Learning from scratch - any recommendations?

[dunbarx at aol.com]

Hi.
I have taught several newbies. I always start with a simple app, like an address book. I show how controls are created, and how scripts are built. During that process, I am off in the weeds, writing short handlers showing how the cursor can trigger things like mouseEnter or mouseMove, these messages having nothing to do with the task at hand, but  rather similar to what we are working on.
This is all way before the message hierarchy or anything intermediate like that. The point is to get them hooked, and that can only happen if the basic simple things appear accessible and comfortable. If you are good at this, it will also appear to be fun.
Craig


-----Original Message-----
From: Graham Samuel via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com>
To: How to use LiveCode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com>
Cc: Graham Samuel <livfoss at mac.com>
Sent: Mon, Oct 28, 2019 8:53 am
Subject: Learning from scratch - any recommendations?

Hi all

I have been approached by one of my family to ask what would be the first steps for someone (a young adult) to enable them to enter the world of app design and programming. Obviously I need to ask more questions myself, such as whether this would be to get a job, or simply as an educational exercise, or maybe to provide a launchpad for a startup idea. However, even at this stage, of course my thoughts turned to LiveCode.

So my question to the community is, how would such a person start off - assuming they’re intelligent, very familiar with consumer-level technology such as smart phones, tablets, laptop computers for study etc. and social media, but probably have never seen or thought about what is involved in designing, implementing and publishing an app (I would just say “a program”, but that shows how old I am) on any platform? If it is LC (and why not?), are the published lessons sufficient? What is the view of those on this list who do actually teach this stuff? 

The trouble for me is that I have been around all this for 50 years (more, to be truthful) and so can’t project myself well into the mind of that kind of newbie. One guess is that one way to start would be to find a cheap hardware platform (probably an Android tablet) and try to use the LC Community Edition to allow me to create something for that; but that idea may be stupid, particularly as one would need a different platform to actually do the development work.

Hoping for some insights

Graham
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