Re: Reading the (fine) manual

On Fri, 15 Jul 2005, Harkness, Howard wrote:

> I have read through it several times now (as well as the SwiftForth
> Handbook), and will probably re-read it on a weekly basis until the current
> contract is over. I also refer to it nearly every day for something. There
> is enough material there that I can't absorb it all on just one pass. Maybe
> I'm just slow, but I think that I would have to slog out this full-time for
> six months or more before I would be comfortable regarding myself as a
> SwiftXpert.

I doubt it's a matter of being slow. From your previous
description, I suspect your biggest problem is that the application
you're working on suffers from "excessive cleverness." That is, the
previous developers made things too tricky for their (and your) own
good. Trying to figure out the clever tricks has made you dig
deeper into SwiftX than you should really have to.

SwiftX has to behave in a consistent manner both when connected to
the target and when disconnected from it, which makes SwiftX itself
rather complex. SwiftX does a really good job of hiding this
complexity from you...if you let it. Also, the code that SwiftX
generates for the target is no more complex than you make it.

If you've been through the manual that many times, then I think my
advice to you is "ignore my previous advice to you." Stay out of
the manual, stay in the interpreter, and "walk" your way up and out
of the application. If you're confused about how something works,
try writing a version of it and test it out; you'll probably find
that you understand SwiftX better than you think you do!
LOCATE, WH, SEE, and type 'till your fingers bleed. ;-)

If you "got" polyFORTH, you'll eventually "get" SwiftX...and once
you do, you'll be glad you did. Good luck!

-- 
Ron Oliver <roliver_at_openesque.com>
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