ID:260762
 Jul 24 2009, 3:35 am
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I'm getting really tired (and I'm sure Garthor and Kaioken are a lot more annoyed by this than me, considering they always seem to be the ones directing them) of seeing new DM programmers ask really easy questions that are answered in the beginner guides. Would it be possible to make it so that whenever someone first ever opens Dream Maker, they get a link to the DM Guide, and perhaps some of the tutorials (like Zilal's beginner tutorial)?
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The forums are a good place for information, and you can't expect that even if they are directly linked there even each and every time they will actually use it, if they didn't use it to begin with it, likely linking them there will be no different, and they will still not use it.
Anyways, they usually give it at least a shot by looking it up in the DM guide or pressing F1 and searching for what they need, however, depending on what they think they should type in, it could come hard to find what you need, as there are many things that it could possibly be. | |
Demon_F0rce wrote:
Would it be possible to make it so that whenever someone first ever opens Dream Maker, they get a link to the DM Guide, and perhaps some of the tutorials (like Zilal's beginner tutorial)? When I started in 2002, there was a Tutorials link on the navigation bar. I think, generally, the young beginner is apt to seek tutorials instead of full-informational guides. When you clicked on the Tutorials link, the right frame listed Step BYOND, Your First World, Zilal's Beginner Tutorials, and a helpful FAQ for new users (which links off to the Guide and Reference). Maybe if there were such a "Tutorials" section again (or perhaps a Tutorials guild with regular tutorial blog posts!), it would be easier for new/young users to make their way into some proper learning. | |
This wont help at all, they still wouldn't use it....
These people want help specifically to address the problem they are having, they don't want to read tutorials or the DM guide unless it specifically addresses the problem they are having. They don't want to know the basics or advanced futures, unless it helps them with the problem at hand, reading all the tutorials, or the whole DM guide might help them, but they want a fast answer, rather than to spend hours going through all the tutorials, and rather than reading for hours through the DM guide. They don't even care if they get the answer by posting fatser or not rather than having took the time to read the guides or go through the tutorials because they don't want to waste their time on it, because, they only want help with the problem at hand, they don't want any other extra information on how to do other things, only with that specific problem. | |
It wouldn't hurt if the guide was in the least bit interesting. There's like 10x more random crap then there is actual "guide", lets look over the first bit:
"DM is a programming language for the creation of multi-user worlds. By `world' I mean a virtual multi-media environment where people assume personae through which they interact with one another and computer-controlled objects. This could take the form of a competitive game, a role-playing adventure, a discussion board, or something we haven't even imagined. Frequently, the terminology of a role-playing game is most suitable: humans are PCs (playing characters) and computer-controlled personalities are NPCs (non-playing characters). The virtual embodiment of a player is often called an avatar. The game rules are written in DM and faithfully carried out by the computer. These define what actions players may instruct their avatar to perform, what effect these will have in the game, and any other events that may happen as time progresses." I already quit reading, before it even got started teaching me anything. A beginners guide should be as short as possible, to the point, informative, and possibly interactive. There should be nothing even slightly off topic or irrelevant anywhere to be found. Which can't be said for any page in the DM guide. It also doesn't help that "This document comprehensively covers the DM language through BYOND 2.0". I'm not exactly interested in reading a guide designed to explain things from a couple hundred versions ago. When noobs ask for help, its common for people (Garthor, Kaioken, as mentioned) to link them to the guide. But I doubt any of them have ever read it, if they had I doubt they'd be linking others to it. | |
The only thing I find problematic with the guide is that it uses too many big words for the legions of the MTV generation's short attention spans. I think the real problem is that the same ADD sufferers think that copy-and-pasting HTML code and script widgets for their MySpace pages makes them 1337 programmers, and damn any technical data or required prerequisite knowledge that keeps getting in their way.
I think most anyone with a respectable DM proficiency can agree that an absurdly large chunk of the people posting for help aren't cut out for programming, largely due to the collective lack of work ethic and the developed ability to ignore anyone who knows what they're talking about in lieu of a snippet of code they can copy-and-paste. Falacy wrote: It wouldn't hurt if the guide was in the least bit interesting. There's like 10x more random crap then there is actual "guide", lets look over the first bit: | |
Mobius Evalon wrote:
But I doubt any of them have ever read it, if they had I doubt they'd be linking others to it. I must admit that while I didn't read the DM Guide initially, when I finally did read it, it explained a lot about the language and told me all about the things I didn't understand. Except if you look at me vs. them, I'm just a boring guy who likes to read. Whereas they are boring people who like to watch MTV all day, a channel which confuses me. | |
Android Data wrote:
Mobius Evalon wrote: I've been programming for years and I still check the reference regularly while programming. Only with things I don't use regularly, but still... | |
AJX wrote:
I've been programming for years and I still check the reference regularly while programming. Only with things I don't use regularly, but still... If, when you say reference, you mean the F1 help files in Dream Maker, then that and the guide are 2 completely different things. | |
Falacy wrote:
AJX wrote: That is what I'm talking about. What guide are you talking about? O.o o.O | |
There have been several issues I'd like to jump on here.
- The documentation is spread out. You have links on the site and you have f1 and it's unclear where you need to go to figure something out. Granted, your options are limited. - There aren't enough examples provided. As an example: loc var (atom) There is no example. A novice/new programmer may have to ask, "How do I use loc?" You guys say... go look at the DM Reference you nub... while I'm thinking... wait a minute... you have to know some fundamentals in order to decipher half the stuff in the reference. In this example above... - What container are they talking about? - What's an atom? - What's an area? Before I can use loc, I have to go learn a ton of fundamentals. So, you guys are right about the lazy factor but at the same time, there's no reason not to kindly lead people to where you know they need to go. Recommend specific reading vs "read the book". If the reference does'nt provide a new/lazy user with an example, consider providing one. MOST importantly... if you (not aimed at anyone specific (at all) and maybe I shouldn't even go down this path actually... oh well) can't handle helping people without great disdain, maybe ask yourself if you should be in the business of "helping" people to begin with. It really doesn't help anyone when people get treated poorly because they're supposedly lazy or stupid. Byond could easily have a small team of volunteers run through the reference and provide simple examples. I do mean simple. Far too often people provide examples of complex scenarios for a simple feature to show off what it can do but that's counter productive. Anyway... what was this topic about again? ts | |
This is a good point.. and lets also note that it's more social and fun to post a question and show a heart beat and possibly make some connections.
Fact is, we are moving into a twitter like communication style so people are getting more used to popping off with quick and shallow comments everywhere they go. If the documentation was super easy and intuitive and had good starter examples, it would get used far more. ts | |
This topic was about Byond add tutorials of programming when opening DM...As Falacy mentioned "The guide of Doom"...
and how demon_F0rce mentioned zilials tutorials ._. Simply to locs I prefer it's an abbreviation of location... Thought you guys may say it's not, but whatever and why was the "Guide of Doom"(I forget it's name ._. Guide of doom sounds more intresting =D ) have so many big words >.< We are just humans! Not robots!! | |
Falacy wrote:
AJX wrote: Never read it. I'm intrigued. | |
Dan, Tom, or whoever wrote it decided to use antidisestablishmentarianism just to prove that they could.
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Wow...Hugest word I've EVER seen in the history of my life O.o
*goes to google* Eh..Well whatever the definition is, I'm sure i'll know what people talk some time ._. | |
I always thought that a nice step-by-step tutorial that gives you examples of how to use virtually every object type and function in the game would be really neat. Quite a bit of work to assemble though, I imagine. And even then, you'd still have trouble getting newbies to sit down and read it.
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You should also consider the position that the average BYOND user, at this point, is in. When I was younger, I socialized with a group online and we decided that we wanted to have our own MUD to hang out in, but being as we were all somewhere in the age vicinity of 15, we didn't know squat about C++ programming and didn't much care to learn. What do you do? You download one of the available MUD source codes, which mostly consisted of a pre-made MUD which may or may not have been well-programmed, then you modify the contents to better fit whatever theme you want.
BYOND today is very similar - you have a bunch of young people who want to socialize with their friends, and between them they know hardly anything about programming. What they do know is that you can download source codes for anime games on BYOND, and you can change the contents however you like. Now lets suppose you're heading up one of these projects, you've got the source code and everyone is helping your work on your online game and hanging out in there playing it at the same time. You've been tampering with the source code for a few days or weeks and you're trying to figure out how to change something, but every time you try it just breaks stuff. You don't understand. You might try to look around through the guides and such, but its really all beyond you since you're not a programmer and you don't know how to do much of anything except change variables, replace icons and draw maps. You also have no desire to become a programmer. So you say to yourself, "I'll post my question on the forum and see if someone can help me." Would you rather someone: A) explain what the problem you're having is in simple terms, perhaps fixing your code for you. B) provide way more information explaining your problem than you ever wanted to know. C) tell you that you're an idiot who should have read the guide. Personally I'm in this position when I run into problems using Blender 3D, because the documentation for Blender sucks and there are so many features that its dizzying - plus they keep changing things around with every update. So somewhere along the line I accidentally pressed a button that changed something, I don't know how to fix it, I ask on the forum. I don't want lectures on what I'm doing wrong or some other nonsense, I just want to know how to fix whatever the heck I did! | |
When dealing with the average BYOND customer, the polls show that you are dealing with a 15-16 years old. These aren't exactly famous for a good attention span and the desire to 'learn something boring' when they can just ask someone else to be pampered.