What is hard in Rebol? It seems, one of the biggest hurdle for programmers learning Rebol, maybe more so for experienced programmers, is integrating the functional programming approach.
I think that Brian Harvey and Matthew Wright approach in 'Simply Scheme' is excellent for a beginner audience. Their technique is a classic when teaching something new i.e. base the knew knowledge on old knowledge. And it gets even better since they start with everybody's familiarity with the basic structure of language. I have read on the net some coments from programmers saying it was counter productive to teach "non-standard" functions. I don't think introducing such "nonstandard functions" is a problem at all. Any parent knows that a child doesn't need ALL the details right away. Q: "Where do I come from?" A: "Your mother's belly." might satisfy a child just fine (for a while). Simplifying is ok, lying questionable. As long as the learner can build on the previous simplifications, all is good. Going from belly to womb to uterus is much easier to reconcile then from cabage patch to hospital. I think that's what they have achieved in 'Simply Scheme'. They have used very well tought out simplifications in teaching the functional approach to beginners. Think about it, when learning a natural language, do you start with irregular verbs and exeption to grammar rules? I mention all this because I see a lot of beginners tutorial that present the material from the point of view of programming rather then from the point of view of a person learning new concepts. Different learning styles, different goals Using the natural language metaphor... I want to learn to speak german not german grammar. That is to say I want better acces to german cultur in general, I want to be able to better interact with german speakers. I have no plan to be a translator nor a german litterature major. In the same way, I want to learn to speak computer because I want to make it do things for me. That said, I will learn as much "big ideas", patterns, strategies, data structures, and algorythms, as necessary, but it better be fun i.e. give me the joy of new understandings, the pride of new accomplishments, and just plain results. I am drawn to Rebol because of its aesthetics, but beyond that, I'm trying to get that darn box of wires in front of me to answer back! A publishing experiment Just try this little experiment, grab the text from this link: ??? and replace all Scheme instances by Rebol. Then read it and highlight any text that would have to be revised. You'll see how little their would be to change. I know this is just the introduction, but do scan the book, and you will see what I mean. If someone in the Rebol community knows the authors personnaly, they should try to convince them to let us reuse their work in a 'Simply Rebol' version of their book. 1- Put the text on a private wiki 2- have a swarm of Rebolers read trough it and highlight what has to be modified 3-Assign chapters or sections to sub groups and modify and update the text 4-publish a net version under a Creative Commons license and the paper version at a friendly editor who puts animals on its books covers. 5- Use the profits in a grand "diner champêtre" on Carls vineyard. Ciao for now, Jean-François -- To unsubscribe from the list, just send an email to lists at rebol.com with unsubscribe as the subject.
