Re: [DotGNU]DotGNU -- The Book ? (was: Some thoughts about DotGNU)

[Peter Minten]

Gopal V wrote:
> 
> If memory serves me right, Gopal V wrote:
> > I would suggest the use of LaTeX for the book , which would simplify a
> > lot of things for a lot of people ... (like people extracting sample code
> > out of .pdf files ;-). But plain text submissions can be accepted as
> > it would be simpler for newbies.....
> 
> Just started writing in LaTeX and immediately realized that it takes much
> more skill than I have, to typeset a whole book in LaTeX ... The problems
> lie mostly in the layout model , rather than using the default stuff ...
> 
> I have typeset all my project reports in LaTeX , but this is really
> beyond my skills ... :-(
> 
> But I can really supply the contents , most of it that is . I'm fully
> free next week ... would anyone mind if I chucked hacking and wrote
> a nice little starter attempt on "C\# with pnet " ?
> (I didn't say weekend , I said a week !)
> 
> I would like to discuss this when we come to the pnet meeting this weekend
> 

I've started work on a DotGNU C# programming book too, it might be a
good idea to merge our efforts. Unfortunately I'm very bad at
typesetting (this could be a good job for non-programmers on this list:
typesetting the manuals).

Since I have eight free weeks ahead of me so I guess we could make a
serious attempt to create a seriously good book. Here are some idea's I
had:

* To spice up the story there are some small educational tales
explaining things in a humourous fashion. The tales feature a sensei
(the teacher), a student and two doofuses (I liked Rhys play so much
that I decided to include these). The sensei is wise but eats more
junkfood than 20 normal hackers and is often very sarcastic. The student
is the typical nerd that tries his best. The doofuses are besides very
dumb (when they walk into a village the average IQ of that village drops
5 points) also very arrogant and have VERY big egos (and have I
mentioned that they overuse hacker jargon whenever possible). Mix this
with some programming concepts and you get a nice educational comedy
:-).

* The book could have the following parts:
I    Installation, compilation, how to use pnet, etc
II   The basics of the language (variables, methods, classes)
III  Advanced use of the language (inheritance, overloading, attributes)
IV   In depth look at basic classes (object, String, Int32, Array)
V    In depth look at various important parts of the library (Net, 
     Sockets, IO)
VI   Introduction of important dotgnu libs
VII  In depth look at important dotgnu libs
VIII How to make good programs (style, how to debug, where to install
     files)
IX   Appendixes (Philosophy, explanation of the pnet tools (ilnative,
     ildb, ilasm), the answers to exercises)


* The book should also have a lot of exercises as training.

* A good lot of graphics would be nice.

That's all I thought of for now.

Greetings,

Peter