[Gambas-user] [Gambas-devel] Creating a Control

[Tobias Boege]

On Wed, 10 Sep 2014, John Leake wrote:
> Hi Tobias,
> 
> Thank you for your response.
> 
> I am simply trying to improve the user experience while I can still see
> things from a newbies perspective.
> 
> Not all users find writing code fun.  Many have a problem to solve or
> wish to make boring or time consuming actions less so.
> 
> Surely the Gambas community want to expand their user base !
> 

Yes! OK, I'll stop arguing about it. It's a noble objective and we can
discuss things when there is an actual manifestation of it.

> [ big 8< ]

> > Note that you are talking about IDE integration here (right?). You can write
> > 
> > --8<--[ MyToggleButton.class ]----------------------------------------------
> > ' Gambas class file
> > 
> > Inherits ToggleButton
> > --8<------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > and the interpreter will be happy and everything will be there. Integrating
> 
> May be the documentation should reflect that.
> 
> > I don't see yet why it is
> > so important to make it require even less effort. Maybe you've got real
> > world experience here [ heck, you've worked longer as a developer than I am
> 
> > alive :-) ], but I deem custom controls to be a thing which newbies should
> > stay away from.
> 
> Should they be excluded by technical jargon or have to read reams of
> documentation and learn strange (to them) concepts ?
> 

Maybe we hit a mentality border here. Gambas was my first programming
language and I taught the basics myself in a few months (by looking at the
examples only and spending way too much time at the computer; I didn't
know what forums and mailing lists _were_ back then).

I believe a newbie should take time to explore things themselves and make
lots of errors. The frustration one experiences helps to remember important
points ;-) -- that's at least what served me well enough and I always found
the fruits to be rewarding.

With time comes a good understanding of how the Gambas system "thinks" about
your code and you can understand more advanced topics with great ease. I
have programmed quite some time in Gambas without knowing about custom
controls. But when I first needed to make one, I just did it. With the
experience I had, it fell into shape naturally. As a Mathematics student, I
like the analogy to... Mathematics: if you're a normal person, you _need_ to
go through vast amounts of exercises to get a feeling for your objects and
ideas.

So technically, yes, I want people to work hard and know Gambas before they
go to custom controls because if they do, they are probably already fit
enough to do it by themselves.

You must understand: That's the way I went and since I'm content with it,
my reflex is to try to impose it on others. But OTOH, I realise that not
everyone likes to go through this process -- let alone have time to do so --
just to learn a programming language so your attempts are very appreciated.
Whatever helps people, right?

> > PS: I insist on keeping gambas-user CC'd :-P
> 
> Sorry what is this ?
> 

I already talked about it. It's a mailing list dedicated to questions about
programming *in* Gambas. Things like how to integrate controls into the IDE,
make custom controls, feature requests and everything that has to do with
writing code in Gambas, as opposed to gambas-devel (which we're currently
at) which is for questions related to contributions/internals and programming
*for* Gambas (mostly in C/C++). I keep CC'ing them because I think this
discussion is relevant to that list mostly. Also the people there are _the_
users of the IDE and may have opinions/suggestions.

Regards,
Tobi

-- 
"There's an old saying: Don't change anything... ever!" -- Mr. Monk