[Gambas-user] We should offer online Gambas courses!

[Ron]

richard terry wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:22:48 am jbskaggs wrote:
>   
>> I would like to set up a online gambas school where the more experienced
>> users and coders here could offer an online workshop on Gambas for users.
>>
>> Make it an affordable cost (Like a $0 to $25 a course, depending on
>> complexity, length, and time required. A course on making Forms should be
>> free, but a all inclusive course on writing a mmorpg in gambas should have
>> a fee attached)  and offer a workshop for different fundamentals:
>>
>> I know for me a lot of Gambas is intuitive but much of it isn't.
>>
>> Im thinking it could be setup on a moodle or someother workshop / class
>> software.  With online lessons and quizzes for free but to get the actual
>> coding graded it would require a live teacher to grade and comment thereby
>> why a nominal fee would be justified.  I could even host the moodle site
>> and help admin it but my programming knowledge is so low I wouldn't make a
>> good teacher.  But I could help someone setup a course and host it and that
>> person could charge a reasonable fee to teach the course. (Though in the
>> spirit of linux the less money the better.)
>>
>> For example I would be willing to pay right now to be tutored in how to
>> reference, manipulate, and check objects and controls via code (dynamically
>> via nested loops and such).  I read the documents- I look at the examples
>> and still I get the wrong impressions and waste hours and hours on many
>> different controls or functions.
>>
>> I helped setup an online bible college and the way it ran was every course
>> had a different instructor (or most did) and those instructors set their
>> own prerequisites and graded assignments on their own schedule (within
>> reason).
>>
>> But the very basic courses were almost entirely automated - no need to have
>> heavy instructor interaction.  But as the courses became more in depth then
>> instructors became paramount.  Because students needed to ask questions and
>> yes other students could answer and even grade (though their gradings were
>> subject to instructor override.)
>>
>> I look at the number of basic questions on Nabbles and just think that a
>> systematic instruction courses would make gambas bloom even more.
>>
>> Maybe something like:
>>
>> 1- Setting up your Gambas
>>      a. download and installation
>>      b. Defining preferences and intro to Gambas
>>
>> 2- Mastering the IDE interface:
>>      a. creating projects, forms, simple control, saving, compiling, and
>> packaging
>>
>> 3- Gambas Programming fundamentals: A big unit broken into smaller courses
>>      a. Forms
>>      b. Controls
>>      c. Assignments, Operators, Strings, Numbers, and Booleans
>>      d. Comparisons, Loops, and nestings
>>      e. Good programming, coding practices, and the Gambas Programming
>> language
>>
>> 4. Components: Another big unit
>>      a. gb
>>      b. gb.compress
>>      c. gb.chart etc...
>>
>> 5. FX
>>     a. BMP, JPG, PNG, GIF, etc what they are.  Editing and making them.
>>     b. Animations and movies
>>     c. creating, editing, and sounds and music
>>
>> 6. Application specific courses:
>>    a. How to write a text editor
>>    b. How to write a scrolling shooter game etc and so on
>>
>> and so forth.
>>
>> And of course offer a Certificates for completing the courses.
>>
>> I know moodle and setting up the site would be easy- and if someone wanted
>> to teach a course I could setup the course, forums, and quizzes etc.  I
>> could make some beginner courses on my own- but I would need help with more
>> advanced subjects.
>>
>> Any thoughts? Objections? Volunteers?
>>
>> JB Skaggs
>>     
>
> Personally I think we should do what I've pushed for before - include 
> extensively commented sample code along with gambas. We could all contribute 
> on our own level - have a look at the wxPython demo as such an sample 
> code-base of how to use the language.
>
> Richard
>
>   

I agree, an example code/snippets site or part on the official wiki for 
it would be much better.

Ron_2nd.