Xojo 2017 Book Survey

Hello Everyone,

Previous survey’s have brought many new titles to the Xojo community. With technology constantly improving, it is time for another survey to be completed for 2017 to find out what you would like. Please take the time to complete this one-question survey and feel free to suggest titles not on the list.

2017 Book Survey (One Question)

The survey will be available until Sunday the 28th of January 20175 and I will post the results here when it is complete. You can choose multiple answers.

Feel free to send me a personal message if you have other questions.

Thank you.

Hi Eugene,

Like this! Just filled it out.

Two quick things:

  1. in your post, you say: “…available until Sunday the 28th of January 20175”. Minor typo, but you may want to correct it.

  2. Also noticed a minor typo in the survey: “Convertering to the Xojo Programming Language”
    Not sure how easy it is to change that in Survey Monkey. Again, no big deal.

Hope you get a lot of good feedback!

Nice one Eugene, lots on there I liked the look of. I hope it lands on something I ticked :slight_smile:

BTTT

Hi Arthur. Thanks for the feedback and it appears that I am too late to edit the typo.

[quote=311170:@Arthur Couture]2) Also noticed a minor typo in the survey: “Convertering to the Xojo Programming Language”
Not sure how easy it is to change that in Survey Monkey. Again, no big deal.[/quote]
I adjusted the survey question and it should be good for those taking the survey from this time forward. Thanks again!

I wish you the best of luck :slight_smile:

The one-question survey will continue to be open until Saturday, and then I will close the survey and post the results in this forum conversation.

Good luck to all!

Just made my ticks.

Looking forward to see what the community chooses.

[quote=311600:@Alwyn Bester]Just made my ticks.

Looking forward to see what the community chooses.[/quote]

I voted too. I really like how @Eugene Dakin takes input from the community on what books we would like. Thank you!!

When you are going to make the “Xojo Beginner Introduction” book, it might be an consideration to skip the beginners level (read repeated contents) in your other books.

  • What is Xojo?
  • (Comparing Xojo with Real Studio)
  • Describing and Defining the User Interface
  • Setting the run-time properties
    Just make a reference to your “Xojo Beginner Introduction” book. :wink:

In regards to Graphics, especially iOS and OpenGL… you might want to focus on SceneKit and SpriteKit instead.

Thanks for the feedback Paul. Yes, the first few books had this material in the beginning, and the middle and later book releases have not had it. I always wonder which is the best choice to include it or not, and thanks for your thoughts, as I will not include this in the future.

I am curious about your comment with SceneKit and SpriteKit instead of OpenGL (can I include Metal?). I don’t completely understand OS X and would like to know your thoughts on this a little more. The reason why I am asking is that I honestly don’t know. Thanks Dave!

If I understand correctly the sentence above:

your readers do not need to have (say 5 pages) that are the same on all of your books. Put these on the intro to computing book and set it a reference in all other books.

In my mind, this is not marketing (hey reader, buy my introduction guide), but a way to not give duplicate pages on all books / get more pages in tunes of the specific of each book.

You may even put a simple comment at each book start explaining to readers why these data are not there and why it is best for everyone to have them in a specific book.

After all: to know what an integer is and what you can put in it is (usually) already in the Language Reference. Err. that is where I will always check if I’m in doubt !

Edit:
Eugene: did you place a report card at the end of each books ?
I mean a way for the reader to express itself (like “how can I do this or that” ’cause I miss this in the book).

I don’t understand what you don’t understand about my comment.
SceneKit and SpriteKit are (and have been) Apple API for doing 3D and 2D graphics.

Not to be rude. but how can you write books about anything related to OSX without understanding OSX?
Personally I’d expect a books author to be much more knowledgable about a subject that I am, hence the reason I would buy the book

Spritkit seems to be best suited for 2D graphics with the famous Pacman and Super Mario games, while Scenekit is better for the third dimension with lighting effects, 3D models, etc. Metal seems to be focued on hardcore gamers that want to program closer to the gpu. My question was not clear, and my apologies for that.

SpriteKit and SceneKit are well known and most development bugs have been removed. Metal is new and is going through a few growth iterations while some of the few remaining bugs are being removed by Apple, and it may be a little too early to write a book which may have to be changed frequently.

OpenGL is a true cross-platform alternative (Mac, Win, Linux) and programming is a bit closer to the GPU, and fits the Xojo mode about programming once and running on different system.

The parts that I am not familiar with the OSX graphics are the more general parts, such as will SpriteKit and SceneKit be phased out once Metal is fully implemented and debugged? Will OpenGL be phased out in favour of the iOS and OS X specific language of Metal?

Programming seems to be the easier part, and it is much harder to understand the politics and direction of where these four languages (SpriteKit, SceneKit, OpenGL, and Metal) will be in the future. Maybe you have a better understanding of the direction of these languages with Apple, because I simply don’t know the answer. If SpriteKit and SceneKit are going to be eventually removed because of the new Metal language, then its in the Xojo programming communities best interest to focus on the newer Metal language.

Because you follow Mac more closely than I (I am very multi discipline) and you have many years of professional programming, my question about these Apole-centric languages may be something that is easier for you to answer than myself. Although I am good at programming, I feel that you are better at Mac Xojo graphics programming than I.

Edit: Accidentally hit the button before I finished typing. Had to finish my response with an Edit.

Most authors have a period of research while they study the topic, before starting to write. It is the same for journalists, and even scientists.

I know some month when writing my column for xDev, I know very little about the product/module/class and have to do a bunch of research to know more/enough to write an article on it. When helping a friend write a book for o"rielly books, i had to learn A LOT before I wrote my chunks. Even though I knew a fair amount before the book, I had to learn soo much more during the writing process to make sure I knew what the hell I was talking about before I wrote that chunk.

it is not a easy process.

I have answered the survey. I hope I am not too late to make a suggestion as I have been procrastinating about whether I should since this is not a short book but rather may be an elaborate one. Two or three years ago, I bought this used book from eBay. A used copy from library clearance. Although it was already obsolete (published 2006) when I bought it, it was still good for whatever ideas I could get out of it.

REALbasic Cross-Platform Application Development

Perhaps, an updated version for Xojo since this is what is bold on Xojo homepage:
[h]Create powerful, native apps for desktop, web, iOS & Raspberry Pi™[/h]
Create native cross-platform desktop, web, mobile & Raspberry Pi apps

Yes, this is a great book and I occasionally remove the dust and refer to it. I was a little shocked when you mentioned it was published in 2006, because I remember purchasing it back then.

This is a good idea, and let me think about it. Your right, creating another book similar to this one would take some time. Thanks for suggesting this idea.

Personally I’d say THE book to update is Matt Neubergs
https://www.amazon.com/REALbasic-Definitive-Guide-Matt-Neuburg/dp/1565926579

It is / was perhaps the best guides ever written for a long long long time
For many it was the unofficial Language Reference / Users Guide for a long time

Its laid out in a way that you could almost do each “book” as one chapter in an overall work

This is a good tip Norman. It looks like the 2nd edition of my copy of the book is from 2001and covers REALbasic version 3.2.1. Things have changed a little since then :slight_smile:

A little but there’s a surprising amount that is still relevant and not too far from the truth