Re: Programming beginners' documentation

[KHMan <keinhong@...>]

Peter Sommerfeld wrote:
> Am Sonntag, den 11.05.2008, 01:05 +0800 schrieb KHMan:
>> Ewww... there have been complaints from users about lack of proper
>> documentation for Lua scripting on SciTE on that list, and it's
>> not integrated like Emacs but it's tacked on in a somewhat ad hoc
>> manner. Some users not used to tweaking and troubleshooting
>> property files in SciTE have complained before. Also, error
>> messages sometimes leaves a lot to be desired and you cannot break
>> out of infinite loops. If a new user gets stuck and does not know
>> enough to troubleshoot, again, it might end badly.
> 
> Well, I've had that in my mind but lately I istalled Scite on Ubuntu-8
> and was surprised to got it working soon. The documentation is somewhat
> poor and tweaking the property files not *that* easy though. 

Yeah, SciTE lack the resources to push out a 100% solid and
polished app. We spend more time improving its popular edit
control, Scintilla, and the language lexers.

That said, it's deliberately bare-bones. It's cultural problem too
when it clashes with people used to full-featured IDEs and GUIs.
For example, here we suggested the command line version of Lua,
but it's a real barrier for some users. The more simplified and
friendlier Windows gets, the bigger the disconnect between
old-timers and incoming users. Another example, people used to
GUIs has complained loudly on the SciTE list about the lack of
comprehensive configuration dialog windows in SciTE, but
experienced SciTE users find property files pretty efficient.
Ditto with big-grand-IDE users who can't understand why others
think the Unix way is better.

I think this cultural disconnect will get worse. Perhaps there are
ways to bridge the knowledge/skill gap. Computer users who started
on Apple ][ or VIC-20 or IBM with MS-DOS had a significantly
different experience compared to someone whose first OS is, say,
Windows XP or Vista. We should try to do some impedance matching
and embrace these new users, but it does look like a big gap.

> Anyway, I think Scite is currently the best accessable Application to
> start with Lua. I wish there where others...

Yeah, unfortunately it's not beginner-friendly enough. Something
like Python's IDLE would be nice. There are candidates, I think,
like the wxLua setup. Does anyone have any suggestions for a
beginner-friendly Lua install, something better than a
command-line executable? Hmmm... any candidates?

-- 
Cheers,
Kein-Hong Man (esq.)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia