Heater: You may well be correct. The answer (for the hobbyist) may just be we need to create some simple designs that can run a simple set of programs developing on a theme. But those projects need to quickly become be inspirational (after the traditional flashing leds, etc) while simple (using existing objects from Obex to get them into that side of things) and they need to be better/different than the Arduino. Make it run something interesting - maybe like the SD audio layer. It cannot compete with the Arduino so ensure it is the NEXT step up where the cost issue goes away.
Earlier it was mentioned that we don't need the killer app. I beg to differ, but perhaps we are saying the same thing. The killer app needs to be such a volume that it can create a new story. That will be the catalyst for other killer apps. One almost certainly will not be the saviour, just the start.
And yes, somehow I think we need to get an extra forum for advanced prop discussions - because we probably don't do much to inspire the newbies here - yes we all help, but anything gets so lost with postings in just a 24 hour period. This forum is sooo active, and it's not just now, it's been that way for the last year or more, and it was extremely active before that.
BTW The $5 Bluetooth USB sticks were on eBay and were referred to & tested in·Micahs USB thread.
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Cluso99 said...
... somehow I think we need to get an extra forum for advanced prop discussions...
That idea has come up a few times. I can see the motivation. Any newbie (I hate that term) surfing by here and running into the long and complicated debates about pretty advanced stuff will not be immediately hooked. I'm mean being lost in a world of discussion about generating graphics or how to make a virtual machine for this an that or building new compilers and languages is going to be in over their heads. And as you say the "newbie" questions get lost in the noise.
However I can see a problem with splitting up the forum. If there were a "beginners start here forum" could we be sure it ever gets any attention from the gurus who are hanging out in the "gurus end up here" forum?
I do from time to time try to answers some questions as best I can about basic Propeller things as they float by. But would I be checking a beginners forum every day. Probably not. Apart from Mike Green who would[noparse]:)[/noparse]
What I was really saying is that we should stop yaking here so much and push finished projects out through all the other channels available. But where to find the time....
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For me, the past is not over yet.
That idea has come up a few times. I can see the motivation. Any newbie (I hate that term) surfing by here and running into the long and complicated debates about pretty advanced stuff will not be immediately hooked. I'm mean being lost in a world of discussion about generating graphics or how to make a virtual machine for this an that or building new compilers and languages is going to be in over their heads. And as you say the "newbie" questions get lost in the noise.
However I can see a problem with splitting up the forum. If there were a "beginners start here forum" could we be sure it ever gets any attention from the gurus who are hanging out in the "gurus end up here" forum?
I do from time to time try to answers some questions as best I can about basic Propeller things as they float by. But would I be checking a beginners forum every day. Probably not. Apart from Mike Green who would[noparse]:)[/noparse]
What I was really saying is that we should stop yaking here so much and push finished projects out through all the other channels available. But where to find the time....
The Arduino forums have "Frequently Asked Questions" as a forum and it seems to be their general forum where a lot of people ask questions to get help and in my opinion they don't have a lot of experts answering questions which left me frustrated so I didn't buy one.· They have a hard enough time describing the Arduino.
The Propeller could easily handle 5 forums - Beginning Propeller, Advanced Propeller, Spin Topics, PASM Topics, Other Languages. The "other languages" would maybe be the most awkward, but with C/C++, Basic, Forth, and whatever else is there, it would make sense. However, having a beginning & advanced forum would really be enough, with each covering all languages.
I think out of general interest people would check both forums, but the real benefit would be to the beginners, because yeah, right now it's a bit confusing - PropCade, RamBlade, LMM, TLMM, Hub PASM vs Cog PASM, Zog, etc. I do think that a beginner forum would make a great incubator for people to develop their guru skills. I know that I've answered Propeller questions before even owning one because I knew the answers from reading the threads, or knew where the docs were, etc.
And my vote for first post to an advanced propeller forum would be for RossH to start a "Dining Philosophers" thread, since he already posted it in C. Seeing it in the various languages would be cool. Although if Ross reads this, I hope he'll start a thread anyways.
A part of what you see is a reflection of the open source philosophy that the Arduino embraces. Go to just about any open source discussion forum and tell them you don't like how something works, and you can be fairly confident that they'll tell you to go ahead and fix it yourself if you don't like it. There is a very strong sense of self sufficiency with open source, and people frequently expect you to put forth some effort to figure it out on your own before they'll answer many questions.
As for the Arduino forums themselves, there are some smart guys there. The Arduino is so well documented on the Arduino website that they may have figured you need to look there first.
I sometimes help people out there if I see that no-one has responded to a query. I have an Arduino, of course.
Someone I know from the AVR Freaks forum has written an excellent book on the Arduino for complete beginners and published it himself; something like Harprit's book on the Propeller, I would think. He sent me a copy for my comments, although he is a touchy character and we've crossed swords many times.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Leon, shooosssh, they might be listening[noparse]:)[/noparse]
Kevin Wood said...
Go to just about any open source discussion forum and tell them you don't like how something works, and you can be fairly confident that they'll tell you to go ahead and fix it yourself if you don't like it.
Not always true but kind of understandable. Creating any kind of non-trivial software takes a lot of time and effort. Many who give away their creations for free (or perhaps not free or not open or both) have made the thing to satisfy some need or desire of their own, to "scratch an itch" as it often said. If it works well enough for them that's enough for them, the fact that everyone else gets to use it is a bonus for everyone else. Perhaps they have other priorities in life than fixing bugs or adding features on request. Even answering questions all the time takes time and effort.
We have been truly blessed here with RossH and his Catalina compiler which seems to now contain everything including the kitchen sink of the Propeller world. A lot of which has come from user input I'm sure. Then there is BradC and the amazing BST which has also morphed with user input. There are others.
Actually wonder sometimes about RossH and BradC sometimes. They both started their projects because they wanted tools for the Prop in the way they wanted them. These projects are so huge and time consuming I speculate that they have long since forgotten what it was they were going to do with the Propeller in the first place [noparse]:)[/noparse]
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For me, the past is not over yet.
heater said...
We have been truly blessed here with RossH and his Catalina compiler which seems to now contain everything including the kitchen sink of the Propeller world. A lot of which has come from user input I'm sure. Then there is BradC and the amazing BST which has also morphed with user input. There are others.
Actually wonder sometimes about RossH and BradC sometimes. They both started their projects because they wanted tools for the Prop in the way they wanted them. These projects are so huge and time consuming I speculate that they have long since forgotten what it was they were going to do with the Propeller in the first place [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Yeah!
It's about time Parallax threw their support behind these two and officially endorsed both products, their work is fantastic.
I don't use the Parallax Propeller Tool at all these days......
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Coley: BST is there as the second item on the Parallax Propeller downloads page. That's a pretty good endorsement. Mind you they don't point out all the useful extra features it has on that link.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
You said:
"The Propeller could easily handle 5 forums - Beginning Propeller, Advanced Propeller, Spin Topics, PASM Topics, Other Languages. The "other languages" would maybe be the most awkward, but with C/C++, Basic, Forth, and whatever else is there, it would make sense. However, having a beginning & advanced forum would really be enough, with each covering all languages."
In my opinion is is risky idea --- For Beginners as Most Advanced ones will only look on theirs FORUM type and on Beginner's side will not be much ones to answer simple questions.
Regards
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Nothing is impossible, there are only different degrees of difficulty. For every stupid question there is at least one intelligent answer. Don't guess - ask instead. If you don't ask you won't know. If your gonna construct something, make it·as simple as·possible yet as versatile as posible.
I have an easy answer with a time consuming solution.
If you want people to adopt good technology, you have to give them a compelling reason to do so. Theoretical or actual specifications are meaningless to average Joe, Phil, Bob, or however we decide to stereotype this person. What these people want to see is what can the Propeller do? The good news is the Propeller can do a lot, and the Propeller 2 can do a lot more. Also there are a lot of great applications, projects, and hardware that shows the power and the appeal of the Propeller. From video games to robots, I think we have the projects to show off to the world.
Now what is lacking is a centralized location to show off these projects. Now pretty much everyone uses the forum to post about their projects, and as long as that post is getting activity, you will see that project. But even after a few months, even the most popular threads fall to the abyss of the message board. And even if the search function did work, you would still have to know the project existed before you could find it.
So here is my solution: We need a centralized location where we can place all these projects. We need a wiki-type environment where we can have projects broken into categories, and each project having its own page. On the page we can have source code, binary, hardware requirements, build instructions, photos and videos of the project in action.
This would have two major benefits. 1) When someone asks the question "What can the Propeller do?" you send them to the project wiki where they can SEE videos/pictures of projects in action. 2) If you are a normal Propeller use looking for a certain project that is not brand spanking new, you can go to the project wiki and quickly find it.
Now of course comes the hard part... creating the page. What is needed is bandwidth/hosting space and people to build the page. I think this should be open to people modifying the pages, like a lot of wiki pages, but require user accounts to prevent vandalism. That way if a project only supports one type of hardware setup, someone else can take the code, modify, and add to the page to support another propeller hardware setup. Or if one person doesn't have the ability to add video, someone else can shoot a video of the project in action and attach it.
The fun projects are here (and still coming), but we need a centralized place to show them off.
Sapieha said...
In my opinion is is risky idea --- For Beginners as Most Advanced ones will only look on theirs FORUM type and on Beginner's side will not be much ones to answer simple questions.
Well, if somebody wants to answer beginner level questions, there's nothing to stop them. And right now, if somebody doesn't want to answer beginner level questions, there's nothing to make them. Yes, this can be called a community, but... these are the Parallax tech support forums, which means that ultimately it's up to Parallax to provide the answers, not the community.
That said, there are a lot of things discussed on the Propeller forum that really have nothing at all to do with Parallax products, which they provide no support for. Things like Catalina, PropBasic, RamBlades, etc. These are all things that a) only serve to confuse somebody new to the Propeller, and b) more often than not touch upon advanced topics. Creating separate beginner and advanced forums would benefit everybody... beginners would find answers quicker, advanced users would find answers quicker, tech support could focus accordingly. The only impact to forum regulars is the need to click 2 links instead of 1.
As it is, Parallax already makes a beginner/non-beginner distinction on this page with Spin/PASM: www.parallax.com/tabid/407/Default.aspx. My thouht is that "How do I blink an LED in language X" is a beginner question, while "How do I write a serial driver in language X" is an advanced question.
The only other thing I could suggest is that There be 2 Propeller forums - one for Spin/non-LMM PASM questions that is heavily modded by Parallax (basically the official tech support forum), and another for everything else, with primarily community moderation (basically all of the stuff they don't officially support).
Are advanced users so selfish that they/we would not look at beginner forums? People who are predisposed to helping others for various reasons will continue to help others regardless of divisions. People who exist only to serve themselves or guided by some cause may look only in "their forum" unless they're trying to sell something [noparse]:)[/noparse]. The rest of us will float around.
If there was a split between beginners/advanced this forum would lose some of its "character" which might be an improvement or not.
As far as official Parallax support goes, it should not be too hard to create a moderator only response forum although maybe not with dotNetBB.
I also think segregating the forums would be a bad idea. I think the current Propeller forum is active enough to be a community, but not overly active where someone's post is lost in the shuffle. The main Propeller forums have enough helpful people that I don't think a separate beginner forum would be needed.
Jazzed: I don't think it's a question of advanced users, or anyone else, being selfish.
I think it's more a question convenience, time and motion and the natural flow of the world.
I don't go out of my way to help old ladies cross the road but if I happen to come across one on my travels I will gladly offer to help. Is that selfish?
There is often this word "community" used in the context of sites on the web. Well real communities have young and old, experienced and naive, smart and stupid, strong and helpless. Perhaps we should keep this little net community as it is, a mix up where everybody is welcome. Then we have a community spirit.
Don't forget that the dumbest beginner questions can inspire someone knowledgeable and skilled to suddenly see something that he may never have thought of. A solution to a problem he never realized was a problem. The tall guy might never imagine that short people need a step ladder because he never had that problem!
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For me, the past is not over yet.
@heater,
I was simply observing, not advocating a split. People don't have to contribute.
People who feel there should be a split or whatever can start their own web site.
Perhaps Parallax could start a blogsite for user's blogs on their projects and start an alternate site like Prop a Day. If you want to tell people about the prop then you need to start a show and tell which is basically what some of these blog sites do.
Getting traffic has been a little tricky... Promoting a blog is a little different that other types of websites.
It tends to be more habit based.
I have some constructive criticism and that is all this is. It needs more instructables. It needs more lists of parts. Can I buy the propeller powered paintgun? Can I build it? I didn't watch it enough to know but I'm guessing that I can't buy it. Not releasing any more details about the credit card size computer? I don't even know if it is powerful enough for me to be interested in it and I'm not easy to please.
Relationships are reciprocol or complimentary and when people want to see others part of the community then the answer has to be "yes" to the above questions or it is viewed as the end of conversation. Good for those who like watching the products but what does it do for me?
If people don't know how to do something then some of them won't with the propeller.
@Chuckz:
I appetite the input!! Positive, corrective criticism helps refine rough edges and enhances intent!
Actually, I have a fair hodgepodge of materials I still need to get over to that blog! Propeller based items from Warrantyvoid will find their new home there. (Warrantyvoid will be re-tasked to photographing teardowns of all kinds of hackable items.)
As for the how-to-build. When a project is posted to Propellerpowered, I'm currently linking to the thread/homepage where the project can be found in detail. Video sucks the person in, then hopefully the thread/website contains enough information for duplication.
Kevin, I am married and have a child.· I can't read two pages without being interrupted.· I can write one of these replies and I'll be interrupted five times to do something else.· When my son goes to sleep, I'm exhausted and can't get a lot done.· I also can't read something unless there is absolute quiet because it ruins my train of thought. My electronics are in boxes along with the thirty one page manual on entering propeller programs.· It is going to stay there.· And it has probably been two years since I've joined this forum and I still haven't programmed the Propeller and there is your propeller advocacy at work.· Microprocessor: program yourself. The Arduino forum is well documented but they themselves admit that general people who have little experience with electronics are the help in the forums.· It was weeks after I asked a question that I discovered that another product that might fit what I want exists because a lot of their users don't know anything. Do you know what·my email says from Basic Micro?··One person·says that if I want to do anything then I have to hit those books.· So according to them, their microcontrollers aren't for me and they said there are better forums here.· They don't want to bother with me very much because they don't respond to my emails or claim I never sent them when they are in my sent folder so I don't buy their products. I'm bored and I don't have to say that I quit microcontrollers because they've already been in boxes. If Jim Butterfield was alive and went the microcontroller route, it would be fun and more understandable.· His Machine Language for Beginner book is selling for $80 dollars after his death because he was the man who made Machine Language and computers understandable for people.· People programmed as a result of his teaching. When I was in college, I was helping plenty of adults who didn't understand the instructor and the instructor was one of those types that expected you to learn computers without teaching.· The college hired Chinese teachers who had a heavy accent and my neighbor's children failed out because they couldn't understand them.· Teaching is more than throwing a bunch of facts at people because teaching is presenting information in a way that people can learn. Go to your local computer club.· I looked mine up on the web and they stopped learning programming.· Now the topics are how to operate Excel and use the internet.· The local one is teaching how to install Linux which is their latest endevour but only because someone is willing to teach others or they will have done what their history has been and teach how to configure Outlook Express or how to use the Internet. I'll draw a correlation between Microprocessor literacy and use.· If you show people pictures of cookies, only those who know how to find them off of the top shelf will get them.· If you put the cookies on the table then everybody will get them.· If you only want to use the language of the experience and the learned then you are fishing in only the same pond which is a very small pond.· If you want to fish in a larger pond then you have to speak other people's language and you have to like people enough to teach them.
Chuck
Kevin Wood said...
@chuckz,
A part of what you see is a reflection of the open source philosophy that the Arduino embraces. Go to just about any open source discussion forum and tell them you don't like how something works, and you can be fairly confident that they'll tell you to go ahead and fix it yourself if you don't like it. There is a very strong sense of self sufficiency with open source, and people frequently expect you to put forth some effort to figure it out on your own before they'll answer many questions.
As for the Arduino forums themselves, there are some smart guys there. The Arduino is so well documented on the Arduino website that they may have figured you need to look there first.
Slightly off-topic.. Jim Butterfield (RIP) was an amazing person.. I suspect that the only reason that copy of his book went for $80, is because it was my autographed copy. I liquidated some of my Commodore collection last Christmas to do something special for my oldest boy.
The point of entry on the Propeller needs to be a combination of simple and cheap with high returns to set the hook.
heater said...
Jazzed: I don't think it's a question of advanced users, or anyone else, being selfish.
I think it's more a question convenience, time and motion and the natural flow of the world.
I don't go out of my way to help old ladies cross the road but if I happen to come across one on my travels I will gladly offer to help. Is that selfish?
Forcing old ladies across roads they don't want to cross is a lot of fun.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
heater said...
Actually wonder sometimes about RossH and BradC sometimes. They both started their projects because they wanted tools for the Prop in the way they wanted them. These projects are so huge and time consuming I speculate that they have long since forgotten what it was they were going to do with the Propeller in the first place [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Well, I can't speak for BradC, but I can tell you this is quite true for me. While obviously I do it because I want to, it has gotten to the point where I can't sit down in front of a Propeller to do any work on my original project without feeling guilty about the backlog of Catalina work.
Maybe I should go buy an Arduino and port my original project to that instead
But back to the topic at hand - I think it would be very worthwhile to start at least one new sub-forum here. Not to try and "segregate" the forum participants into "newbies" and "gurus", but just to provide a place dedicated to answering all the straightforward questons about the Propeller that sometimes get buried in our interminable discussions (let's face it - we are a long-winded bunch!).
In the new sub-forum (which will have to be moderated) only specific questions and answers can be posted. No discussions, complaints, criticisms or speculation allowed. Everything off-topic should be moved to the Sandbox. A Parallax maintained FAQ based on these forum postings would also be a great idea - one that is updated once a month or so and made "sticky".
Actually, considering how much we spend talking about non-technical, but Propeller-related issues, perhaps there should also be be a new "Propeller Sandbox" forum - or you could instead call it "Propeller Advocacy". Threads like this could then go straight in there!
I also think there should be a sub-forum dedicated specifically to the Propeller II. It must confuse the heck out of newcomers that we all seem to spend so much time here discussing a chip that may never even see the light of day. Presumably the reason they came here in the first place was to find out about this wonderful new Propeller chip they'd heard about from somewhere else - and then when they get here all they find is us (apparently) complaining about the deficiencies of the current Propeller and fantasizing about the Propeller II!
Ross.
P.S. And also could Parallax please add a decent search function to these forums - it is infuriating that you can't always find some of the great work that has been done in the past when you discover a belated need for it - think how much worse it must be for newcomers!
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Catalina - a FREE C compiler for the Propeller - see Catalina
@Kevin. I love the Alien Tech comment. Very apt. Made me laugh. A little too true.
@Heater. I agreed with your comment "There have been hundreds of interesting projects discussed here, spectrum analyser, software radio, quad copters, navigation systems, funky video demos, balancing bots, game emulators, and so on and so on.
Is it so that everyone is so focused on this forum that little finds it's way out of here? To Maker or Elektor or Indestructables, or Hack-a-day, or YouTube or any number of other media. It does not take long to see that the Arduino guys are more than happy to let the world know about their home made "toilet seat warmers" via all kinds of channels."
@JT Cook. Agreed on your point as well.
@All. I agree this is a bit like "Geeks playing at marketing". But I raised this thread because I love the Prop and what it can do, but when you speak to others they comment they've never heard of it. Too much noise from other solutions (Arduino's, etc). Hence wanting to discuss with everyone (who are interested) on how we can help raise the profile. Clearly it's not something we can do on our own (and nor should we) but it may be that we get Parallax's attention so they can work a solution.
What I've noticed is there have been draw dropping amazing solutions discussed in the Propeller forum, rarely do you find them in the "completed projects" thread, or documented beyond that. And unlikely ever get in an electronic magazine, publication or something beyond a Parallax website.· It may be that Parallax puts in more work to publish them somewhere on their site. It may be that Parallax offers some kind of incentive for folks to drive there "amazing solutions" into completed projects that are fully documented, and ready to be pushed into a kit (Gadget Gangster maybe an approach) and then have someone drive them to external publications. I know Parallax advertises in Circuit Cellar, maybe they have influence to get some of these "amazing solutions" published, and it just takes someone to help drive it forward.
In regards to splitting the threads, I'm a bit uncomfortable about it. Like most I've spent an unhealthy amount of time in the Propeller forum - much to the detriment of actual coding for my own stuff. However I think we could all benefit from the distillation of the learnings of the threads. Probably a Parallax Propeller website Wiki would make sense. Where answers, code and details could be posted. For example how to generate an analog signal - there are a number of threads on how to do this, with some code fragments posted, but you really have to search hard for it. A Wiki containing this would make a lot of sense! Probably forum members would have the rights to post to the Wiki and final approval be from Parallax staff?..... thoughts?
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It's all a function of time.
I would like to see a split into the "Propeller Basics Forum - not to be confused with the Basic Language" and the "Propeller Advanced Forum - for advanced topics". I do think the discussions that we are involved in are way too complex for thenormal readers and their questions get lost in the activity here. Of course they are still able to read and post to the Advanced Topics, but I think if they get confused they at least will have their own place. I do think that at least many of us would read the "Basics" thread and still answer those questions.
However, I only read the completed projects and sandbox from time to time.
As for completed projects, I haven't really posted much there because it depends on you definition of completed. Everything is advancing so fast, a lot of projects are just one great ride forward.
OBC's website looks great and this may help. It is all about people finding fun projects to build. They will no doubt use the chip that has the fun projects, so here is where we need to concentrate on for the prop. But it is not where these threads started as we were looking for ways to get the props used commercially in volume.
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I'm still concerned that a "Propeller Basics Forum" would become a desert devoid of all help from the experienced who are busy getting on with what ever they get on with and the "newbies" would be lost wondering around in the desert.
However:
1) Ideally Parallax would have some eyes watching that basics forum every day as part of their job. Customer support and all that.
2) Perhaps those in the "not basics forum" could volunteer to get notifications about questions on the basics forum. By way of something in return for the fun they are having here[noparse]:)[/noparse]
Anyway, that's enough of this discussing Propeller advocacy round in circles for me. I'm going to go out actually do some. Starting here at my work place.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
I'm still concerned that a "Propeller Basics Forum" would become a desert devoid of all help from the experienced who are busy getting on with what ever they get on with and the "newbies" would be lost wondering around in the desert.
I think that would be a good thing because the difficulty of making friends with bloggers is that·bloggers are too busy with their own blog count and how many people visit them that they don't have time for other people.· A beginner's forum would keep people out them that are too full of themselves to interfere with the help.
If you don't take risks there is no reward.·
A forum for beginners would just need different rules and lack of clutter (lack of help or desert wasteland as you might call it) would be a good thing.· Beginners don't need message clutter.· They just need one or two page instructions of help.
Comments
Earlier it was mentioned that we don't need the killer app. I beg to differ, but perhaps we are saying the same thing. The killer app needs to be such a volume that it can create a new story. That will be the catalyst for other killer apps. One almost certainly will not be the saviour, just the start.
And yes, somehow I think we need to get an extra forum for advanced prop discussions - because we probably don't do much to inspire the newbies here - yes we all help, but anything gets so lost with postings in just a 24 hour period. This forum is sooo active, and it's not just now, it's been that way for the last year or more, and it was extremely active before that.
BTW The $5 Bluetooth USB sticks were on eBay and were referred to & tested in·Micahs USB thread.
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Links to other interesting threads:
· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)·
· Prop OS: SphinxOS·, PropDos , PropCmd··· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBlade Props: www.cluso.bluemagic.biz
That idea has come up a few times. I can see the motivation. Any newbie (I hate that term) surfing by here and running into the long and complicated debates about pretty advanced stuff will not be immediately hooked. I'm mean being lost in a world of discussion about generating graphics or how to make a virtual machine for this an that or building new compilers and languages is going to be in over their heads. And as you say the "newbie" questions get lost in the noise.
However I can see a problem with splitting up the forum. If there were a "beginners start here forum" could we be sure it ever gets any attention from the gurus who are hanging out in the "gurus end up here" forum?
I do from time to time try to answers some questions as best I can about basic Propeller things as they float by. But would I be checking a beginners forum every day. Probably not. Apart from Mike Green who would[noparse]:)[/noparse]
What I was really saying is that we should stop yaking here so much and push finished projects out through all the other channels available. But where to find the time....
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For me, the past is not over yet.
Post Edited (heater) : 7/18/2010 1:41:05 PM GMT
I think out of general interest people would check both forums, but the real benefit would be to the beginners, because yeah, right now it's a bit confusing - PropCade, RamBlade, LMM, TLMM, Hub PASM vs Cog PASM, Zog, etc. I do think that a beginner forum would make a great incubator for people to develop their guru skills. I know that I've answered Propeller questions before even owning one because I knew the answers from reading the threads, or knew where the docs were, etc.
And my vote for first post to an advanced propeller forum would be for RossH to start a "Dining Philosophers" thread, since he already posted it in C. Seeing it in the various languages would be cool. Although if Ross reads this, I hope he'll start a thread anyways.
A part of what you see is a reflection of the open source philosophy that the Arduino embraces. Go to just about any open source discussion forum and tell them you don't like how something works, and you can be fairly confident that they'll tell you to go ahead and fix it yourself if you don't like it. There is a very strong sense of self sufficiency with open source, and people frequently expect you to put forth some effort to figure it out on your own before they'll answer many questions.
As for the Arduino forums themselves, there are some smart guys there. The Arduino is so well documented on the Arduino website that they may have figured you need to look there first.
Someone I know from the AVR Freaks forum has written an excellent book on the Arduino for complete beginners and published it himself; something like Harprit's book on the Propeller, I would think. He sent me a copy for my comments, although he is a touchy character and we've crossed swords many times.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Post Edited (Leon) : 7/18/2010 2:17:29 PM GMT
Not always true but kind of understandable. Creating any kind of non-trivial software takes a lot of time and effort. Many who give away their creations for free (or perhaps not free or not open or both) have made the thing to satisfy some need or desire of their own, to "scratch an itch" as it often said. If it works well enough for them that's enough for them, the fact that everyone else gets to use it is a bonus for everyone else. Perhaps they have other priorities in life than fixing bugs or adding features on request. Even answering questions all the time takes time and effort.
We have been truly blessed here with RossH and his Catalina compiler which seems to now contain everything including the kitchen sink of the Propeller world. A lot of which has come from user input I'm sure. Then there is BradC and the amazing BST which has also morphed with user input. There are others.
Actually wonder sometimes about RossH and BradC sometimes. They both started their projects because they wanted tools for the Prop in the way they wanted them. These projects are so huge and time consuming I speculate that they have long since forgotten what it was they were going to do with the Propeller in the first place [noparse]:)[/noparse]
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For me, the past is not over yet.
Yeah!
It's about time Parallax threw their support behind these two and officially endorsed both products, their work is fantastic.
I don't use the Parallax Propeller Tool at all these days......
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PropGFX - The home of the Hybrid Development System and PropGFX Lite
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For me, the past is not over yet.
You said:
"The Propeller could easily handle 5 forums - Beginning Propeller, Advanced Propeller, Spin Topics, PASM Topics, Other Languages. The "other languages" would maybe be the most awkward, but with C/C++, Basic, Forth, and whatever else is there, it would make sense. However, having a beginning & advanced forum would really be enough, with each covering all languages."
In my opinion is is risky idea --- For Beginners as Most Advanced ones will only look on theirs FORUM type and on Beginner's side will not be much ones to answer simple questions.
Regards
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Nothing is impossible, there are only different degrees of difficulty.
For every stupid question there is at least one intelligent answer.
Don't guess - ask instead.
If you don't ask you won't know.
If your gonna construct something, make it·as simple as·possible yet as versatile as posible.
Sapieha
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For me, the past is not over yet.
If you want people to adopt good technology, you have to give them a compelling reason to do so. Theoretical or actual specifications are meaningless to average Joe, Phil, Bob, or however we decide to stereotype this person. What these people want to see is what can the Propeller do? The good news is the Propeller can do a lot, and the Propeller 2 can do a lot more. Also there are a lot of great applications, projects, and hardware that shows the power and the appeal of the Propeller. From video games to robots, I think we have the projects to show off to the world.
Now what is lacking is a centralized location to show off these projects. Now pretty much everyone uses the forum to post about their projects, and as long as that post is getting activity, you will see that project. But even after a few months, even the most popular threads fall to the abyss of the message board. And even if the search function did work, you would still have to know the project existed before you could find it.
So here is my solution: We need a centralized location where we can place all these projects. We need a wiki-type environment where we can have projects broken into categories, and each project having its own page. On the page we can have source code, binary, hardware requirements, build instructions, photos and videos of the project in action.
This would have two major benefits. 1) When someone asks the question "What can the Propeller do?" you send them to the project wiki where they can SEE videos/pictures of projects in action. 2) If you are a normal Propeller use looking for a certain project that is not brand spanking new, you can go to the project wiki and quickly find it.
Now of course comes the hard part... creating the page. What is needed is bandwidth/hosting space and people to build the page. I think this should be open to people modifying the pages, like a lot of wiki pages, but require user accounts to prevent vandalism. That way if a project only supports one type of hardware setup, someone else can take the code, modify, and add to the page to support another propeller hardware setup. Or if one person doesn't have the ability to add video, someone else can shoot a video of the project in action and attach it.
The fun projects are here (and still coming), but we need a centralized place to show them off.
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PropGFX - The home of the Hybrid Development System and PropGFX Lite
Well, if somebody wants to answer beginner level questions, there's nothing to stop them. And right now, if somebody doesn't want to answer beginner level questions, there's nothing to make them. Yes, this can be called a community, but... these are the Parallax tech support forums, which means that ultimately it's up to Parallax to provide the answers, not the community.
That said, there are a lot of things discussed on the Propeller forum that really have nothing at all to do with Parallax products, which they provide no support for. Things like Catalina, PropBasic, RamBlades, etc. These are all things that a) only serve to confuse somebody new to the Propeller, and b) more often than not touch upon advanced topics. Creating separate beginner and advanced forums would benefit everybody... beginners would find answers quicker, advanced users would find answers quicker, tech support could focus accordingly. The only impact to forum regulars is the need to click 2 links instead of 1.
As it is, Parallax already makes a beginner/non-beginner distinction on this page with Spin/PASM: www.parallax.com/tabid/407/Default.aspx. My thouht is that "How do I blink an LED in language X" is a beginner question, while "How do I write a serial driver in language X" is an advanced question.
The only other thing I could suggest is that There be 2 Propeller forums - one for Spin/non-LMM PASM questions that is heavily modded by Parallax (basically the official tech support forum), and another for everything else, with primarily community moderation (basically all of the stuff they don't officially support).
No. It's An Arduino Workshop, by Joe Pardue, AKA Smiley, who wrote the Smiley's Workshop series for Nuts&Volts:
www.smileymicros.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=83&MMN_position=137:137
It comes with a kit of parts.
I wonder if my signed copy will be a collector's item in a few years.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
If there was a split between beginners/advanced this forum would lose some of its "character" which might be an improvement or not.
As far as official Parallax support goes, it should not be too hard to create a moderator only response forum although maybe not with dotNetBB.
Cheers.
--Steve
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Propeller Pages: Propeller JVM
I think it's more a question convenience, time and motion and the natural flow of the world.
I don't go out of my way to help old ladies cross the road but if I happen to come across one on my travels I will gladly offer to help. Is that selfish?
There is often this word "community" used in the context of sites on the web. Well real communities have young and old, experienced and naive, smart and stupid, strong and helpless. Perhaps we should keep this little net community as it is, a mix up where everybody is welcome. Then we have a community spirit.
Don't forget that the dumbest beginner questions can inspire someone knowledgeable and skilled to suddenly see something that he may never have thought of. A solution to a problem he never realized was a problem. The tall guy might never imagine that short people need a step ladder because he never had that problem!
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For me, the past is not over yet.
I was simply observing, not advocating a split. People don't have to contribute.
People who feel there should be a split or whatever can start their own web site.
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Propeller Pages: Propeller JVM
@Chuckz:
I appetite the input!! Positive, corrective criticism helps refine rough edges and enhances intent!
Actually, I have a fair hodgepodge of materials I still need to get over to that blog! Propeller based items from Warrantyvoid will find their new home there. (Warrantyvoid will be re-tasked to photographing teardowns of all kinds of hackable items.)
As for the how-to-build. When a project is posted to Propellerpowered, I'm currently linking to the thread/homepage where the project can be found in detail. Video sucks the person in, then hopefully the thread/website contains enough information for duplication.
OBC
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Propeller Feature Projects: PropellerPowered.com
Visit the: PROPELLERPOWERED SIG forum kindly hosted by Savage Circuits.
I am married and have a child.· I can't read two pages without being interrupted.· I can write one of these replies and I'll be interrupted five times to do something else.· When my son goes to sleep, I'm exhausted and can't get a lot done.· I also can't read something unless there is absolute quiet because it ruins my train of thought.
My electronics are in boxes along with the thirty one page manual on entering propeller programs.· It is going to stay there.· And it has probably been two years since I've joined this forum and I still haven't programmed the Propeller and there is your propeller advocacy at work.· Microprocessor: program yourself.
The Arduino forum is well documented but they themselves admit that general people who have little experience with electronics are the help in the forums.· It was weeks after I asked a question that I discovered that another product that might fit what I want exists because a lot of their users don't know anything.
Do you know what·my email says from Basic Micro?··One person·says that if I want to do anything then I have to hit those books.· So according to them, their microcontrollers aren't for me and they said there are better forums here.· They don't want to bother with me very much because they don't respond to my emails or claim I never sent them when they are in my sent folder so I don't buy their products.
I'm bored and I don't have to say that I quit microcontrollers because they've already been in boxes.
If Jim Butterfield was alive and went the microcontroller route, it would be fun and more understandable.· His Machine Language for Beginner book is selling for $80 dollars after his death because he was the man who made Machine Language and computers understandable for people.· People programmed as a result of his teaching.
When I was in college, I was helping plenty of adults who didn't understand the instructor and the instructor was one of those types that expected you to learn computers without teaching.· The college hired Chinese teachers who had a heavy accent and my neighbor's children failed out because they couldn't understand them.· Teaching is more than throwing a bunch of facts at people because teaching is presenting information in a way that people can learn.
Go to your local computer club.· I looked mine up on the web and they stopped learning programming.· Now the topics are how to operate Excel and use the internet.· The local one is teaching how to install Linux which is their latest endevour but only because someone is willing to teach others or they will have done what their history has been and teach how to configure Outlook Express or how to use the Internet.
I'll draw a correlation between Microprocessor literacy and use.· If you show people pictures of cookies, only those who know how to find them off of the top shelf will get them.· If you put the cookies on the table then everybody will get them.· If you only want to use the language of the experience and the learned then you are fishing in only the same pond which is a very small pond.· If you want to fish in a larger pond then you have to speak other people's language and you have to like people enough to teach them.
Chuck
Slightly off-topic.. Jim Butterfield (RIP) was an amazing person.. I suspect that the only reason that copy of his book went for $80, is because it was my autographed copy. I liquidated some of my Commodore collection last Christmas to do something special for my oldest boy.
The point of entry on the Propeller needs to be a combination of simple and cheap with high returns to set the hook.
OBC
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Propeller Feature Projects: PropellerPowered.com
Visit the: PROPELLERPOWERED SIG forum kindly hosted by Savage Circuits.
Forcing old ladies across roads they don't want to cross is a lot of fun.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Well, I can't speak for BradC, but I can tell you this is quite true for me. While obviously I do it because I want to, it has gotten to the point where I can't sit down in front of a Propeller to do any work on my original project without feeling guilty about the backlog of Catalina work.
Maybe I should go buy an Arduino and port my original project to that instead
But back to the topic at hand - I think it would be very worthwhile to start at least one new sub-forum here. Not to try and "segregate" the forum participants into "newbies" and "gurus", but just to provide a place dedicated to answering all the straightforward questons about the Propeller that sometimes get buried in our interminable discussions (let's face it - we are a long-winded bunch!).
In the new sub-forum (which will have to be moderated) only specific questions and answers can be posted. No discussions, complaints, criticisms or speculation allowed. Everything off-topic should be moved to the Sandbox. A Parallax maintained FAQ based on these forum postings would also be a great idea - one that is updated once a month or so and made "sticky".
Actually, considering how much we spend talking about non-technical, but Propeller-related issues, perhaps there should also be be a new "Propeller Sandbox" forum - or you could instead call it "Propeller Advocacy". Threads like this could then go straight in there!
I also think there should be a sub-forum dedicated specifically to the Propeller II. It must confuse the heck out of newcomers that we all seem to spend so much time here discussing a chip that may never even see the light of day. Presumably the reason they came here in the first place was to find out about this wonderful new Propeller chip they'd heard about from somewhere else - and then when they get here all they find is us (apparently) complaining about the deficiencies of the current Propeller and fantasizing about the Propeller II!
Ross.
P.S. And also could Parallax please add a decent search function to these forums - it is infuriating that you can't always find some of the great work that has been done in the past when you discover a belated need for it - think how much worse it must be for newcomers!
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Catalina - a FREE C compiler for the Propeller - see Catalina
@Heater. I agreed with your comment "There have been hundreds of interesting projects discussed here, spectrum analyser, software radio, quad copters, navigation systems, funky video demos, balancing bots, game emulators, and so on and so on.
Is it so that everyone is so focused on this forum that little finds it's way out of here? To Maker or Elektor or Indestructables, or Hack-a-day, or YouTube or any number of other media. It does not take long to see that the Arduino guys are more than happy to let the world know about their home made "toilet seat warmers" via all kinds of channels."
@JT Cook. Agreed on your point as well.
@All. I agree this is a bit like "Geeks playing at marketing". But I raised this thread because I love the Prop and what it can do, but when you speak to others they comment they've never heard of it. Too much noise from other solutions (Arduino's, etc). Hence wanting to discuss with everyone (who are interested) on how we can help raise the profile. Clearly it's not something we can do on our own (and nor should we) but it may be that we get Parallax's attention so they can work a solution.
What I've noticed is there have been draw dropping amazing solutions discussed in the Propeller forum, rarely do you find them in the "completed projects" thread, or documented beyond that. And unlikely ever get in an electronic magazine, publication or something beyond a Parallax website.· It may be that Parallax puts in more work to publish them somewhere on their site. It may be that Parallax offers some kind of incentive for folks to drive there "amazing solutions" into completed projects that are fully documented, and ready to be pushed into a kit (Gadget Gangster maybe an approach) and then have someone drive them to external publications. I know Parallax advertises in Circuit Cellar, maybe they have influence to get some of these "amazing solutions" published, and it just takes someone to help drive it forward.
In regards to splitting the threads, I'm a bit uncomfortable about it. Like most I've spent an unhealthy amount of time in the Propeller forum - much to the detriment of actual coding for my own stuff. However I think we could all benefit from the distillation of the learnings of the threads. Probably a Parallax Propeller website Wiki would make sense. Where answers, code and details could be posted. For example how to generate an analog signal - there are a number of threads on how to do this, with some code fragments posted, but you really have to search hard for it. A Wiki containing this would make a lot of sense! Probably forum members would have the rights to post to the Wiki and final approval be from Parallax staff?..... thoughts?
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It's all a function of time.
However, I only read the completed projects and sandbox from time to time.
As for completed projects, I haven't really posted much there because it depends on you definition of completed. Everything is advancing so fast, a lot of projects are just one great ride forward.
OBC's website looks great and this may help. It is all about people finding fun projects to build. They will no doubt use the chip that has the fun projects, so here is where we need to concentrate on for the prop. But it is not where these threads started as we were looking for ways to get the props used commercially in volume.
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Links to other interesting threads:
· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)·
· Prop OS: SphinxOS·, PropDos , PropCmd··· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBlade Props: www.cluso.bluemagic.biz
I'm still concerned that a "Propeller Basics Forum" would become a desert devoid of all help from the experienced who are busy getting on with what ever they get on with and the "newbies" would be lost wondering around in the desert.
However:
1) Ideally Parallax would have some eyes watching that basics forum every day as part of their job. Customer support and all that.
2) Perhaps those in the "not basics forum" could volunteer to get notifications about questions on the basics forum. By way of something in return for the fun they are having here[noparse]:)[/noparse]
Anyway, that's enough of this discussing Propeller advocacy round in circles for me. I'm going to go out actually do some. Starting here at my work place.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
If you don't take risks there is no reward.·
A forum for beginners would just need different rules and lack of clutter (lack of help or desert wasteland as you might call it) would be a good thing.· Beginners don't need message clutter.· They just need one or two page instructions of help.
Just follow the "Search the Propeller Forums" link in Cluso's sig.
Google advanced search has worked very well for me recently, I doubt Parallax could do much better.
Damn, I said I was finished on this thread.
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For me, the past is not over yet.