Documentation & Books -- revJournal status report

[Alan Golub]

> 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. But with HC's UI and 
>> documentation (with indices) and Danny Goodman's book (with an 
>> index), many learned successful digging techniques.
>
>> Of course  your book cannot be all things to all people, but when 
>> person
>> after person comes to the list saying that what they really want/need 
>> is
>> something along the lines of Danny Goodman's book, well, perhaps they 
>> are
>> indicating that there is a need along those lines as well as what you 
>> are
>> doing.
>
>

Judy --

I've read your comments with great interest. For the most part, I agree 
that many users/potential users of Revolution need just the kind of 
documentation you describe. That's part of the reason I started 
revJournal -- to provide non-programmers with the necessary big picture 
view of what it means to program, and how to go about it in Revolution.

One year ago this past weekend, revJournal got off to a great start. To 
date, we have 189 registered members, and have had over 32,000 visits 
to the site. Now, these aren't stellar numbers, and most of the fault 
for that lies in the fact that we've been unable to keep the site fresh 
with regular content. There are only so many hours in each day, and 
voluntary efforts like revJournal always take a back seat to the stuff 
that pays the bills. Still, based on the feedback we received about the 
existing content, many "newbies" found the material useful. And RunRev 
very much wants the site to continue, and to improve.

So, with encouragement from RunRev, I've renewed the domain name and 
the hosting service for revJournal for another year. For at least the 
next twelve months, then, the material will remain available. But the 
project still runs the risk of petering out due to lack of fresh 
content.

So, in the spirit of my original intent behind revJournal, as well as 
your thoughtful comments, I hope to revisit my original revSchool 
articles in the near future. By year's end, I hope to finish the 
work-in-progress that I began to explore in the first series of 
articles.

As always, I invite contributions from the Rev community -- if you have 
an idea for something you want to write that you think will be useful 
to other users, please get in touch. I'm happy to consider material 
covering just about any rev-related topic, of just about any length.

On a personal note, I want to thank Dan for his book, which I think is 
just terrific. Aside from Rev's own documentation, which I use every 
time I fire up the program, Dan's book is the second source I turn to 
when I have a question (and the ONLY source I turn to when I'm not 
sitting in front of my computer).

I also want to thank the revJournal contributors: Sarah, Richard, Dan, 
and Bjornke. These folks have generously provided so much useful 
content, and the site wouldn't exist without them. Thanks to all, and I 
hope I can count on your continued contributions.

That's it for now -- keep on revvin' folks!

Alan S. Golub
Publisher, revJournal