A few threads appeared on the forum lately, showing the need for programming tutorials. Then I propose here a kind of self-bounty for writing such tutorials.

You can test my teaching skills and style of writing by reading my Reggae tutorials.

I propose to setup something like "stepping bounty" for writing programming tutorials. Interested people would submit (or vote on) subjects of interest. A subject should be formulated so it can be covered with one article having about 10 to 15 kB of text. I declare to add ready to compile examples (if applicable) and illustrations (if applicable). Then one such tutorial module will take - let's say - 25 euro. Once the bounty reaches this sum, the topic from the top of the list is taken, as a current bounty goal. Then, the next topic becomes the goal and process repeates. Of course different topics may be taken by different writers, the only rule is the article must be published in MorphZone Library, and approved by donators, so it conforms some quality standard. After approval, money for the article are transferred to the author.

I also propose to finance the bounty not only from current donations but also:
1. Some donators for other (not picked up for years) bounties, may decide to move their funds to this bounty.
2. There is also something called general fund, which can be (at consent of donators) used here as well.
3. There is a huge stack of money in "site maintenance". While expanding the Library is not really a "maintenance", but anyway it adds important contents to the site.

What do you think?

[ Edited by Krashan on 2010/10/18 8:34 ]

[ Edited by Krashan on 2010/10/18 13:17 ]

Creating new programming tutorials can only be a good thing. As for repurposing old bounty donations, the only issue might be any that were large enough for the donator to still care about.

On a somewhat related topic, should I continue looking in the MorphOS SDK for hints on correct use of cpu registers and the format of executable files?

should I continue looking in the MorphOS SDK for hints on correct use of cpu registers

What do you mean by "correct use"? In most cases the compiler takes care of this. Or you code in assembler?

and the format of executable files?

The format is ELF. It is very common and documented in many places, this Wikipedia link may be a good start, as it contains links to specifications as well as some general introduction.

@ Krashan

This sounds like a good effort but I would like to clarify one issue:

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These funds have been paid out. The listed amount is merely a "running total" that reflects how much has been contributed financially in the past. For the site maintenance fund and all completed bounties, the listed amount refers to money that can neither be repaid nor reallocated.

Thanks for clarifications. What about "general fund"? It is listed as allocated too, so I guess it belongs to the same category as "site maintenance"? Then points 2 and 3 of my first post are invalid.

I don't know what amount of money is fair, or expected to write tutorials to place in the MorphZone.org Library, but there are at least a few members here that are interested in learning, or improving existing programming skills and some of them are open to the idea of donating funds for tutorials.

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Yup - trying to. I used to enjoy 68k assembler on the Amiga but the game has changed a bit since then.

When I saw this I thought there was a bit more to a MorphOS executable than just a standard ELF

Code:

or isn't this necessary?

I can't see __amigappc__ symbol in executables generated by SDK compilers, so I guess it is obsolete. The symbol __abox__ does exist however. Then you should define is as a global symbol. How to do it, depends on assembler used, or even a linker may add it automatically. You can always check a presence of given symbol using tools like nm or objdump from the SDK.

Said that I can add that in my opinion programming PowerPC in asm is not so entertaining as m68k. RISC nature of PPC makes the code less readable and a bit bloated. Presonally I prefer programming in C, while only speed critical fragments may be coded as assembler insertions. There is also a possibility that optimizing C compiler will be better at code pipelining, balancing load of parallel execution units etc. compared to handtuned assembler code. Nowadays processors are just much more complex.

That's some good idea I have to say as I alwasy would like to make some app for MorphOS, even if it won't be second OWB ;)

I think this is a nice idea. Back in the days, a lot of people did some programming as their hobby. In a lot of cases it's just simple things, in other cases Amiga made some programmers to what they are today....Aminet is still a witness of that.

Now that Amiga NextGEn computing is once again available to the masses with affordable hardware ( yes I know it's dead end blah blah... ), who knows some people may try MorphOS for what was once their hobby... having fun with a computer and explore what it can do or what you can make it do. Even it's only 10 people ... it's worth the effort.

[ Edited by Oepabakkes on 2010/10/18 20:01 ]

Then we just need a list of tutorial topics (or at least one for the start) and a bounty to be set up. I therefore ask people interested for the first and site admins for the second.

No 1: where da hell should I start, when helloworld code is a mystery for me :>

@Krashan

"C" plus "MUI" to have a very simple program full integrated in MorphOS where see variables changed and debugging and monitoring.

I think most appreciated is some kind of MUI starter kit.
I think a general C/C++ course is not needed though, there are plenty out there that don't rely on a sepcial API.
But where the MorphOS API starts it gets difficult for me, first steps with the API in general and MUI in particular. This includes how to set up the sdk properly as first step.

Personally I would like some C++ hints and tricks, but I guess C++ isn't too popular in butterfly country.

Would you recommend any of tutorial "c for dummies"? :)

This is a series of PDFs created this year that might help as an introduction to C -

http://darkwyrm.beemulated.net/downloads/pdf/

As it progresses it becomes more Haiku specific but the basics apply to most platforms.

@Pampers,

There are many websites that contain introductory "C" instruction that applies to almost all platforms. After learning the basics you can move up to Amiga & MorphOS specifics.

I have a rather old book (from about 1990) about C (A book on C) and I think these older books are pretty nice. C itself hasn't changed since ages and the old books from the time before windows world domination are mostly free of any OS specifc content. Your local library will probably have a good load of old C books.

I agree that general C course is not needed, as there is a lot of such courses in the Internet and also available as books. After reading the thread I can propose a starter article titled "MorphOS style hello world", which would cover following topics:

- installing and setting up SDK
- compiling simple programs from shell, basic useful compiler options
- MorphOS API organization, shared libraries and their basic usage rules.
- MorphOS specific console output functions like Printf(), PutStr() and other in dos.library, how to use them, how they differ from standard C library functions, what are their advantages and disadvantages.

I may split this topic into a few articles in the Library just for clarity and better organization, but it will be a single bounty goal.

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I think that is an excellent starting tutorial and when set up, I will be glad to donate toward the bounty for such a tutorial.

Thanks for keeping this idea alive and going forward Krashan.

The bounty is open now.

hi all,

in it's times, i wrote several tutorials, how to programm in PowerD. usualy in czech language.

when i started to learn programming, i loved simple OS tools with source code... imo, it's not so important to learn ppl how to develop in some programming language, but to learn them to use the programming logic, afaik, lots of ppl just don't understand why this and why that...

and lots of commented sourcecode examples are required ofcourse :) for the beginning, i'd start with rewritten RKRM examples! :) and add several new of them compatible with new MorphOS libraries...

one big challenge: write examples of ALL OS functions! :)

:)

bye, MarK.

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Donation sent.

Damn that was quick. I tried to open bounty for example for hw supported cairo.library but got nowhere ;)

Donation done.

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That's because you need to send the money directly to me, just opening a bounty won't work ;)