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Hi sid - Well, after reading my own post, it sounded kind of harsh and I
really didn't mean it that way...It was just supposed to more or less
"confront the realities" of reaching the point where AFL becomes relatively
easy. So I apologize if it came off as nasty and I did *not* intend to
demean anyone. I think there are actually couple of related issues here, so
I will just offer up a couple of ideas for what they are worth.
A. Info is spread across too many places
1. Yahoo groups - If I was TJ, I would probably consolidate all the Yahoo
groups into this one and close the others. It was a good idea, to create
specialized groups where people could go for specialized info, but in
practice it really doesn't work so well because everyone knows the main
group has by far the largest audience and so they just post everything here
90% of the time. I would keep the AT group also as that one seems to have a
dedicated group of users that actually make use of it.
If you choose to receive the individual e-mails, you can save the good ones
and after a while you will build up a pretty good resource for searching. If
you want mine, perhaps I could post my OE folders to a file-sharing site
somewhere And there are also a couple of downloaders that allow you to
download all past messages into a DB on your computer and search them pretty
easily - here are a couple of old links
http://www.groupfetch.com/index.php
http://www.pgoffline.com/
2. I *think* everything else is available via links on the AB homepage,
although you might have to click a few of them..
AFL Library and UKB - I don't know that there is much TJ can do with these
except to possibly fold the UKB in as part of the library somehow or
vice-versa. It is nice of him to provide the space but I am guessing that he
doesn't want to accept responsibility for what is posted by the users, which
could include even having to verify all code for correctness, etc. I think
he would like to keep these seperate from the official stuff, we should
probably just look at it as "frosting on the cake"
3. Other things like Members Area, KB, etc might possibly be consolidated
somehow - perhaps *everything* could could be consolidated under 2 main
links on the homepage - Official Help Sources and User Contributions.
B. Learning
1. Learning process - I can see that someone, and especially a brand new
user, might have trouble searching for something when they are not sure what
it is called, or in fact whether it even exists. That's why I say you will
really benefit a lot if you at least skim through the users guide - you
*will* pick up a lot in the process and you will remember for a long time
that the guide had *something* to say about it. When you can't remember the
details, but you *know* it is in there somewhere, you will keep looking
until you find it.
2. I have seen over the years that it is in fact the experienced programmers
who often have the most trouble picking up AFL. I just think the newbies are
able to approach it with an "empty mind" while the experienced programmers
need to lose all that experience first. I would say it comes up enough to be
a legitimate problem, and I guess the solution would be a very detailed
chapter on array-processing basics, perhaps to include some side-by-side
examples of how "C type" code can be replaced by the much simpler AFL
array-based code? Also, not the ideal solution but as a band-aid, I would
imagine that AFL has evolved enough at this point that perhaps most things
could be done using more contional language structures if the user finds it
easier that way?
Anyway, jsut my 2 cents, sorry again if I came off the wrong way...
Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: "sidhartha70" <sidhartha70@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 2:27 PM
Subject: [amibroker] Re: The best way to help newbies, oldies, ... and
AmiBroker ...
> Steve,
>
> I'm not sure I entirely agree. I'm a reasonably experienced programmer
> in VBA mainly. But over the years I've done all sorts right back to
> Pascal & 6502 assembler. I've got a logical programming type mind.
> However, coming over to AFL the main problem is that there is no
> "Beginners Guide" and there is no "Intermediate Guide" and no
> "Advanced Users Guide". If you were starting to code in C# tomorrow
> you could go onto Amazon and get exactly books that were exactly that
> for your chosen language. I think that's the big issue here... What we
> have are numerous sources - The UKB, the KB, the AFL Library, the
> Manual, the forum etc..etc... We effectively have a jumbled up set of
> sources which make up our 'Beginners guide', 'Intermediate Guide' AND
> 'Advanced Guide' all together.
>
> It's no wonder people get confused. It's even confusing for people who
> have a decent programming background like myself. I've been
> programming AFL for 5 or months now and frankly I don't feel I've made
> the progress I should have, or would have if I'd started C# from
> scratch 5 months back. And it's not because I'm a dodo or lazy.
>
>
> --- In amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Steve Dugas" <sjdugas@xxx> wrote:
>>
>> Hi - I wonder sometimes if people might expect to install AB in the
> morning, port all their stuff over in the afternoon, and be up and
> running with whatever they want the next day... Unlikely to happen,
> no matter how badly you want to get back to making money. If you were
> learning a foreign language ( French, Japanese, whatever ) you would
> probably give yourself a year or so to become proficient - why would
> you not expect to spend some serious time to become proficient in AFL?
> And of course, the more time and effort you put in, the quicker you
> will come up to speed. When I type "tooltip" into the search box, I
> get about 10 hits. Just going as far as the 2nd one I see
>>
>>
>> Tooltip Allows you to define your own text for data tooltip
>>
>> Example:
>>
>> Tooltip = "This is my tool tip text showing close price: " +
> Close;
>>
>>
>>
>> That looks like a pretty basic and straightforward example... It
> doesn't take a huge leap of logic to think... Hmm, what would happen
> if I added " + Open + High + Low"? Then, what if I deleted the text
> part? If you are reading the docs you should probably come across the
> "\n" newline operator pretty quickly and then you will know how to
> stack them. There is no substitue for at least blowing through the
> entire user's guide, including all the individual functions - even a
> year later you will say to yourself "I seem to remember reading
> something about this in the docs, I will try to search for it again"
> When you see people like Graham, Herman, et al giving help over and
> over again, ask yourself "How did they get so smart"? The answer is,
> they got the basics from the docs, and then there is a lot of
> experimentation, trial and error involved sometimes to get exactly
> what you want.. TJ cannot possibly provide examples showing *exactly*
> how to do each and every idea that might pop into anyone's head. I can
> actually see why he gets frustrated when he *does* put examples like
> this right in the docs and people still say they have no help. I
> *have* read all the docs, and even review them once in a while to try
> and stay on top of new features. Once you do that, it is fairly easy
> to see who has put in their due dilegence and who hasn't...
>>
>> Steve
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: lou
>> To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 11:58 AM
>> Subject: Re: [amibroker] Re: The best way to help newbies, oldies,
> ... and AmiBroker ...
>>
>>
>> Fred -
>>
>> If you'll pardon a "beginner's" comments, It really doesn't
> matter where Brian or Allan want to go only that they can go where
> ever they want. To do that they (and I) need to be able to find and
> understand the existing tools. To use the "Tooltips" example, I would
> not have been able to find the information given by TJ and would still
> be wondering why the check box didn't work (and still am). This has
> been a problem since the beginning of AB but the program itself
> changes so fast that by the time a manual is written, it is outdated.
> Don't know what the answer is, hope you do. Guess it is time for
> some creative thought.
>>
>> regards,
>> lou howard
>> ===========================================================
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Fred Tonetti
>> To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 9:28 AM
>> Subject: RE: [amibroker] Re: The best way to help newbies,
> oldies, ... and AmiBroker ...
>>
>>
>> Brian / Allan,
>>
>>
>>
>> While I'm not particularly fond of answering questions with
> questions the reality is that in order for anyone to answer questions
> like the very general one you posted they'd need to know where it is
> you are trying to go .
>>
>>
>>
>> If you've read Howard's book and that isn't in the direction you
> want to go i.e. system design and testing then what direction do you
> want to go in ?
>>
>>
>>
>> Are you a visual type i.e. are you only interested in indicators
> and line drawing capabilities etc ? or ?
>>
>>
>>
>> Fred
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> From: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of matrix10014
>> Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 11:09 AM
>> To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [amibroker] Re: The best way to help newbies, oldies,
> ... and AmiBroker ...
>>
>>
>>
>> Brian,
>> Thank you for simply cutting to the chase.Until the AFL issue is
>> adequately addressed,a large percentage of us wil be caught in an
>> enedless data loop.
>>
>> Allan
>>
>> "What I am saying is that I think we are making it harder by not
>> admitting that it is a programmers program and just getting on with
>> teaching AFL.
>>
>> I came to realise it is all about programming -
>> specifically AFL.
>>
>> So, if I do want to get on with it where do I go"
>>
>> >
>> >
>> > brian_z
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --- In amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "brian_z111" <brian_z111@>
> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Herman,
>> > >
>> > > >I always figured that sticking with AFL would have provided a
>> more
>> > > >continuous path for users to develop their programming
>> expertise.
>> > >
>> > > This is a new point, not really discussed much before, I think.
>> > >
>> > > I really don't know how to put it in words but you are so right.
>> > >
>> > > Tomasz should be proud of me because if I am a programmer at
> all
>> I
>> > am
>> > > an array programmer...... but sometimes I am left reaching for
>> AFL?
>> > >
>> > > Perhaps there are conventions that people with 2 or more
>> > programming
>> > > languages automatically understand?
>> > >
>> > > Do I have to go and learn C++ as well.
>> > >
>> > > Should I need too?
>> > >
>> > > brian_z
>> > >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users.
>> It has removed 535 spam emails to date.
>> Paying users do not have this message in their emails.
>> Try SPAMfighter for free now!
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
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