Alena

http://smallbusinessgrant.info

Not all new users will want to pay a decent bit for the compiler, then pay more for books (that are usually outdated) and more for a tutorial when there are other languages that are free or next to free to struggle through learning.

Personally, the attitude I see from the outside in is a that RB is something that is easy for people to pick up, and that most who are using it are doing it professionally and/or should be easily able to transition to using it when familiar with other languages. Maybe your experiences are different, but that’s the perception I had; if help wasn’t forthcoming from the NUG, you could pay for examples or tutorials or other sources of help, since free nuggets weren’t forthcoming from the Internet. It’s just too niche, and people investing time in using it want to be paid for it (which I can understand, but it also limits people getting into the language).

It’s just not welcoming to attract new users and make it new-user-friendly while at the same time creating barriers to entry. I’d far rather not deal with the hassle even if I had $50 or $25 or whatever XYZ resource will cost to pay for something when I could invest in a compiler (free or pay for) that when I run into trouble I can spend half an hour googling and sifting for an answer and get it right away rather than lose more money paying someone for a possible solution.

I’d have loved to have a podcast where you get information, news, examples, whatnot…half hour or so at a time (or shorter)…that I could have listened to, gleaned information from, and given feedback to, and quite possibly purchased followup material or subscription services from if it’s good. It’s a labor of love to do that though. You’ll lose time. You’d gain pride and reputation and something to add to the resume when advertising your services. It’s marketing that benefits in the long run, not the short term, and that is too high a perceived barrier for most people with the skills to do something like this to jump over.

Another issue with any REALbasic training is that you could spend an hours worth of video just exploring the Application class. Useful? Yes, but not for absolute beginners when there’s a number of topics that a beginner would find more useful.

Plus I’m not sure that having some basic code explanations wouldn’t be helpful for some users. Explain why a For Next loop works differently than a While Loop, or Do Loop can certainly be instructive. If nothing else it provides good (incidental) material on how to debug in REALbasic using breakpoints and the variables list.

For new users it would certainly make sense to produce a “REALbasic in a Week” series following the outline of “Flex in a Week”. I often refresh my skills by visiting a couple of theory sections (specially on the more advanced topics). However, I don’t see the point in producing a “Learn to program Basic” type of training, spending hours on explaining for-loops, if/then/else etc, that would be too beginner focused and not particularly appealing to more advanced users.

As Christian said – seems to be tons of work…. Drop me a line if you want to brainstorm some sample project and I’d be happy to help you with certain aspects of the project.

Merry xmas,
/msa