Re: [Vala] just a suggestion

[Phil Housley <undeconstructed gmail com>]

2009/1/22 Alberto Ruiz <aruiz gnome org>:
> 2009/1/22 Xavier Bestel <xavier bestel free fr>:
> > Hi Phil,
> >
> > On Tue, 2009-01-20 at 19:49 +0000, Phil Housley wrote:
> > > * Intro
> > >       o History
> > >             + GLib/GObject
> > >             + Gtk
> > >             + Vala
> > >       o Programming style
> > >             + OO
> > >             + Signals
> > >             + Loops
> > >       o Caveats
> > > * First Program
> > >       o Hello World
> > >       o Explanation
> >
> > How about something a bit more practice-before-theory ? I mean,
> > head-first we have a lightly explained "Hello World", then more boring
> > stuff about objects and programming style.
>
> Agree.
>
> Seriously, I don't think that would work. People don't want to learn
> OO Signals and Loops just for fun, that's not how learning works. You
> have to give them a goal first, and you have to push them to learn
> those concepts while they're getting to the goal, if you give them all
> the concepts, you can't expect that your readers would have the clue
> on how to use them out of the blue.
>
> That list is okay for a language reference document, but not if you
> really want to help people to learn and get excited about Vala.
>
> Anyway, just my opinion.

Agree too.

I was thinking about a reference book at the time I wrote that
contents list, and I didn't even finish it as that.  Please don't
think that I will be upset if you want to change things - to make a
different type of book you will definitely need to.

On the other hand, I wasn't planning a long treatise on OO at the
start, just a few paragraphs about programming style.  I think it's
important to have a grasp of the importance of polymorphism to make
progress in an OO language, so I was going to introduce it early so I
could freely refer to the topic right through the book.  I think it
helps everyone to use Vala as intended, and was hoping to subtly
indoctrinate people.  Nothing sinister about that, right?

Basically I would have talked vaguely about how you can deal with
objects without knowing how they function, make decisions in the
correct places and then pass functionality around, things like that.
Just generally trying to encourage people to think OO.

-- 
Phil Housley