[netrexx-course] Re: Netrexx dead ?

[pwarren]

Some thoughts on these issues ...

> Netrexx itself or the course??

I hope neither!  But I guess the better the resources and more accessible
the introductions, the better the take-up will be (the quality of the
underlying product not being in question)
 
> What is everyone up to?? The reason there hasn't been another NetRexx
> course is lack of feedback from the first lesson. It is really
> disheartening to work on something like a course and have very little
> directional feed back. I've been sitting on the second lesson for a few
> months now....is anyone interested?

I am as guilty here as anyone - I read the first lesson, and found it
useful, but didn't get around to providing feedback; like so many
things in life I meant to but other things were/are pressing!
 
Apologies then, but two comments also.  First, I teach (among other
things) and I do appreciate the feeling of putting one's all into
preparing material then getting no immediate/direct feedback, but my
experience is that this is a poor guide to the value of the teaching!

The second (and possibly more useful!) point is that I think that
the maximum value of a course like this is in its complete form,
because this allows people to go through at a variety of different
levels, focusing on some parts more than others, and, importantly,
it allows the learner to see where they are going before they get
there (which is also an important incentive in deciding to pursue a
particular course).

For me, I had a research project which needed some simulation
programs writing and I needed to decide whether to invest effort in
learning a new language (rather than staying with Fortran) to get
the advantages of an object-based, cross-platform system. One of the
critical factors in making the decison was being able to read through
Pierantonio Marchesini's free NetRexx tutorial book (even not
complete), which enabled me to judge the what I could do with
NR.

I would certainly like to see the course developed further as I'm
sure it will provide much support and encouragement to those, like
me, who are not 'real' programmers and need an accessible
introduction to solving practical problems using NR.  

>
> What other things are people interested in?
>      * News
>      * Views
>      * Products
>      * FAQ
>      * Sample Code
>      * Intro material
>      * Setting up a working group?
>
> I personally have lots of things I'd like to see happen (for example, VNR
> has been worked on since last release, but again, lacks feedback from
> users, doclets for 1.2 to replace the API docs I've got on the web, JSP for
> NetRexx etc, etc)

Personally I can see use in all these (I guess that's not very
helpful!) but Sample code, Intro materials and FAQ would seem
particularly valuable.  

Particular grey areas for me are input/output and the GUI end of
things (inc. Swing etc... - one of the things that has put me off
experimenting with VNR).  A simple (is that possible?) guide/tutorial
on these in NR would be very useful.

Sorry if it feels like nobody's out there!  Sins of ommisson rather
than commisson I hope!

Philip Warren
University of Sheffield
UK

 


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 Philip Warren
 Dept Animal & Plant Sciences      
 University of Sheffield                  
 Sheffield S10 2TN                  
 U.K.  

 Tel: [phone]   [outside UK: [phone]]
 FAX: [phone]   [outside UK: [phone]]
 Email: [hidden email]
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