For true beginners

[Wolfgang M. Bereuter]

Sylvain,
On Sunday, Aug 10, 2003, at 07:56 Europe/Vienna, Sylvain Bouju wrote:

> Ken Norris <pixelbird at interisland.net> wrote:
>
>> Things like a phone dialer, an MP3 playlist, a graph maker, a set
>> of stack templates, etc.
>
> I think that a very basic but multi-plateform adress book,
> with some import/export capabilities with the most used
> actual PIM would be a good learning tool, IMHO

Is that what a beginner really needs...?
As mentioned Mark in the first post. But a true beginner imho is not a 
person with some years experience of Basic, xtalk, Direktor, Javascript 
or even html...
A true beginner is a real true beginner in scripting...

Imho an example how to program a PIM is not the right thing. Why..?

Some reasons:
1) We still have a great example of scripting the first tool and you 
cant do it better: http://www.hyperactivesw.com/mctutorial/index.html
  The only small cosmetic it needs for a real beginner(home) stack is 
get out the comparison to HC.
2) At the same time thats a perfect start for old HC scripter...
But, is that included in the rev packet...?

The problem is: All this instruction I have seen are starting with the 
*second* or maybe the third step called: Hello world
A true beginner, needs another thing than scripting hello world.
He needs...
*An overview about the whole tool
* A good explication about the stack/card metapher, *before* he goes in 
tho the details and start to write the first line of script: Hello 
world.
*A real introduction which shoes him what rev could do in the future 
for him, if he is willing to learn/(struggle)...
*A kind of "try and error"-stack with out the standard scripting error 
warnings...
A module library with prefabricated scripts to solve problem *at the 
beginning* he will learn to solve later
Ant that should not be integrated in the tool itself. That helps 
nothing. If a beginner opens the tool he wants to do anything, not to 
search in the Index, cookbook etc. which are tooooo big for beginners. 
That comes later on..

Let me say that with the words of Antoine de Saint Exuperys little 
prince:
Wenn du Leute suchst um ein Boot zu bauen, dann sprich nicht ber die 
Arbeit, sondern erzhle ihnen von der Weite und der Freiheit des 
Meeres... (Maybe Klaus or Malte can translate it better).

If you nee people to build a ship, then dont talk about the kind of 
work wich must be done, tell them about the freedom and wideness of the 
see...

To build this packet, is a job, which cant be done by experienced 
*programmers* neither a technical persons. I think I  have seen here 
only a few persons which could do that: Dan Shafer or Jacqueline and 
some friends of mine from
the german revboard, because they are persons which are able to think 
with the head of a beginner...

That idea of the "true beginner" is nearly as old as the list itself, 
based allways on hello world. Nearly everybody can reproduce "hello 
world" with the cook book. But reproducing with a cookbook and 
producing another ting without i, are 2 very different things. Hence a 
real beginner could be very fast lost in scripting/error-space and will 
have his first big frustration. If he cant or is not willing to pass 
that frustration, he is lost for rev... And believe me, I know what 
kind of frustrations rev can build in a "non-scripters brain"...

Such a kind of packet is revs missing link to start for true beginners, 
and thats what the good old b/w HC is still ahead.

my 2 cent

regards
Wolfgang M. Bereuter

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