[fpc-pascal] Working on a new way to educate people about pascal

[James Richters]

“James, when you raised these questions are you saying that you don't know, or that someone who doesn't know much if anything about programming doesn't know”
 
The point I was trying to make is that most of this is gobbely gook to me.   So I went looking for something I could recognize.. and I saw a reference to a timer, but the only thing we know about it from the article is that there is a timer and it needs to get closed, and that TSqlForm.CloseTimerTimer closes it, and that is IT.  We don’t know how it got started, how much time it was for, why it needs to close, or why in fact there is a timer at all… the reason I brought up the timer is because it was the only thing I could really see that an average person would recognize as maybe being useful in their own lives.   
 
Anyone who could understand what SQL was from the link you provided or understand what the program is even supposed to do, really doesn’t need an introduction to Pascal.  I’m not trying to say that the idea itself is bad, in fact I do like the way you have links that show specific lines to help with the explanation.  I’m just saying, the sample program needs to be on a MUCH simpler subject.. something that an average person who is not a computer scientist can understand.  A subject that a middle school student could understand and see the value of.  I went way beyond what your potential readers would ever do, and went to Wikipedia to see what SQL was and I even tried to follow some of the code and unfortunately I just couldn’t follow any of it at all.   It seems to be just pieces of programs but the reader can’t understand how they relate to each other or how it all works.. it’s too complicated.   It really needs to be just a single program that starts with does something understandable, that the reader could easily copy and paste and play with and understand, not a bunch a pieces of code that the reader can’t figure out how these separate pieces relate to each other.  That is why Michael mentioned having a Pas2js compiler on the page.. it would allow the user to play with the code right there.. but this is impossible with your SQL monitor because on a web page there would be no server to monitor, and even if they wanted to try this themselves, the would have to learn all about SQL to even get started, and that’s never going to happen.  So the only interest you will get at all are people who already have some SQL thingie that want to monitor it… but even so, they don’t have enough information to duplicate your program.. if they cut every bit of code from your page, they would not know where or how to paste it to make a functional program.
 
With such a complicated subject, even someone willing to try to figure it out what SQL is and why you need to monitor it,  will click the link to ”Entity Framework” and go Woah what is all this?? They going to think “All this Free Pascal stuff is really super advanced and beyond anything I could have a use for”  and while it is true that Free Pascal is VERY advanced and has a LOT of ways to accomplish very complicated tasks fairly easily, it also does not HAVE to be complicated at all.  In fact you are missing one of the key fundamental philosophies of the Pascal programming language,   which is that “Programs should be easily understandable by humans”  The image of “The SQL Monitor Example Program” doesn’t mean anything to the average person, and it does not mean anything to me as an experienced programmer.. it’s just a bunch of gibberish that seems to accomplish nothing.  I don’t know why I would ever want to monitor that stuff and  I’m afraid you are going to lose your entire audience because the subject is just too complex,  unless the reader can understand what the program specifically does and how it does it, they aren’t going to be interested. 
 
If instead you had an example of a program that everyone could relate to and maybe even use themselves you will capture a lot more interest, and if the example is relatively simple and easy to follow, with variables that have no abbreviations so it’s as readable as possible, and well commented to make sure that everything is clear,  then you might get someone to actually download Free Pascal and start typing some code, and it seems to me that would be the goal of such an introduction.  That’s why I mentioned the timer.. hey a cool program that you set an amount of time, then it counts down and maybe makes a sound when it’s done.. well everyone that has ever boiled and egg could see why you would want to do that.  Then they could see.. this program has a timer,  this is how I set the amount of time, this is how I start it, this is what happens when it’s done, this is what displays the time left, etc… it serves a purpose they can understand and they can follow exactly what is happening and understand the end result.
 
James
 
 
 
 
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