[Newbies] Newbieology

[Ron Teitelbaum]

Hi John,

Personally I think that each person is trying to get started in their own
way.  For programmers Sax and Dom are newbie activities.  For others it
might not be.  I would be happy to help you with the newbie activities you
are interested in.  I had to look up Tamagotchi to know what it was, but it
looks pretty interesting.  

How far did you get writing your own Etoy Tamagotchi's?  It would seem to me
that Squeak and EToy's is a perfect platform for such an activity.  I could
point you to programming resources, or even Etoy resource, but not really
knowing what you are looking for it's difficult to do.  I don't know what
you have already read or what getting started stuff you have tried.  Have
you already seen www.squeakland.org .  There are some more advanced projects
there.  Also it would help to understand what level you are trying for.  Are
you looking to do programming, or sticking with Etoy scripts?

My feelings about the list so far is that there is much more bandwidth
available then is being used.  It doesn't seem to me that questions from a
beginner programmer should be booted from the newbie list.  What I would
like to see are more simple questions so that everyone can get what they are
looking for.  So if you have a simple question like how can I get my
Tamagotchi to act hungry when it's not fed, that would be cool.   (Or even
how can I turn my Tamagotchi green when it's fed too much!)

Happy coding!

Ron Teitelbaum
President / Principal Software Engineer
US Medical Record Specialists
Ron at USMedRec.com 

> From: John Kershaw
> Sent: Saturday, July 01, 2006 4:53 AM
> Hi all,
> 
> As a newcomer to Squeak/eToys I've been searching for info on helping
> my 9-11 year olds write 'Tamagotchi' style simulations, since I've
> been unable to find a straight-forward manual. There's lots of
> 'Getting started' materials, but nothing on getting to the next level.
> 
> I signed up this 'Newbies' list but, to be honest, does parsing XMLs
> using the SAX or DOM models really fit into that category?
> 
> Can someone point me to resources for real (3-4 weeks experience) newbies?
> 
> John.
> 
> On 30/06/06, Ron Teitelbaum <Ron at usmedrec.com> wrote:
> > Cédrick,
> >
> > The basic difference between SAX and DOM is that SAX is like a stream
> that
> > as it is read provides information to you to build the objects you need,
> > while DOM is more like a tree or object model that can be traversed like
> > regular objects.  They both have their advantages.  The big advantage
> for
> > SAX is in parsing large files.  Since it acts like a stream you can
> build
> > objects on the fly and not have to parse the entire file before getting
> a
> > single object.  DOM is much easier to use since it builds a tree for you
> > that can be traversed.
> >
> > For DOM to create an object you need to build your own object form the
> data
> > that each node of the tree provides to you.  The tree is a collection of
> > collections with each item an XMLElement that can respond with queries
> like
> > elementAt: #... you can iterate over the collection creating objects as
> you
> > go.
> >
> > For Sax you wait for a tag that indicates starting a new object then you
> > create the object and for each element that comes after you add data to
> your
> > object until you hit the end object tag.
> >
> > If you are going to XML then you should learn both (which it seems you
> are
> > doing).  Good luck with it and feel free to let us know how you are
> doing
> > with it.  If you need more help let us know.
> >
> > Ron Teitelbaum
> > President / Principal Software Engineer
> > US Medical Record Specialists
> > Ron at USMedRec.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Beginners mailing list
> > Beginners at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners
> >