Reverse wish list ideas...

Originally posted by Eric Pearson:
But the fact that somebody would use PowerBASIC automatically means they're not a dummy!

Besides, "for Dummies" is a registered trademark.

-- Eric

I was just throwing in a little pun, nothing serious intended!!

Cheers,
Cecil


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[Mike Comeau]

I agree,

I started out tring to develop at Tab Style control, and
I now have 8 ways to do it (or not).

I merged the 50 topics to 8 conflicts.

I'm making a Dialog 101 for MYSELF. I will share it as soon as
I understand it. (It's the styles, and the BINARY OR'ing that
has me. Why not just say it's 100 bits long and bit 34 does this
and 27 that?) %H800000% ? %H800000...

Lance, this is real important for the future of PB.

We need a standard guide to HOW TO, instead of everone's
different (and usually excellant) way of doing things.

Lance usually has the PRO's and CONS or the answer, to many
thread topics, but this is reactive. We need a proactive
approach to HOW TO, and an official PB guide is needed now.

Mike...




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[Eric Pearson]

But the fact that somebody would use PowerBASIC automatically means they're not a dummy!

Besides, "for Dummies" is a registered trademark.

-- Eric


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Perfect Sync: Perfect Sync Development Tools
Email: mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

To All,

At one time there was a nasty rumor floating around that former
PB admin Dave Navarro was writing such a book. He has since left
PB to do other grand and glorious things. How about it Dave,
is the rumor true or false?

My vote, "PowerBASIC for Dummies". This naming series has become
a best seller. There's "Whatever for Dummies" flooding the
book shelves.

Cheers,
Cecil


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[This message has been edited by Cecil Williams (edited January 31, 2001).]

[Michael Mattias]

As you both point out, "How to.." information is something oft-requested yet seldom available.

But let me point out this dearth of information is not unique to PowerBASIC: for mainframe COBOL and JCL, IBM's (excellent!) documentation contains at best trivial examples. The Microsoft BASIC-language products I've worked with, ditto. Third-party libraries? Generally in the same league, with but a few notable exceptions (e.g., Fred Lepow's samples for his B-tree index library).

Of course, this shortage of info has its positives: Look at all the jobs created at Microsoft Press, SAMS, Que Publishing...

MCM

[John Kovacich]

I bet PB could find someone with technical writing skills to scour
this BBS and find a truckload full of How-Tos. Compile them together,
and post them to the files section.

It would be better then VBPJ's 101 tips leaflet!


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Thanks,

John Kovacich

[Colin Schmidt]

This forum run by PowerBASIC is the best programming resource on the internet, period. However, is it meant to replace any sort of tutorials, walkthroughs, and code design documentation that should come with the compiler? (Beyond the few short subject specific sections in the documentation already.)

The reason I ask this is that it appears as though many (not all!) of the “wishlist” ideas that continually appear on this forum are due to a misunderstanding about how to program in PowerBASIC. The greater programming world outside of PowerBASIC is very different from PowerBASIC. And as most programmers come to PowerBASIC after working with other languages and techniques, they often appear to misunderstand some basic concepts of how to use the language as most effectively and efficiently as possible. It appears as though they approach their PowerBASIC applications the same way they would approach their “native” programming language.

If PowerBASIC doesn’t make a bigger distinction of these differences, then they will be forced by the market to follow the general programming trends whether good or bad. I have always seen PowerBASIC as a language that tried to stay away from the “bad” of modern trends while adopting the “good”.

Thus... I strongly suggest that PowerBASIC expands it’s documentation to cover all aspects of programming in PowerBASIC. This would be most effectively done in a book with the title “PowerBASIC in 21 days”, or “PowerBASIC for the know-not”. This book should start with PowerBASIC programming concepts, then move into DDT concepts, then some advanced API SDK concepts, and then finally some good up to date AMS concepts for within PowerBASIC. The entire book should be PowerBASIC specific. i.e. not for c or c++!

I believe that this would be the best thing for the PowerBASIC community and would make life for the newcomers much easier, and much more inviting. This would also help people understand that PowerBASIC is not just another version of BASIC, it is in it’s own league and can not be directly compared to other languages. Bringing us back to the first point then of programmers recognizing that you must approach a PowerBASIC application in a totally different manor than you would for any other language.

PS: If PB doesn’t do this themselves, I think I’ll make some money off such a book myself! (Still a half starving student with initiative to eat!)

Just my 2 cents in response to my limited view of the world,
Colin Schmidt

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Colin Schmidt & James Duffy, Praxis Enterprises, Canada
[email protected]