Gambas adoption, script kiddies & old codgers
Posted: Tuesday 29th December 2020 10:56am
There have been comments recently here in the Lounge about the growth in GambasONE membership, while concern has been raised that many members are old codgers, who may checkout at any time to join that great Library in the sky!
I have no idea about the age profiles of members, although I have noticed that quite a few new members have arrived here with a background in other languages, typically Visual Basic.
At the same time, I notice that there are now over 2780 posts on this site covering nearly 450 topics. This can make it difficult to retrieve stuff, especially with mega-threads like "Did You Know?".
So what I think may help to attract new (possibly young) first-time programmers to Gambas, is a new sub-forum dedicated to tutorials for beginners. I know we already have "Project Showcase", but I'm thinking more in terms of examples both on how to use the editor & the IDE and how to use the language (e.g. datatypes, loops, using arrays or whatever).
The Project Showcase does not satify this requirement because it contains (for the most part) complete solutions. A Gambas programmer (of whatever level) is generally more interested in developing their own solutions, so just need enough detail to work out what is possible.
During my wind-down-to-retirement phase, I worked for a few years in a secondary school. This was just as the UK was trying to make the transition from teaching useless IT (mostly creating posters & excel spreadsheets) to a curriculum more closely aligned with Computer Science.
Unfortunately the chosen language was Python. This acted like a big OFF switch to the vast majority of 11-16 year olds. I feel that they would have retained the interest of more students by teaching a visual language like VB or Gambas. Obviously I have no axe-to-grind regarding Python Vs Gambas (I look around and see at least 3 internet radios I've built using Python). But Python is not a good language for youngsters to be confronted with as a first language.
So I guess my point is: Gambas should be in a strong position to attract first time programmers on the Linux platform, so long as there is plenty of information & support available of a suitably high standard.
I have no idea about the age profiles of members, although I have noticed that quite a few new members have arrived here with a background in other languages, typically Visual Basic.
At the same time, I notice that there are now over 2780 posts on this site covering nearly 450 topics. This can make it difficult to retrieve stuff, especially with mega-threads like "Did You Know?".
So what I think may help to attract new (possibly young) first-time programmers to Gambas, is a new sub-forum dedicated to tutorials for beginners. I know we already have "Project Showcase", but I'm thinking more in terms of examples both on how to use the editor & the IDE and how to use the language (e.g. datatypes, loops, using arrays or whatever).
The Project Showcase does not satify this requirement because it contains (for the most part) complete solutions. A Gambas programmer (of whatever level) is generally more interested in developing their own solutions, so just need enough detail to work out what is possible.
During my wind-down-to-retirement phase, I worked for a few years in a secondary school. This was just as the UK was trying to make the transition from teaching useless IT (mostly creating posters & excel spreadsheets) to a curriculum more closely aligned with Computer Science.
Unfortunately the chosen language was Python. This acted like a big OFF switch to the vast majority of 11-16 year olds. I feel that they would have retained the interest of more students by teaching a visual language like VB or Gambas. Obviously I have no axe-to-grind regarding Python Vs Gambas (I look around and see at least 3 internet radios I've built using Python). But Python is not a good language for youngsters to be confronted with as a first language.
So I guess my point is: Gambas should be in a strong position to attract first time programmers on the Linux platform, so long as there is plenty of information & support available of a suitably high standard.