[1739] in java-interest
Re: Java How-to Guide
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ozymandias G desiderata)
Fri Sep 15 12:48:25 1995
To: java-interest@java.sun.com
In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 13 Sep 1995 20:32:25 PDT."
<v0151011aac7c826d7ade@[192.0.2.1]>
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 12:19:42 -0700
From: ozymandias G desiderata <ogd@organic.com>
Glenn C. Perkins says:
> There isn't ONE single tutorial book available yet. The tutorial on the
> java server, while appreciated, qualifies as perhaps day 1 of a "Learn Java
> in 21 Days" book. The "manual" is just an incomplete reference guide at
> this point. It's too early for us to be snapping at people for asking
> newbie questions. Telling someone who wants to know how to send mail thru
> Java to "RTFM" with that manual is like telling a kid who wants to know how
> to give his first public talk to "read Websters dictionary--everything you
> need to say is in there."
Furthermore, it seems to me that Java is targeted at people who are
either a) Web designers who are moving up the ladder into more
interactive forms of multimedia or b) C or C++ developers who are
looking for a simpler, easier to use OO language. The breakout groups
at "Java Day" (how many people on this list are going, by the way?)
seem to support this. Separate "Getting Started" guides targeted at
these two separate audiences would be _very_ helpful, I think. I know
there's already something of a flavor of this in the existing
documentation, but I think it should be stated more explicitly: "If
you're interested in jazzing up your pages, you'll want to look at <A>
the Content Provider's Manual</A>. If you're interested in implementing
protocols and new content-type handlers, on the other hand, you'll want
to look at the <A>Java Language Manual</A>."
Or something similar to that.
> I'd also like to see it as a repository for useful classes, too. Bigger
> projects than code samples and applet templates. Jonathan Payne took a stab
> at a regular expression handler. Others are talking about applets for
> creating multiuser chat sessions at your site. What about a handler that
> turns the input from an HTML form into a hashtable for use in CGI scripts?
>
> I'd like to see Sun provide some space for it on a server and a
> moderator/librarian to organize the submissions. The rest of us could then
> provide the questions and the code samples, although we'd love to have as
> many code samples from Sun as they have time/resources to produce.
I was surprised to discover that there wasn't already a Java object
repository in existence. In fact, I've been somewhat dismayed to
discover how scattered across the Internet Java information is. I know
it's a bit much to expect total organization for information on an
unreleased product, but I think that we _should_ all work to make
things as organized as we can.
> You'd jump to the "Java How-to Guide" with a (hopefully java-savvy) web
> browser, and see zillions of questions that lead to well-commented source
> code in the answers. The applet questions would be answered with working
> applets that you could try out before grabbing the source code to see how
> to do it yourself. (That part has already begun, so let's see it grow.)
Wonderful idea!
> The questions could be organized in multiple ways, and one way would show
> off "neat" things that can be done with Java that might not have even
> occurred to you if you hadn't browsed the "Java How-to Guide." For example,
> a hot link that says: "Any machine that can browse the web can send e-mail
> across the internet from within a Java program. It's easy. Here's how...."
> That might come as quite a surprise to a lot of people who've been doing C
> programming for a while on PCs or Macs. "E-mail from my PC from within a
> program? I wouldn't have any idea how to do that in C.... Maybe I should
> check this out...."
Again, great thinking!
> It's pretty easy to think of things that other people should do ;-) but I
> can't imagine a more useful resource to jumpstart thousands of new Java
> programmers. Maybe we could try it on a small scale, maybe just expanding
> the applet samples section of the server and adding a little How-to FAQ,
> and grow it from there step by step.
If we could all come together and put a repository similar to the one
Glen describes, we'd have one of the most uniquely useful resources on
the Internet, and it could only help Java's adoption as a de facto Web
object standard along. So count me in as a cheerleader!
ozymandias G desiderata ogd@organic.com Tomorrow's Web Sites Today
(415)284-6888 http://www.organic.com Organic Online
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