Preliminary Update to FBeginner EBook

[rdc]

Here is a preliminary update to my ebook FBeginner, A Beginners Guide to Freebasic. This is my original manuscript and I have updated all the programs to run correctly with the current version of FreeBasic. I have made some preliminary updates to the book, taking out Option Explicit, for example, however, I have not done a deep edit of the book yet. It should be useable and correct for the most part. Keep in mind this was written several years ago and does not contain any of the changes to FreeBasic that have been implemented since I wrote this ebook. The programs are very simplistic and were written for clarity, not efficiency.

Updated 9/20/2020
Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ttfk060lmjvgt ... r.zip?dl=0

Please let me know if you find any glaring errors and I will correct them.

[D.J.Peters]

I'm certainly not the target audience, but you did a really good job.

Only one suggestion for improvement you should use jump labes in your *.odt before creating PDF or HTML !

So a reader can jump from the table of contents to the right topc with a mouse click
or a mouse click on a keyword jump to the right place inside the document.

How ever I like it and it should be a part of the official FreeBASIC download.

Joshy

[rdc]

Thank you. Yeah, I need to fix up the document.I plan to go through it all and get everything in shape.

[grindstone]

Although I couldn't put more than a cursory glance on it, I must say you did an excellent job, and I agree with D.J.Peters that your EBook should become part of the FB download or at least been admitted into the "Documentation" download folder.

[rdc]

Thank you.

[Tourist Trap]

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b4t54mri1ycpo ... r.zip?dl=0
Please let me know if you find any glaring errors and I will correct them.

Ouch! More than 200 pages of really nice stuff. I had the old version before and was already happy with it, so thanks for the upgrade. My dream now, is a tome 2 with fxm quite pretty chapters on the many more advanced stuff that come shipped with FB (->viewtopic.php?f=9&t=26694).
I don't want to annoy you with details. Not an error, just missing for the sake of completion, but you may want to add this case of Dim + Initialisation, page 17:

dim as integer x = 5

[rdc]

Not an annoyance at all. I am looking at updating the ebook but I am trying to figure out the changes myself. It has been quite a while.

[Tourist Trap]

Not an annoyance at all. I am looking at updating the ebook but I am trying to figure out the changes myself. It has been quite a while.

If you want, I'll read it all and push here my (2 cents) comments with references to the pages. Sometimes an author just need a second point of view, above all when it reaches such a big count of pages.

[rdc]

That would be great.

[robert]

Here is a preliminary update to my ebook FBeginner, A Beginners Guide to Freebasic. This is my original manuscript and I have updated all the programs to run correctly with the current version of FreeBasic. I have made some preliminary updates to the book, taking out Option Explicit, for example, however, I have not done a deep edit of the book yet. It should be useable and correct for the most part. Keep in mind this was written several years ago and does not contain any of the changes to FreeBasic that have been implemented since I wrote this ebook. The programs are very simplistic and were written for clarity, not efficiency.

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b4t54mri1ycpo ... r.zip?dl=0

Please let me know if you find any glaring errors and I will correct them.

Page 72, Analysis: of Listing 7.2: ptraccess.bas

changing

The End 1 terminates the program with an exit code of 1.

to

The End 1, at line 12, terminates the program with an exit code of 1.

would save me a couple of seconds of effort scanning the example for The End 1.

Richard, I know that you know this, but I'm going to write it anyway for the sake of those who may be conflating line numbers with GOTO.

For a beginner, line numbers, in explanations, make understanding what is happening so much easier. For a beginner, struggling with the terminology is already a formidable task and then, understanding the conceptual constructs of a procedure adds more complexity. Locating the procedure in code can be dishearteningly discouraging without specific line number references.

I don't want to look for it! Just tell me where it is!

Also, regarding style, code extracted from examples should be in the code font, distinct from the text font.

If you are not using a DeskTop Publisher, I would strongly suggest it, even if you are hopelessly addicted to WordStar. Tables of Contents, Footnotes indices etc. no problem, all automatically recalculated.

I'm looking forward to your updates.

[patrickw99]

RDC
I have been working with an old version of your book. I have changed the order of the chapters. removed most references to quickbasic and did some reformating. I am currently working on some chapters that I felt were missing. Control statements, functions, subroutines, intro to objects. it can be found at

https://sourceforge.net/projects/fbeginner/files/

It is just the first 7 chapters
tell me what you think


patrickw99

[robert]

FBeginner.pdf page 54, in line 31

Code: Select all

> 5

should be

Code: Select all

> 3

page 55, in line 4 of Listing 5.7

Code: Select all

> 5

should be

Code: Select all

> 3

In the chap07 directory, in eqv.bas, line 29

Code: Select all

Print "Statement myInt1 > 5 eqv myInt2 < 1 ";

should be

Code: Select all

Print "Statement myInt1 > 3 eqv myInt2 < 1 ";

[robert]

Hi RDC:

FBeginner.pdf, page 75 Creating a Callback Function, needs updating of qsort example.

See FreeBASIC Documentation The Pointer Data Type section for updated example.

FBeginner.odt and Fbeginner.pdf are very different. Which one is the new updated one? I hope it's the .pdf ... that's what I have been working from checking the source code examples on Linux Fedora.

[rdc]

I have updated the zip file in the first post. I am slowly going through this and updating the Open Office document. The PDF is created after I have made edits to the doc file so two should be in sync. Thank you for the suggestions, I will get to them as I can.

I do not plan on rewriting the existing document as I feel it should remain in its original state, and since this is a beginner's guide, it should remain simple to understand. My current goal is to just make sure everything in the ebook works correctly under the existing compiler. All the code examples in the zip file folders have been fixed to run correctly, it is just a matter of making sure the examples in the ebook match the updates to the example programs. This isn't a trivial task and will take some time. Right now the code example line numbers do not match the text because Option Explicit was taken out which caused some line mismatches. Just one example of the edits necessary. Once the document is edited so that everything is in sync, I will consider updating the book with new features that exist in the compiler.

[rdc]

Btw, the formatting I am using in the book is the formatting I used in a Visual Basic book that I wrote back when I was a professional programmer. The formatting is the style the publisher used so I thought I would use the same type of formatting for this book. Unfortunately, after writing about 80% of the VB book, the publisher decided to cancel the project so it never went to press and I was forbidden to release my work to the public. It was the first and last time I worked with a book publisher. They ended up contacting me about another project and I said no thanks. I was not going to go through all that work for nothing again.