[Book] PureBasic - A Beginners Guide

Kale · Post by **Kale** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:28 am

I've decided to take the plunge and start writing a book.

PureBasic - A Beginners Guide
This text's main focus will be on newcomers to PureBasic and programming in general. I also hope it will be a help to experienced programmers to get them up and running as quickly as possible too. Now that PureBasic is becoming less of a moving target for documentation, i've decide to go ahead and write this beginners guide.

You can download a sample to wet your appetite here:
http://www.garyw.uklinux.net/pb/PureBas ... 0Guide.pdf

There is no deadline set for this book as a publisher has not been contacted yet, but i'm thinking i will probably be done by the end of the year, roughly around the time of PureBasic v4.0. So i may wait until then to update the book if necessary.

Who knows i might get it done in a month!

See what you think. Anything missing from the table of contents?

Droopy · Post by **Droopy** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 7:59 am

Nice Job

GeoTrail · Post by **GeoTrail** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:02 am

Looking great

Will this be like a help file? Or like other programming books with a long story at the beginning about programming and such?

Kale · Post by **Kale** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:18 am

GeoTrail wrote:Looking great
Will this be like a help file? Or like other programming books with a long story at the beginning about programming and such?

It will be like other programming books but the story wont be too big.

GeoTrail · Post by **GeoTrail** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:23 am

Sounds good Kale.
I hate it when I have to read 40 pages about the history of this and that and the author of the language, if I wanted to read an biography I'd buy that, not a programming book hehehe.
I have Teach Yourself C++ by Richard Riley, good pockey book, but as I wrote above, it takes along time to get to the point hehehehe

You wrote that you haven't contacted a publisher yet, do you plan to do that or will it be available for a small fee as an ebook?

Psychophanta · Post by **Psychophanta** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:27 am

Kale, nice. I'd put a thread of this in beginners section too.

GeoTrail wrote:Sounds good Kate.

GeoTrail · Post by **GeoTrail** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:29 am

Psychophanta wrote:

Hsjjj it was a technical error hehehehe

einander · Post by **einander** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:32 am

Very good idea!
I'd buy it.

kns · Post by **kns** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:32 am

I'd buy it if there were several chapters on GUI applications.

Kale · Post by **Kale** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:35 pm

I'd buy it if there were several chapters on GUI applications.

The idea of me posting here is get a bit of feedback on the table of contents and see how best i can make the book.

So i may expand the GUI section further then.

You wrote that you haven't contacted a publisher yet, do you plan to do that or will it be available for a small fee as an ebook?

I havn't decided yet, i hope i can get a publisher to generate a 'real' book but i would also like to have a downloadable version (at a lesser cost) too. we'll see what happens nearer the completion of this book.

GeoTrail · Post by **GeoTrail** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:12 pm

Sounds good Kale. I think I'd buy it to

Post by **Dare2** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:32 pm

If you put in a *definitive* and *exhaustive* and *comprehensive* chapter on splittergadgets (in terms a preschooler understands), then I will buy it.

If you don't, I'll probably buy it anyway - but then you have to buy mine.

Bizzy · Post by **Bizzy** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:28 am

Hi

I would read Chapter 7 first.

Step by Step approach in Tutorials makes learning and comprehension 100%. Without good tutorials it becomes hard labor learning new software.

Best of luck with the book!

Bizzy

Intrigued · Post by **Intrigued** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 2:56 am

Kale wrote:
I'd buy it if there were several chapters on GUI applications.
The idea of me posting here is get a bit of feedback on the table of contents and see how best i can make the book. So i may expand the GUI section further then.
You wrote that you haven't contacted a publisher yet, do you plan to do that or will it be available for a small fee as an ebook?
I havn't decided yet, i hope i can get a publisher to generate a 'real' book but i would also like to have a downloadable version (at a lesser cost) too. we'll see what happens nearer the completion of this book.

I just finished the manual for PB, about 10 minutes ago (Fred's PDF).

I want to be as frank a possible so as to make that PDF better (upon revisions for example) and for books that may come out.

What I found is the the end-developer (users of PB) that are just starting out, for example would be able to more quickly get a grasp of how to code in PB if the basics were more clearly explained up front. IDs, Handles, when to use, when not to use... can (was/is) a confusing topic. Plus, I believe a very clear understanding of Events of all sorts WaitWindowEvent, WindowEvent, etc. etc. must be explained as clear (with more examples, working, code chunks).

This is what I believe any book for beginners needs to accomplish (and there is room for growth for sure in this arena).

With that all said and done I am very happy with where I can take PB even today. Being that I have only used the program for about a month and I have already put into action .exe's and .dlls that have solved several setbacks I had with concerns to another platform I code in.

I hope this helps share some insights and helps your book and others to come.

[Add-in-Comment]

With a more easily understood documentation base I think this would be an excellent language for say kids to get started with (and continue on with of course

)!

I'm going to recommend it to the college I went to!

Sincerely,

blueznl · Post by **blueznl** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 7:36 pm

intrigued, that's why i wrote this: http://www.xs4all.nl/~bluez/datatalk/purebasic.htm#top