Dearest Tiger,
direct to the Point(s):
P1) From a life-long experience as an experimental Physicist and as a s/w
developer (CERN-GE, Univ.-TS, ...) I've got to appreciate good tech.doc.s
sparing me unnecessary difficulties in making good use of high tech. devices in
general, and computer systems and s/w tools in particular.
P2) From that experience I reached a “revolutionary” conclusion, that is that
good/effective documentation should be written from the end-user point of view
(and purpose, and needs), not from the involved high tech. device designer,
producer or seller, as it usually happens.
P3) With such basic and revolutionary conviction in mind I decided to
demonstrate the usefulness, the validity of my “vision” in a real case; that is
with Eric, a fairly complex s/w tool so far virtually undocumented.
P3.1) A “basic and revolutionary conviction” which, by the way, implies that
for writing valid and sensible documentation about a given tool, especially a
high tech s/w tool, first of all (among other things, but this first of all)
obviously you must know what that tool is intended for, you must be a fair
expert of the intended art, so to test and know what you are talking about.
Obviously.
P4) My intended reward for that commitment of mine was to get in touch with and
obtain the operative adhesion of a bunch of, say, half a dozen users, so to get
valid and sensible feed-back and professional support from qualified and
collaborative fellow users. It would be sort of methodological revolution about
how Tech.Doc. should be intended, and done.
P5) All what here said is openly and clearly announced in the Foreword of my
work, and then stated with each and all pages that follow.
P6) In conclusion, after about half a dozen Tech.Reports aimed at the stated
revolutionary goal, being, as it happens, my effort not appreciated nor
encouraged by the Eric users' community, of course there is no reason to keep
inflicting it upon them. Of course.
P7) All your question & remarks are anyhow welcome.
So long. Yours,
- P.M.
- -
Sent from Outlook<http://aka.ms/weboutlook>
________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2020 12:27 PM
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Conclusion about Studio-PM's “Tech.Reports”
Hi P.M.
just got on the Eric mailing list and saw your post. I do not know anything
about the history of that document, but I would like to offer you the feedback
from my first steps with Eric from 3 days ago.
I think Eric could be what I had been looking for for some time. My normal C++
IDE (CodeBlocks) unfortunately does not support Python and I just can not get
used to those code monsters of VSCode or rather counter-intuitive, undocumented
IDEs as KDevelop (which I got to run but really did not warm up to it). Major
frustration was maybe it was missing someone like you, who wrote up something
about the program to get started and around most pecularities.
So I really apprecitate your work on Eric and thank you very much for your
effirts I think most people have no idea how time consuming a full
documentation of such a complex program is.
I have to admit that I had wasted a lot of time searching for some
documentation for Eric. I was led off by the title "Technical Report" and the
look of first few pages and dismissed it as too detailed developer stuff rather
than Getting Started Stuff. I think this is mainly due to the way the document
is presented on the Eric website.
The Document proved most valuable in clearing up the strange concept of API. At
least I have understood what it is not. I have not really understood what
exactily it is and what is does from the explanation, but that is because
usually I only understand things after seeing a concrete example, because I
typially interpret whats written in a different way very often. However, I see
how difficult it would be to make a concrete example of this.
I ran into a big problem setting up Eric in Linux using pyenv. I got a
workaround going now, but there is a severe thing going wrong. I noted that
your version is too old to cover the new tow VirtualEnv dialogs in Extras. I
must admit that I did not really undertand what they do, because in my
installation they fail to do what I would naturally expect them to do. With the
Configure dialog I accidentially deleted all my VEs in pyenv, so I got a bit
careful about playing around.
As I am new to python I am sure that most people starting with Eric would be
highly appreciative of your document, would they get it presented as such:
"Description of Eric IDE, its main Concepts and Installation in Windows". (not
very up to date). AFAIK there is not other written documentation around at all.
You mentioned in your text you would have some additional information. I would
be pleased to learn more about it or receive the files if you would be prepared
to send them.
Best regards
Tiger
PS: I would have answered you on the mailing list, but I'm afraid I do not know
how to answer to a specific post there. I just pressed the "Reply via email to"
button on the page. Please feel free to at this onto the mailing list if you
think that is useful.
