Re: [Vala] just a suggestion

[Yu Feng <rainwoodman gmail com>]

On Tue, 2009-01-20 at 12:21 +0000, Karl Lattimer wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-01-20 at 10:44 +0000, Alberto Ruiz wrote:
> > 2009/1/20 Karl Lattimer <karl qdh org uk>:
> > > On Tue, 2009-01-20 at 09:44 +0700, Hans Baier wrote:
> > > > > I still have a long way to learn Vala.
> > > > > Since someone is successfully using Vala in a number
> > > > > of projects I think they already have a good knowledge
> > > > > of common pitfalls, best practices and the like.
> > > >
> > > > Writing a book is one of the most efficient ways to
> > > > learn. Believe me, that is how I learnt linux.
> > > > Just start, it doesnt have to be perfact in the beginning.
> > > > It can grow over time.
> > > >
> > > > That is how open source happens....
> > >
> > > I've actually been thinking about this. I've discovered an awful lot
> > > since I've been writing in vala and meandered my way through a tonne of
> > > vapi.
> > >
> > > If someone wants to help build a draft and table of contents with me we
> > > could start a joint effort and try and get it published at some point.
> >
> > Count on me as well to write some content.
> >
> > I actually think, that it would be really nice to do a good GNOME (as
> > in the platform) Tutorial based in Vala. Teaching how to create a
> > GNOME app from the ground up (using GtkBuilder, database access,
> > creating .desktop files, HAL...). Note that with Vala you don't have
> > to care about a lot of stuff, which leave us some room to teach good
> > GNOME development practices.
> >
> > Also, we could take the chance to do proper ilustration, I miss that a
> > lot in the rest of the GNOME docs. The main loop, events, signals, and
> > DBus could be explained much better with proper ilustration. I can
> > help a bit here, but I'm sure others in the GNOME artist community
> > could help with this.
> >
> > Most GNOME docs sucks big time, the Gtk+ Tutorial for example, is more
> > a widget-by-widget manual rather than a proper tutorial on how to
> > create an app.
> >
> > Luca, count on me to write some stuff and help with the content index
> > if someone else (you?) leads the effort (meaning, doing brown
> > dispatching and reminding people to complete their parts of the book
> > ;-).
>
> If we're going to do this as a team I suggest that we outline a strategy
> before we begin.
>
> Here are some chapters we'd want to consider, I'm starting off with ones
> which I'd be happy to write;
>
>  * Custom Widgets
>  * Cairo & Pango
>  * GTK Applications
>
>  * File handling
>  * Database applications
>  * Language introduction & reference
>  * DBus
>  * Common pitfalls and caveats (reserved words and similar)
>  * GObject from a vala perspective 
>  * Nicely formatted API reference for all available vapi
>  * Translation

I would like to do chapters on
   * GObject from a vala perspective
   * Vala in Science: GSL and MPI
   * Vala and Friends (other languages)

Advanced topics such as using Patterns may also be useful in the book.

Regards,

Yu
> Please append to this list ;)
>
> Within the chapter structure there would have to be an over-arching
> theme, I suggest what we do is take a single example application which
> has a requirement to touch a large proportion of vala, gtk, cairo,
> sqlite/mysql and more and produces a simple fun application that is
> actually useful.
>
> Essentially I suggest we gear it towards a how we made this
> application. 
>
> Anyone else have any thoughts on this kind of approach?
>
> BR,
>  K
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