Documentation & Books+sorry!+conlcusion (?OT)

[Paul Kocsis]

>Wolfgang M.Bereuter wrote:
<snip>
>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?

<snip>
>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...

With all due respect Sir, I'm having a hard time determining whether your
opinion is that RR should be targeting beginners, professionals, or both.
I'm guessing it's both, based upon the fact that you voiced the opinion that
RR should be providing (and supporting) different UI's?  ....different UI's
for different levels of "software developer" expertise?  I must be
incorrect, as it doesn't make sense (to me) that folks might think that
would be a wise undertaking for RR.

If seems to me that most beginners strive to become professional, and
Marian's array explanation was excellent in helping make that a reality for
someone.  To  characterize Richard's explanation as "From an Insider for an
Insider" is, well, naive.  Your example topic was an "array"...a
fundamental, universal, software development concept...it was not a deep and
dark "RR exclusive" topic, and thus, almost impossible to produce an
"Insider" explanation.

It is not the job of RR documentation to teach generic, fundamental
programming skills and concepts that are required for *any* programming
language.  It is not unreasonable for RR to assume and require that some
level of programming basics exist, of which I believe the concept of an
"array" is clearly one of...regardless if RR's multi-dimensional array
capabilities are "real" or "pseudo"...

Documentation focusing on such programming ABC's and explanations would
surely scare off many professional developers...which I hope is the
continued target audience that RR embraces.

Paul Kocsis