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Subject: RE: Subject: FLASH: A teacher wonders why ActionScript tutorials "bite"
From: Torbj�rn Caspersen
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 09:41:34 GMT



- Tom

This sounds a bit whinish to me, if I understand you right. The online tutorials
offered by members of this list are written by enthusiastic geeks for other
geeks - it's more about sharing nifty techniques than educating someone from
scratch.

I agree that there must be a marked for books that start at the very begining
and work their way up to actionscript - it'll be a thick one though.

Isn't it a bit opimistic to try to teach actionscript to someone that requires
tutorials that tell you to start the application? I mean, actionscript is a
programming language and programming isn't for the casual user, whereas flash
can be used in a very casual and non-technical way. It seems like your students
need a basic programming course - learn the logic, syntax, looping, variables,
etc.

You say that even Macromedia assumes prior knowledge of the language
[actionscript]- isn't more correct to say that they assume basic familiary with
programming?

Finally
> Now for my questions. Are there any sites that annotate and clearly
> demonstrate Actionscript technique? If not, why not?

Why should anyone do that for free? Great if someone did, but that is a _lot_ of
grunt work and boring evenings. It's pretty bold to complain that it's not
available for free.


that's my to cents.

Torbj�rn Caspersen



Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 00:41:15 -0500
> From: Tom Green <tgreen17athome [dot] com>
> Subject: FLASH: A teacher wonders why ActionScript tutorials "bite"
>
> I had lunch today with a fellow member of this list and it quickly
> degenerated into a whining session regarding ActionScrpt tutorials.
>
> The bottom line was : Why are actionscript tutorials are generally
> written for geeks by geeks?
>
> There was even a post today that tended to overlook the fact that one of
> the most common questions on this list is "Where do I learn
> ActionScript"? The post?
>
> "The radio button script is basic and covered pretty much line-by-line
> in the
> above-referenced URL:
> On (Press)
> Set Variable: "numChildren" = ..:numChildren
> Set Variable: "counter" = 1
> Loop While (counter <= numChildren)
> Set Variable: "arrayElement" = "..:child_" & counter
> Set Variable: "control" = Eval (arrayElement)
> Begin Tell Target (control)
> Go to and Stop (1)
> End Tell Target
> Set Variable: "counter" = counter + 1
> End Loop
> Set Variable: "..:selected" = _target
> Go to and Stop (2)"? and so on.
>
> If you are new to this, does this make any sense without a clear
> annotation of each line of code?
>
> I am not attempting to crap in the nest here but my students find it
> extremely difficult to learn ActionScrpting because the assumption made
> is the reader already knows what it is about and how to do it. For
> example, I purchased Milburn and Croteau's book because John did the the
> code sections. Great explanations of what the code is all about . There
> is nothing about how to use it and there were no comprehensive
> tutorials that walk the newbie through the creation process of things
> like pop down menus , preloaders or Drag and Drop. Even the educational
> material from Macromedia assumes a prior in depth knowledge of the
> language. When the student goes looking for good tutorials on Chrissy's,
> John's , Colin's and even Asmussen's sites they are confronted with a
> precis of how it was done. I just wish there were tutorials that start
> with :
>
> 1. Open Flash
> 2. Open a new document.
>
> Get my drift? This has bugged me to the point where I have asked John if
> I could "deconstruct" his Ultimate Preloader, document it and use it as
> a handout for my students. John has graciously given his permission and
> I have submitted my first draft to him for his comments and criticisms.
> So, I am doing something about it ( apart from whining) but ,gosh,
> there could be more.
>
> Good examples of tutorials that work are over in the Director universe.
> One of the best Lingo books on the market (for the newbie) is Director
> DeMystified by Jason Roberts. If you think ActionScript is tough just
> wrap your mind around Director's language- Lingo. Yet Jason presents
> Lingo and its concepts through a series of step by step tutorials that
> clearly lay out the code and the logic behind it. His Swifty exercise
> that gets into case statements, custom handlers and variables is
> absolutely brilliant and goes for a full chapter. The upshot with this
> book is the student needing to code a button can reference the relevent
> pages and walk through it and reproduce it. Once they have gotten
> through Jason's book then they can wade through Gary Rosenweig's
> Director 7 book and take what they have learned to the next level. This
> just simply isn't the case over here in the Flash universe. The closest
> I have ever encountered were the .pdf's from the Minister in South
> Carolina over on Chrissy's site.
>
> In fact, the Lingo code explanation revolution started when Gary
> Rosenweig saw what I am talking about and did something about it on the
> Direct-L list. He posted a site that was a series of concise lessons
> that walked the newbie through the language with practical, annotated
> examples. Ventanna noticed and his site became his Director 5, 6, and 7
> books. Each one was even better than its predecessor.
>
> Now for my questions. Are there any sites that annotate and clearly
> demonstrate Actionscript technique? If not, why not?
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of flasher-digest V1 #2288
> ******************************
>






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