Please reply if you are interested in attending a programming course in a laboratory format.

We're envisioning creating a Presentation Manager control in four hours or so (with breaks). Class members would decide on the type of control to be created, and an experienced developer would guide the class in creating it.

Programming language would probably be C or C++ and use the OS/2 Developer's Toolkit.

Let me know if this kind of course would be interesting.

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Expert Consulting for OS/2 and eComStation

I suppose that we should also mention that this doesn't necessarily have to coincide with the Warpstock annual event, if another timeframe would be better suited to the majority of potential attendees. In fact, if people might be interested in an extended (week long) workshop, we're interested in hearing about that, as well. Location, instructor, format, etc. are all open for discussion at this point, so please give this some thought and post your ideas.

Thanks!

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Lewis G Rosenthal, CNA, CLP, CLE, CWTS, EA Treasurer, Warpstock Corporation

I'm very interested and would come to any site, although I'd prefer something on the West Coast, Desert Southwest, a Northern Atlantic city (NYC, Boston, Baltimore), or the Midwest (around Missouri). What's that? Too much information?

I'll come alone and single-minded. I would be interested in a longer session such as three days or a week more than a one day class. Either C or C++ would be worthwhile. The creation of a PM control would be nice as a culmination of the class.

Just my two Euro...

Hello all,

Recently there was a discussion on the OpenOffice for eCS group regarding how we can get more developers. I suggested that we put together a one week course in programming in C++. Neil and Lewis suggested that we do it under Warpstock and suggested moving the discussion here, so here is my idea.

I wrote a few primitive C programs about 20 years ago that actually did what I wanted them to do, and I have tried on several occasions recently to renew my familiarity with C by following along with online C++ courses, but I never seem to make it over the "I have no idea what to do" hump. It seems that in order to be successful, I need to commit to blocking everything else out and immersing myself in studying C++ for a long enough period to get me over the hump. As a result, I propose that we offer a 5 day entry level C++ course. Below are some ideas. They are just ideas. Obviously, the schedule is flexible.

Advance Information
Let us know what the pre-requisites are, such as: if we need separate partitions for each compiler, etc. At one point, we needed Netscape to install VAC++ is that still necessary, or is there a work-around?

Monday

Discuss relative merits of Open Watcom, VAC++ and GCC. For example, which ones are better for what uses, etc.
Install those that we will use. I would actually like to see us create at least one C++ program in each compiler over the course of the week.


Tuesday

Create a simple program that will copy the songs in a PM123 playlist onto a CD for use in a car.

As these programs are created, the students would be familiarized with such things as planning the program logic and how to research available commands/structures.

Wednesday

Create a flash card simulator program that will allow the user to display a question, decide what the correct answer is, view the answer and tell the program if the user got the answer correct. If the answer is correct the question would not be asked again. If the answer is incorrect, the question would be shuffled into the stack for another pass.


Thursday

This is probably too much to undertake, but I use a ThinkPad T21 and I *love* the Trackpoint device, but when I use the center button to emulate a mouse wheel, if other things are going on, it stores up the move commands and executes every one of them, even though I have long ago let up on the Trackpointer. I would like to modify the mouse wheel emulator so it will purge the buffer of any remaining move commands as soon as I let up on the Trackpointer.

Friday

Set up Paul Smedley's porting environment and actually do a little porting.
Loose ends.

Well, there you go. I really hope we can get something going, because I believe this will empower those of us who would like to, to help.

I would favor sometime in the Spring, such as March or April, but any time is fine. I would be willing to do the leg work if the group wanted to do it in the DFW (Dallas - Fort Worth) area.

Y'all have a great day!

Stu Updke
Bedford, Texas

Hello Neil and Lewis,

I was just wondering if anything has happened WRT the course. I can see that nothing has been posted here and I wonder if it would be beneficial to post my message on the eCS group to find out if any others are interested? Also, I am wondering if your silence on the issue is indicative of you feeling that my suggestion is not on target?

I hope you all have a great day!

Stu

I personally would take the C++ course. I do write programs here in Borland C++ for our Windows machines. and have for over 15 years. I started with assember in 1966, then went to Basic, Visual Basic, and then C++. At high school we used a language from the University of Toronto and Holt Software called TURING , yes named after Alan Turing, to teach programming. See:http://compsci.ca/blog/download-turing-411/
Do we have stats from previous Warpstocks of the numbers that attended similar 'programming' courses? I would also like to learn to 'program' scripts in OpenOffice, and would be willing to setup/teach OpenOffice {Writer,Spreadsheet, Database(with help?), and Impress (Julien?). That could end up being a multi-dayer depending on the complexity decided.
An then there still is my Mesa2 stuff. EDGAR.

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Hi, Edgar...

As you know, we've never actually had people register for particular sessions, and have no real numbers concerning who or even how many may have attended similar sessions in the past. That said what Stu has proposed will be a significant departure from the types of sessions Warpstock has done to date. Even the Developer Conference does not go into programming in such detail, but rather exposes some works in progress to other developers.

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Lewis G Rosenthal, CNA, CLP, CLE, CWTS, EA Treasurer, Warpstock Corporation

I would be interested in a programming course.

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TomLeeM aka BigWarpGuy aka BigGoofyGuy TomLeeM Art Stuff (my art on stuff). http://www.cafepress.com/tomleem

VAC365 required Netscape IIRC but there is a way to run the installer without it (don't know all the details). VAC308 does not require Netscape as I recall. It has been a long time since I installed either (I've just copied the installed files to each new machine). That said, these are no longer directly available (ebay or if someone happens to have copies). e(X)WP uses 3.08 and Odin uses 3.08 (but can be built with 3.65). The Flash plugin is being developed with 3.65. These are the only current projects I know that use VAC.
Unless you already have a copy (or desire to work on Odin or XWP) then I'd primarily recommend Watcom or GCC. And in the context of the course I don't know that I would focus on VAC at all (due to the limited availability).
Andy

Stuart,

Each day, you ask for material that would fit nicely into ten days. Some teacher could run through it in one day, but I have my doubts that any students would really absorb much of the information.

Monday: Andy covered the compiler issue pretty well.

Tuesday: Selecting the right tool for the job would be a pretty good sub-topic. You mentioned messing with music files, which is a scripting task, suite for REXX or perl.

Wednesday: This is pretty much OK.

Thursday: That does sound like too much for a day, or even a week. Could be done. Maybe just a survey of the problem, so you would have an idea what you are asking.

Friday: Sounds good. We would not have time to actually port anything, but it's a nice topic. I'd love to see GNU hello world presented, which is an example of how to port the well-known 1 line C program to a new platform.

Edgar:

yes, I have the stats. No one has ever run a programming course at Warpstock.

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Expert Consulting for OS/2 and eComStation