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Use of BBC4W Forums
« Thread started on: Mar 1st, 2012, 2:57pm »
Perhaps I might start the ball rolling here. As Richard knows, and through no fault of his I have often maintained like many other forums relating to Programming, and other subjects, such as PCs in general and even Amateur Radio, most of the BBC4W postings relate to advanced issues. For example the complex subject of API. I have always suspected this is because most of the members of BBC4W forums like others are experienced Programmes in more complex computer languages, and just like to experiment as to what can be achieved with BBC4W.
But I think you will agree the future of BBC4W relies on novices not professional programmers often already fully engaged at work in programming. So it is a great pity we cannot do more to encourage more people, especially the young to make regular use of BBC4W Forums. Richard has suggested I might start a thread here devoted to helping novices. But never having been involved in programming as a job, my knowledge is somewhat limited, especially when it comes to using API. I have always relied heavily on just copying code kindly provided by others such as Richard, very often without really understanding how it works.
The other point I would like to make is we rarely seem to read of software such as Shareware being produced by members, and then hosted by major distributors. For example in spite of my limited knowledge I have yet to see anyone quote a site like my page at http://www.sigord.co.uk/Submits/Software.htm giving details of BBC4W software published and hosted by major distributors. Yet assuming as like me any you are prepared to quote on each program it has been developed using BBC4W, this is the ideal way to help promote BBC4W or for that matter any other language.
Re: Use of BBC4W Forums
« Reply #1 on: Mar 19th, 2012, 1:10pm »
I agree with you. The very reason I like BB4W is because I am NOT a software developer. I’m a hardware engineer that occasionally needs to create a utility to do something that helps me and others use the hardware that I develop. The fact that I used BB4W to create an assembler for an 8-bit micro-controller for FPGA designs should not lead anyone to think that I’m a software engineer and I’m certainly not using BB4W in a way that could be describe ‘expert’.
In my early adult years I grew up with BASIC and Pascal and I like to think I write good code but not anything complicated or advanced. Probably the best thing about the code that I write is that more than 50% of it is comments to remind me what on earth I was doing and how it works.
A few years ago I thought about learning ‘C’ and never even got out of the starting blocks. The reason being that everywhere I looked appeared to assume that I already know everything and was looking for the next level of advanced stuff. I was being bombarded with terminology that I just didn’t know. I’ve got a vague idea what an API is, what a DLL is and what a driver is. The key point is that I can use BB4W successfully without really knowing what any of these things are. May be one day I’ll need to know even when using BB4W but at least I’ll be building on top of what I already know and use; it seems to me that so much today requires you to know 90% before you can get that first centigrade to Fahrenheit conversion program running.
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