his documentations. Like a simple iShell/mtropolis to get strongly in to education/beginners market. (That would have been mine, and I was ready to collaborate)
I hear you saying now: RR is A small company - cant pay that development costs!
WRONG!!
The have chages to M$ policy wihtout beeing M$. Therefore I think the have wasted a lot more money in a sophisticated Licencing systems (against the grea MC crossplatform idea) changing the distribution policy many times, cancelling the starter kit and so on... With one word: a real professional tool. But for what market? As this post said omho correctly: professional developer are not interested in that. Or has anybody seen here hundreds of them? Should be thousands in so many years or not?
ad 1: The MC UI is still here and a lot of great formelry MC developers, have their own "extended" MC UI, plug ins etc. I know that one from Klaus Mayor, he helped me a lot with the troubles I had with rev and I would like to say him here also: thanks a lot Klaus!! I think it would be a pleasure for the most of them to collaborate building a pure rev UI.
ad 2 the rev�s GUI. As ist is, as a semi/and/professional tool with SQL/Oracle and all that features.
ad 3 the simple iShell-like UI. I have discussed a lot of times here, mostly with Richard Gaskin and others too. BUt the praising rev chorus taped allways all this ideas. Also offered many times my (free) collaboration. The reaction was about that: If you can pay me a 2 or 3 month my costs I can do that... But I should still pay the license and invest my free time (more that the free time)...
(Today I asked myself, why should I now again help RR, after some personal disappontmens what happend to me with one of the RR team, without getting paid?) If anybody can give me a strong argument please tell me.
Back to left right brain dox- discussion.
There have been 2 very interesting posts about "whats an Array?". About arrays I m in the situation of any learner (see Judys at the top).
This following example shows exactly the difference:
From Richard and from Marian.
Richard�s Array description: My impression (feelings): a professional description, but I did not understand it!
Marian�s Array description: A (maybee for a scripter not so professional description) but I understood it in a few seconds.
Whats the big difference?
Richards description rememberd me the style the rev dox are written: From an Insider for an Insider! Based on example scripts, their structure I dont understand (coder termini), because I dont know the elements of it. What is a rev/xtalk word, what part is the variable, he has declaired, but I could name different etc... If I do not understand the "parts" of this example script how can I understand the whole thing? Therefore I cant use it. And can not understand some different alternativ ways, he is professionally describing too. -> (frustrating) The kids would go away...
Marians description, based on a spreadsheet-metapher a thing I know(!!), made a clear and crisp Imagin(ation) in my head what an array is. (An Image says more...) After understanding the content of an example you can remember and you can start with try and error and maybe with some good examples, finally to reproduce your own first array.
And there was a great addition from Mark?? how you can write it in another way: (Like Monday, wendsday, friday seperated by commas). That explained itself without any words whats the difference in scripting. That gives everbody a faster and better understanding. Slowly I got a first overview. Hence I decidied to make my examples based on this sophisticated programming element (Array). (Maybee I did not understand all in a few minutes, but much more than in years of reading about it here on the list). If I can recover the latest files of my HD I will put them online later.
The reason why most of good programmers cant write good instructions, or good scientists are so often bad teachers is that they can not go into the mind of a learner and understand that the learner knows nothing about the theme he knows so much...
Let me finally say some words to the dox: Jeanny did a great job making the best of a kind of catastrophic Ur-documentation. But imho she has got a kind of Tantalus job with that. Dan, as I have looked once at examples of his book, did a real great job to make a better documentation. And I think (IMHO) he could maybe solve this Interface/documentation problem.
There have been a lot of others great postings. Especially one, which asked the principal question: Does rev need another documentation or another UI?
I htink both;)
thanks again for you interest
regards Wolfgang M. Bereuter
Trainingsmaps� -- that�s speadlearning mindmaps..! INTERNETTRAINER Wolfgang M. Bereuter Edelhofg. 17/11, A-1180 Wien, Austria ............................... http://www.internettrainer.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] ............................... Tel: ++43/1/ 961 0418 Fax: ++43/1/ 479 2539
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