Hello science in TAOO [long]

[MisterX]

Hi Dennis

Thanks for looking into it and for your time in writing this down.

As I appreciate your (and everyone's) comments, don't take my tone wrong.
I'll just "reply" factually...

> Xavier,
> 
> I have kept quiet about my opinion of TAOO until now.  But 
> with all the stuff flying around, I figured I could weigh in 
> without being the  
> center of controversy.   I am not a fast typist, so I hope you can  
> appreciate my efforts at providing some constructive criticism.

im a slow reader, don't worry :)

> Every time you announce a stack or push TAOO as something to 
> look at again, I go to your website and download what you 
> have and try it out.  I usually find that my attention is 
> diverted from what you are trying to show, instead to bugs 
> that cause it not not function or other cosmetic flaws on my 
> OS X system. 

Dennis, this is my most frustrating problem. While Rev is cross platform, it
is not easy to port things around. 

If you made mac improvements, please send them back so I can add that to the
next release for mac user's enjoyment! I don't have an osx system and
limited budget (no osx mac yet).

> I get frustrated after about 10 minutes and 
> throw whatever it is in the trash and think that I will wait 
> until you have it fixed and then look at it.  Only problem is 
> that the story never seems to change.

That's because "VERY VERY FEW" people will reply with the issues encountered
so that I can fix them on the spot! I try to test a maximum. 

Sometimes the good testers among you send me a screenshot and AHA! I can see
why it's wrong.

In another case, I kept getting the comment "gui too busy". I didn't
understand it because the user never showed it in pictures and just
described it in frustration as I kept getting it wrong. Then I saw the
picture... 

The GUI in Rev on Win2000 is not the same visible gui in XP or in OSX. And
it's not the colors! The frames of the buttons, their patterns and their
icons show differently!!! The rect of a button is the same, yet the visible
rect is 1 to 2 pixels in xp or osx than in windows 2000. I don't have an osx
system and I develop in the least capable gui of w2k and test later on XP.

Patterns that look ok in PCs don't on Macs! It's alluring how hard this is.
And I don't have much time to do graphic guis in a paint program if the gui
is changing so often and patterns don't work correctly across OS - given
correct sizing of media as stipulated in revdocs.

> As an example, I downloaded the Science.rev stack.  I noticed 
> that the buttons were not sized to look their best on my 
> system, so I went about resizing buttons, changing them to 
> square, adjusting positions a bit.  Then I started looking at 
> the content.  Noticed that the categories were not filled in 
> correctly for some of the entries, so I edited them.  Then I 
> tried to click on the hyperlinks in the text and noticed that 
> none of them worked.  Then I read and enjoyed some of the 
> science articles.  I noted that my DEVONthink Pro program 
> would have done a much nicer job of doing the small database 
> example in a polished way.  Then I realized that I had spent 
> an hour on this and I had no idea what I was supposed to 
> learn about TAOO from it.  Time to get back to work...

Yes but...

when I mentioned the URL of the Science stack, I said the stack wasn't
finished.
Sorry about the menus. That part is fixed in the TAOO documentation.

The TAOO Documentation is a much more evolved version of the science stack
that was the "testbed" for the same functionalities that are in Science. I
believe the hyperlinks work in that stack.

> I am sure that TAOO does something useful for you, but I am not sure  
> what that is other than a simple free form database in the example.   
> I am certain that I have no idea what advantage I could put 
> it to for myself, because I don't understand where it fits in 
> with my needs.

One key goal in TAOO is to provide easy db management with 
regular language any user can type in the message box (As Andre's
wizard stack in another magic land). So verbobject thisobject is
easier to remember and use than GetObjectProperty SetObjectProperty
and it can be extended really any scale: 

StartService "FTPService" 
createObject "contact"

What TAOO does behind, is look for your object, do it in grace
and report anything (or not). 

createObject "product", productData 

is another extension. but taoo will do what you expect and fill
in the data correctly. (unfinished part due to so many formats
out there)

> I spent the last 7 months programming with Rev full time on 
> what seems like a large project to me, though it is only one 
> stack and one card at 3k lines of script and growing smaller 
> as I write more!  I threw out my design twice as I learned 
> more about the problem I am  
> trying to solve, and how to write effecient and maintainable code.   

Welcome to the club. After 15 years, you might get a big library
of reusable functions like TAOO has. Over a 1000 in dozens of 
different components - single or composite gui components. 

[snip]

> Now the question is, how can you create a demo or tutorial 
> that can transmit that picture that you have in your mind to 
> others.  It is certain that nobody is going to invest months 
> of time trying to figure out if it is useful.  You have to be 
> able to show them its utility in less than an hour.  You have 
> to spoon feed the concepts  
> painlessly.  Nobody wants to fight you for the table scraps.   
> Perhaps, you could generate a tutorial written TAOO that 
> shows how to use it to solve a problem that is universal to 
> most programmers and that you consider to be an area of 
> strength for TAOO.  Think about the wonderful tutorial stacks 
> that others have written to promote their products or have 
> provided as a service to the community.

Marielle, Dan, and many have suggested this. 
Yet that's usually how I try to deliver stacks "when" they fit the format.

Again, and as often as I repeat it, they are valid examples of how simple
and complex things can be in any framework. You can't avoid some large
functions sometimes or lots of code for little functions. But writing in the
most modular way all your code is how it should be done to improve the
chances  that the code you write can be reused.

WHY reuse? why modular? why distributed or scalable? (I keep it simple, but
it goes far and wide in IT terms)

think VerbObject for a moment... it tells you exactly what the function
does.

It's not hard to remember and easy to suggest.

So you think

SortClients

if you write the button SortClients, you can only reuse it in your clients
stack (logically speaking ;). Or you'll have to rename the handler each time
you port it to another application to do sorts. 

Instead if you name it SortObjects, the handler does this in TAOO:

on SortObjects what
  if what is empty then put the long name of this stack into what
  sort cards of what
end SortObjects

I'll have more and simpler stack demos in the near future...


> If TAOO is worthwhile for others, the time you spend 
> organizing you thoughts and writing the tutorial example will 
> be repaid ten times over in the future with praise, 
> collaboration, and improved utility of TAOO.  Also don't 
> forget that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Unfortunately, I tried that. And generated new ideas like crazy!

Now that I reread the introduction, it's obvious I have lots of editing to
do!


I had to stop to stick to the essentials of the system and for
the sake of releasing something sometime soon. The TAOO documentation
is however pretty complete imoho - as far as the concept means and
how it works. Interpreting what a framework can do for you, I can't
do - but if you suggest an example, I might show you how this could
help you... 

So im reediting for the xth time the documentation ;)

> If you can't justify the effort to do this, then don't expect 
> the future to be any different than the past.

if the description doesn't sum up the issue, try with a picture or ask the
right question. Point well taken! ;)

Thanks for the effort and ideas Dennis, you seem to have become an
accomplished scripter in little time!!! I hope to do as well to entice you
to use TAOO later or sooner.

Cheers
Xavier