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Review
Website: Really Really REALbasic
Issue: 5.1 (September/October 2006)
Author: Marc Zeedar
Article Description: No description available.
Article Length (in bytes): 3,138
Starting Page Number: 9
RBD Number: 5105
Resource File(s): None
Related Link(s): None
Known Limitations: None
Full text of article...
Prior to the launch of this magazine, I started REALbasic University, with the goal to help non-programmers become programmers by using REALbasic. Unfortunately, the magazine has taken up the bulk of my time and RBU has been sadly neglected (I still hope to revive it), so I'd like to direct beginners to an excellent web resource, Terry Findlay's Really Really REALbasic.
RRRB has a clean interface and simple structure and is specifically designed to get the REALbasic first-time user started with programming. The "Getting Started" section, for instance, gently introduces the reader to programming (interface, code, resources), OOP, and the REALbasic IDE (though this latter has not been updated for RB 2005/2006's new interface).
Once you've gotten started with REALbasic, you can explore the "Example Projects" section which includes simple projects that demonstrate how to do things like view and resize pictures, manage a high score list, print a listbox, handle dropped files, and more. The code's definitely basic, and though it's commented, probably could use more tutorial to explain exactly what's being done. My personal belief is that beginners learn best by building projects from scratch, step-by-step, not by having a complete project handed to them.
Speaking of tutorials, RRRB has a number of excellent ones, on great topics like "Dot Notation," "Parameters," "Custom Classes," "Arrays," and more. The tutorials have plenty of screen shots interspersed with explanations, and are broken into short one-screen pages so you aren't overwhelmed by a long article.
Overall I was impressed with Terry's site: it's got some excellent content, it's nicely organized, and the articles are well-written. That said, much of the content is pre-RB 2005/2006, it could use twice as many examples and tutorials, and I ran into some strange web browser issues where certain pages wouldn't display consistently (I'd get a screen with a title and no content); probably just a conflict with my Safari web browser. Those minor issues aside, for the beginner seeking REALbasic instruction, RRRB is certainly a great place to start.
IN BRIEF Product Really Really REALbasic Manufacturer Terry Findlay Price Free Contact Info http://ttpsoftware.com/jpsite/index.php Pros Free; simple site organization; good tutorials and examples; excellent for beginners. Cons Not enough examples; some content dated; some website browsing problems. Rating (1.0-5.0): 4.1
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