Compiled knowledge

Ugha

This forum is great... the Nuts and Volts columns are great... the Stamps in Class books are great...

Wouldn't it be even better if they were combined?

I've been pretty much checking the forum every 15 minutes for the past couple months due to boredom and
lack of anything else to do (winter on a farm is boring) and I've discovered that most of the time, people
ask the same things over and over.

Its not their fault, its just simpler to ask than go wading through the tons of information available in a
bunch of different sources.

I was thinking... what if we took some of the most common projects (hooking up a Real Time Clock, networking
two stamps together, ect), some of the most common circuts (555 timer used to drive a servo, LED fading, ect),
some of the most common problems (Stamp not detected, Stamp resetting, ect) and sample programs for all
of the above, and compiled them into a single, searchable, structured source that is easy to navigate for newbies
and experts alike.

Sort of like a super-FAQ with detailed schematics and the such. All focused on Parallax products and how to
interface with Parallax products.

It could be a wiki or a simple website, but we need some kind of compiled source of information.

I would do this myself, but I'm still a newbie and giving out incorrect advice is worse than no advice in my
book.

If a few of you experts were to get together and provide the tech help then I'm sure we could compile the
information and make the website easily.

Who knows? Maybe Parallax would even host the site?

Just my thoughts, let me know what you guys think.

SRLM

Its been done before. They're the stickies at the top of each forum, and the Propeller forum has a couple of indices. They're not perfect though. Think how much you would learn by compiling the list! A couple of starting ideas:

Make it display as a post with links to all the relevant information.
Use software that will allow you to make dynamic groups, and display as a list (so you can cut and paste)
Start with what you're familiar, and get the seed going. Then make it public, so people can add to it.


You can do it. I believe.

Mike Green

Something you could do would be to put together an index, particularly for the Stamps, kind of like Graham Stabler's Pretty Good Thread Index for the Propeller. You could index the Nuts and Volts Columns by subject rather than by column #, describing the content. Similarly, you could index some of the tutorials by subject contained in the individual chapters or sections. For example, "Use of a 74HC595 for expanding number of output pins" would be a subject, maybe grouped by category. This would be followed by a series of links to the information.

ElectricAye

Ugha,

boredom is one of the great motivators of the species, so why not try channeling some of it into making this happen? I wouldn't worry about your being a noob in this respect. One of the greatest ways to learn something is to try to teach it - the process exposes your own gaps to yourself so you can quickly learn, too. The so-called experts on the forum very often end up in disputes and long discussions over what seem like simple questions posted by noobs. Also, the so-called experts often don't have time to work on a massive "digest" of the information but I'm sure they would be happy to add their inputs once you get moving.

If I were you, I'd start with the stickies that SRLM brought up. Those are important topics but they are not digested - so it's a bummer to wade through to get information. Otherwise, pick a single chip or something - like a digital pot, or digital thermometer, or even just how to use simple buttons - and completely digest what you can find out about the device via the forum search, etc. and march through there. Merely making an index of information would be a great help to us all, but I think you would learn more personally if you try to digest the information so other noobs can follow in your footsteps.

Another godsend would be to go through the Object Exchange and simply provide comments to what important objects are doing and what their limitations are. For example, it would be nice to know if a digital thermometer object supports negative temperatures (or not). This task of documenting uncommented objects would probably be difficult on a noob, but I've found it to be one of the great frustrations in getting started with the Propeller.

go for it!

and good luck!
Mark