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digitalmars.D - Review on amazon.com

reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
TDPL received an interesting review on amazon.com from Philip R. Heath 
(http://tinyurl.com/2daz64k) which mentions among other things:

"2. Good code examples - Core Java had fairly extensive examples, and 
readers could download the code. This is a great service to readers 
because the code compiled (for the most part) with no errors. I used the 
examples as a starting point to explore features and modify them the 
listings to see different behaviors and scenarios. The examples in The D 
Programming Language are sparse and not available for download."

It turns out it would be trivial to make all of TDPL's samples available 
for download. Do you think this would add value?


Thanks,

Andrei
Oct 15 2010
next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:i9aefn$nkf$1 digitalmars.com...

 TDPL received an interesting review on amazon.com from Philip R. Heath 
 (http://tinyurl.com/2daz64k) which mentions among other things:

 "2. Good code examples - Core Java had fairly extensive examples, and 
 readers could download the code. This is a great service to readers 
 because the code compiled (for the most part) with no errors. I used the 
 examples as a starting point to explore features and modify them the 
 listings to see different behaviors and scenarios. The examples in The D 
 Programming Language are sparse and not available for download."

 It turns out it would be trivial to make all of TDPL's samples available 
 for download. Do you think this would add value?


At the very least it would add perceived value (which is often all that 
matters).
Oct 15 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Friday, October 15, 2010 13:44:07 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 TDPL received an interesting review on amazon.com from Philip R. Heath
 (http://tinyurl.com/2daz64k) which mentions among other things:
 
 "2. Good code examples - Core Java had fairly extensive examples, and
 readers could download the code. This is a great service to readers
 because the code compiled (for the most part) with no errors. I used the
 examples as a starting point to explore features and modify them the
 listings to see different behaviors and scenarios. The examples in The D
 Programming Language are sparse and not available for download."
 
 It turns out it would be trivial to make all of TDPL's samples available
 for download. Do you think this would add value?


Personally, I don't care. I read examples in a programming book to get the 
concepts, not to run them. However, there are plenty of programmers out there 
who like to run the examples from books, so - particularly if it's easy - it 
would probably be a good idea.

Also, if it's particularly easy for you to set it up so that they could be 
downloaded, does that mean that it would be easy for you to set them up in unit 
tests? That being the case, you should probably consider creating unit tests 
from them to help gauge how in line with TDPL dmd is. Obviously it would be far 
from perfect, but it could be of some value.

- Jonathan M Davis
Oct 15 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent sunqiang <sunqiang gmail.com> writes:
I think it's a good idea. When something goes wrong, the code just
can't run or give a wrong result. It'll help novice to find what's the
difference between the official/tested version with his faulty(either
typo or logical) version by some diff tool.

On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 4:44 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu
<SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote:

 TDPL received an interesting review on amazon.com from Philip R. Heath
 (http://tinyurl.com/2daz64k) which mentions among other things:

 "2. Good code examples - Core Java had fairly extensive examples, and
 readers could download the code. This is a great service to readers because
 the code compiled (for the most part) with no errors. I used the examples as
 a starting point to explore features and modify them the listings to see
 different behaviors and scenarios. The examples in The D Programming
 Language are sparse and not available for download."

 It turns out it would be trivial to make all of TDPL's samples available for
 download. Do you think this would add value?


 Thanks,

 Andrei
Oct 15 2010
prev sibling parent reply "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:44:07 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu  
<SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote:


 TDPL received an interesting review on amazon.com from Philip R. Heath  
 (http://tinyurl.com/2daz64k) which mentions among other things:

 "2. Good code examples - Core Java had fairly extensive examples, and  
 readers could download the code. This is a great service to readers  
 because the code compiled (for the most part) with no errors. I used the  
 examples as a starting point to explore features and modify them the  
 listings to see different behaviors and scenarios. The examples in The D  
 Programming Language are sparse and not available for download."

 It turns out it would be trivial to make all of TDPL's samples available  
 for download. Do you think this would add value?


Yes.  Also, considering that there have been many bugs found in the code  
examples or that the compiler doesn't yet implement the features, this can  
be fixed/conveyed in the downloaded version.

That makes me think -- if you had all the examples compilable in a  
project, could the project also output the compliance level a compiler  
has?  That would be a good metric to try every beta release against.  It  
would also remind us of what does and doesn't work on a specific compiler  
regarding TDPL.

-Steve
Oct 16 2010
parent reply BCS <none anon.com> writes:
Hello Steven,



 Yes.  Also, considering that there have been many bugs found in the
 code  examples or that the compiler doesn't yet implement the
 features, this can  be fixed/conveyed in the downloaded version.
 


It would make a nice official errata.
vote++;

-- 
... <IXOYE><
Oct 17 2010
next sibling parent sunqiang <sunqiang gmail.com> writes:
On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 10:32 AM, BCS <none anon.com> wrote:

 Hello Steven,



 Yes. =A0Also, considering that there have been many bugs found in the
 code =A0examples or that the compiler doesn't yet implement the
 features, this can =A0be fixed/conveyed in the downloaded version.


 It would make a nice official errata.
 vote++;

 --
 ... <IXOYE><


isn't this http://erdani.com/tdpl/errata/index.php?title=3DMain_Page ?
Oct 17 2010
prev sibling parent Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Sunday 17 October 2010 19:54:46 sunqiang wrote:

 On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 10:32 AM, BCS <none anon.com> wrote:

 Hello Steven,
 

 Yes.  Also, considering that there have been many bugs found in the
 code  examples or that the compiler doesn't yet implement the
 features, this can  be fixed/conveyed in the downloaded version.


 
 It would make a nice official errata.
 vote++;
 
 --
 ... <IXOYE><


 
 isn't this http://erdani.com/tdpl/errata/index.php?title=Main_Page ?


Yes. That is the official errata, though having the fixed code be easily 
downloadable would make going over the examples easier (particularly when you 
didn't have to worry as much about whether the examples are correct or not). 
Still, we already have an official errata, so it's not like downloadable source 
code from the book would be more official.

- Jonathan M Davis
Oct 17 2010