Newcomers to RISC OS and the PRMs

The material in the RISC OS PRMs is very heterogeneous. Small parts of it are introductory, which could well be used to answer the questions of newcomers to the OS. Most of it is only of use to programmers already experienced with using the OS. Another small part is for the technically expert only. In an ideal world the introductory material would be separated out as a beginner’s handbook, but of course the problem is mainly logistical.

IMHO RISC OS really needs an equivalent of Charles Petzold’s book “Programming Windows”: something which is more tutorial in content, but also in-depth, and C rather than BASIC-oriented.

something which is more tutorial in content,

Yes. The PRMs are a great resource, but the information is scattered thematically and frequently “confusing”. You’re a good man if all the Font stuff makes sense to you. You’re even better if the section on FileCore disc formats doesn’t leave you scratching your head. And the exact very function you need is described as “This call is for internal purposes only so we aren’t going to tell you anything other than we aren’t going to tell you anything”.

Really, a person using the PRMs as an introduction to RISC OS will most likely have the same nasty experience I had back in ‘94(ish) when I played with Slackware Linux and the book began with “First, compile your kernel” (WTF, aren’t I running a kernel to be able to do that?). Accordingly, I put the book back on the shelf and ignored Linux until Ubuntu came along…

but also in-depth, and C rather than BASIC-oriented.

Therein lie two problems.

Firstly, while BASIC is a bit of a PITA to work with when it comes to Wimp stuff, you can give me the book and a Pi with RISC OS SD card, and a power supply and I can plug in a keyboard and mouse scavenged from something else and jack the Pi into a telly and get going right away. Once I have a standard RISC OS distribution dumped onto an SD card on any sort of machine that can write images (ie, all of ‘em), then I can go autonomously with nothing other than the Pi setup and the book.
If you go the C route, additional stuff is needed. You may be able to retrieve it on another computer and copy it off a USB stick, but we’re talking a lot of additional groundwork to get the development system on-board and installed. This pretty much flies in the face of what the RPi guys have done with “NOOBS” purely because people do not want to go through a massive pile of bull just to get going. They want to bash out:

10 PRINT "Darren is a <beeeep>!"
20 GOTO 10

and let it scroll down the screen as if it is the most exciting thing ever ever ever. Don’t you remember the days when you used to leave anarchic messages scrolling on the screen of demo machines in Dixons and the like? Or was that just me?

[and then even more excitement when they realise the purpose of the semi-colon at the end of the print line, plus, really, GOTO in this day and age?]

Secondly, if you are going to cover C, do you direct people towards GCC or towards ROOL’s DDE? GCC has the advantage of being free. ROOL’s DDE has the advantage of being the defining suite for RISC OS and sales of which help keep crappy Textile going and it is part of the NutPi package. You could, of course, cover both. Confusion abounds! ;-)

I think there is a definite need for a down-and-dirty book covering C (and maybe some arm code) on RISC OS on modern hardware with the ROOL DDE. I just don’t feel that this is necessarily suitable for beginners. Not the state of RISC OS or the complexities of the DDE; but rather C itself. I don’t believe that C is suitable for beginners. C should be something you progress to when you understand some of the basic programming concepts (like the difference between local and global scope; how the different loop constructs behave; how to look at a problem and break it into an algorithm to convert to code; etc). These are things you can do in BASIC. When you want to progress to a fast, compiled, typed language with emphasis on modular programming and a rich set of libraries – then you look towards C.

Just my €0,02…

I very much agree with Rick here. BASIC is much preferable to C for beginners.

Can I put in a plea for RiscLua, too? Once you have extracted !lua from the downloaded zip file and put it in !Boot.Resources (or wherever) then making programs involves exactly the same processes as BASIC – that is, using a text editor, saving the program as a file with the right filetype, and so on. There is one extra twist: writing scripts to use with StrongED. This is a good way to practice with tiny programs that do useful things within the desktop without having to get involved in wimp programming. OK, you could use BASIC for StrongED scripting too, but it is nothing like as straightforward.

Don’t you remember the days when you used to leave anarchic messages scrolling on the screen of demo machines in Dixons and the like? Or was that just me?

The oric was fun for that. (WH Smiths)
a wait statement (to allow discrete exit)
a poke to disable the keyboard
a sound commasnd to make a random noise
goto the sound command

or was that just me?

BASIC is actually quite well covered for tutorial material—particularly if “Wimp Programming for All” could be made available in some form, and there are two tutorial books on BASIC as part of the Pi image.

The problem is that there are two sorts of documentation, generally: for beginners to RISC OS and experts. Nothing in between, really, which is a shame.

or was that just me?

My favourite on the Beeb was:

MODE2:?&360=255:VDU19;0;0;

Points for describing what it’s trying to do.

The recent publication of the CD-ROM containing 55 BBC Micro books from dragdrop.co.uk (which I purchased) got me thinking about how many years worth of magazine articles, from the likes of Acorn User, Archive, etc about Wimp programming, could form the basis of new material. DrWimp comes to mind as well.

I agree with the sentiment though – I would not be surprised if someone takes up the reins on this subject.

As to your code Nemo, the clue is in the fact it’s 8 colour mode 2, plus vdu 19 for changing background colours? Onscreen hypnosis/epileptic’s nightmare?

Wasn’t there something like CALL!-[number] to hang your Beeb?

As to your code Nemo

I’d recommend trying that line on a Beeb or good emulator… it’s rather surprising.

Archive, etc about Wimp programming, could form the basis of new material. DrWimp comes to mind as well.

A DVD is available from Archive containing every issue in Publisher and html format and some pdf as well. There is a lot of programming info, including an extensive series on Dr Wimp by Ray Favre himself.

Nemo, wasn’t sure if it would work on Drobe’s beeb emulator, but it did – I got zoned out for a couple of hourzzzzzzz…. I woke up later with an imprint of the keyboard on half my face, and spittle on my chin ;-p

CJE recently announced they were coordinating updates to the Welcome Guide:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!topic/comp.sys.acorn.announce/CPHUIFpOWUQ

Chris Evans will be at ROUGOL on Monday to give more details (amongst other stuff!). Everyone is welcome to come along and offer him help and advice :-)

http://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/