Forum OpenACS Q&A: newbie moving on...

Posted by Pavel Boghita on 02/19/02 01:27 PM

Doing this in my limited spare time (few hours now, other few hours
in a few months time etc...) one year on I have system working fine
(on Linux at home, Win2K at work - at home never hangs, at work hangs
consistently).
I am now in a position where I am looking through the files and
understand more what tcl is all about and find that the best way of
learning more is go through the problem sets of aD.
I did think of quitting this learning game few times and stick to
doing static pages in html... but as I have just done the first
exercise in tcl (the one with the fibonnaci series...hoooray), I
think I'll just carry on. On the subject of problem sets, I wanted to
know whether is it very difficult to adapt the problems in a
PostgreSQL setting, as the originals were designed with Oracle in
mind.
Also is it worth setting up a neighbourhood or a billboard of some
sort where learners like me can ask simple questions and maybe get
clever answers?
All the best and keep up the good work so far.

2: Response to newbie moving on... (response to 1)

Posted by Don Baccus on 02/19/02 04:04 PM

Several people have talked about doing the problem sets for PostgreSQL in the past, but no one has had time to follow through, apparently (or they have and they've posted about it and I've simply forgotten, in which case I'm sure I'll be corrected!)

This forum traditionally has been the place for learners and newbies to come ask for help. If our community continues to grow your idea of a separate "newbie forum" would make sense, but for now at least feel free to post questions right here!

3: Response to newbie moving on... (response to 1)

Posted by James Thornton on 02/19/02 07:31 PM

I have done the 3.x problem sets 1, 2, and 4 (metadata KM system) using Postgres, and it was not difficult to adapt them.

4: Response to newbie moving on... (response to 1)

Posted by Pavel Boghita on 02/19/02 08:02 PM

Don, thank you for your answer. I found your comment reasurring. I
have to admit that at times I was a little aprehensive about asking
newbie questions openly on this forum, as my perception was that
people asking questions here are already experienced programmers
learning openacs in a week or two and using the toolkit for a
contract immediately after that. Well I am in a completely different
category, someone learning the abc of almost everything,
who until not very long ago didn't have much of an idea of what a
server really is - hence the suggestion of a newbie (newbie as in
almost newborn...😉 forum.
But I'll definitely carry on with my study and try to use this forum
as a resource, as I think it is meant to be, even if this may cause
annoyance to some of the more experienced people around here. After
all annoying questions can be ignored without too much pain.

5: Response to newbie moving on... (response to 1)

Posted by David Kuczek on 02/20/02 11:45 AM

Hello Paul,

I have been a newbie around one and a half year ago too... Didn't know ANYTHING about Linux, ANYTHING about POSTGRES, ANYTHING about ACS...

I cannot say that I am a professional developer by now, but I have a pretty complex website put up by now and am still learning everyday by reading every thread that passes this bboard!

You can check on my first question, they were really funny from todays perspective AND I was thinking about setting about a place for special newbie documentation on Linux+ACS+Postgres preferably on OpenACS...

Maybe we could start a newbie area on OpenACS where you could find the problem sets, HowTos on setting up "Linux, ACS, Postgres" for newbies and make every page commentable... I just passed my economics exam so I have some time I could spend on that...

Maybe newbies or former-newbies could post on this thread and point to valuable urls on the web where they found the information they needed to get to a decent point of knowledge for openacs development?!

6: Response to newbie moving on... (response to 1)

Posted by Pavel Boghita on 02/20/02 05:25 PM

Hello David, Thank you for reply. I am glad to know that there is a light at the end of the tunnell for a "don't know anything about anything" type of person... I certainly feel that way sometimes. I will be more than happy to contribute to whatever initiative designed to help people learn to build better webservices.
Apart from playing around with tcl scripts and various modules in OpenAcs, I have also started to learn Lisp from the MIT book. I find this a greatly enjoyable experience. Although it's very unlikely I will be using the language for anything useful, it is a very good learning tool. I have set up a little forum on a site (provided by everyone.net) where I am giving my solutions to some of the exercises in this book.
I welcome your ideas about a place for newbies to learn and share experience.