Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!apple!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!ackerman
From: ackerman@athena.mit.edu (Mark S. Ackerman)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Xhibition (a short flame)
Message-ID: <6936@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 3 Sep 88 00:01:51 GMT
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: ackerman@athena.mit.edu (Mark S. Ackerman)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 44

Uh, Xhibition has taken a few hits recently, and as one of the tutorial
presenters, I'd like to make a couple of points.  I don't feel like the
flames were made at me, but I'd like to make some general comments.

One, when you teach anything, you've got to decide where to aim.  People
will complain less if you make the material hard.  The people who are
knowledgeable will be happy, and the people who didn't understand
something -- well, they'll be too cowed to complain.

I personally chose not to do that.  I can only speak for myself, as I
didn't attend any of the other tutorials.  I think writing widgets is
easy, but only after a few insights.  I'm much more worried about the
general group of people that have to subclass a widget for some slight
change than the few that have already rewritten the text widget.  So I
designed my tutorial for beginners (whatever that means since you've
got to already know X to write a simple widget).  Maybe I got the
pacing wrong, but better to go a little slow and let everyone keep up.

My point is this:  if you've been programming X for a long time, don't go
to a beginning tutorial.  Jordan, I've certainly seen your name on this
list enough - with enough good questions and comments - to expect that
you'll get much out of a tutorial.  Especially one as impersonal as 
that required by the large hall and mobs of people.  Let tutorials be
for beginners.

Also, this suggests that at future shows or conferences (are you
listening, Bob and Peter?), there ought to be at least two tracks --
one for beginners and one for pros.  

Two, admittedly the cost to me was quite low, seeing that I'm here at
the Institute anyways, but I appreciated the trade show.  I'm too old
a hand at computers to believe anything I don't see, and this was an
opportunity to see what companies had and what they didn't.  (And what
broke when you used it, and what was so broken that they wouldn't even
let you near it.)


					Mark Ackerman
						(Ack)

Also -- If you want to argue with me about whether X stuff should be
free or people should pay market-rates, well, let's do that off-line
or in News.talk.capitalism or whatever.  I, myself, alternate on the
issue.