Given that I have had trouble staying on track toward becoming a productive Amiga programmer, I have requested help from some of our existing experienced programmers to pass on their knowledge and expertise.

Amiga programming is a different animal than that of the other mainstream platforms, and the unique knowledge that many of our most experienced programmers have locked away in their brains, is diminished every time one of our existing programmers leaves the Amiga community for any reason.

We need to preserve as much of that valuable information as possible, as well as develop new programmers for our community. My proposal is to form a group of student programmers that are willing to pay a weekly fee to be taught by one or more of our most talented existing Amiga programmers, via IRC and all existing programming tutorial resources.

If any of you are interested in learning to program on the Amiga, and/or Amiga-Like systems, please join me in this new endeavor. If you are an existing experienced Amiga programmer who would be willing to help teach this group of students, please contact me for details on how to receive some compensation for a little bit of your time.

Currently I have one experienced programmer interested in participating with this project as an instructor. I am hoping that I can find at least 10 to 20 Amiga users who are willing to pay a small tuition fee for instruction from experienced Amiga programmers. We will begin with MUI programming, because it is available on the widest range of Amiga and Amiga-Like platforms, but will cover other areas of Amiga programming as well, in the future.

If you have ever had even a small interest in becoming able to program on the Amiga and/or Amiga-Like platforms, please join me in this effort. It could lead to good things in the future.

Last edited by amigadave on 02-May-2013 at 10:37 PM.
Last edited by amigadave on 02-May-2013 at 10:29 PM.
Last edited by amigadave on 02-May-2013 at 10:29 PM.

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Amiga! The computer that inspired so many, to accomplish so much, but has ended up in the hands of . . . . . . . . . .

@amigadave

I follow you !
I'm interested by learning more MUI if the content of courses are known by advance.

Good initiative

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@zzd10h

Yes really great initiative

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@amigadave

While I applaud you trying to garner together people to pass on programming skills to others possibly willing to learn I have to say though, why would you ask people willing to learn how to code for the Amiga to pay for it ???

One of the great things I've found over my 27 years of being an Amiga user is, most... no in fact ALL the people I have ever known whom have been able to code on their Amigas have always been more than happy to help out and teach anyone else whom was interested and willing to put in the effort to learn without asking for a fee for it...

Seems a very limiting thing and indeed I would think a very off putting way for many whom may want to learn to be asked to "pay" for it, when as in most peoples views on these forums the Amiga is only a "hobby" computer to them...

Surely if you really want to keep as much interest in the Amiga going into the future as possible (and I believe you do) then the best way to do this would be for free as it doesn't actually cost money to pass on knowledge or teach people things in these days of the internet...

Like I say I applaud you initiative but I believe you are going about it wrong way by asking people to pay for something that has the potential to benefit all Amiga users, surely if someone has coding skills on the Amiga then they'd be more than happy to help others learn too without asking them for money...

PS: MUI isn't exactly a good way to teach coding to beginners (for many reasons) surely it would be best to start with the basics of ALL system friendly Amiga coding and that of course would be what all Amigas share ie: the Intuition, Graphics & Dos libraries...

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@amigadave

Is MUI C or C++? Is there coverage of language as well as of MUI in particular, or are we expected to know the language already? Just wondering if I need to read a C++ book, or if I'm good with C... (already started one, but got distracted half way through with other things)

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@amigadave

I'd prefer a book or text on the subject. *

I think a tutorial on building a very basic paint program or text editor would be good for getting people into application programming.

For games Tetris or Breakout clones would be a good task.

Perhaps these could be subjects for your IRC lessons and then the IRC logs can be compiled into a usable documents for those who'd prefer to learn in their own time.

First lesson must obviously be about setting up a suitable development environment on the different systems.

*serialising things is probably a lot better for the writer than having to sit down and complete a whole book. When the serial is completed a book can be compiled and editor at a later stage.

Last edited by Rob on 03-May-2013 at 02:27 AM.

@Rob

I agree. If someone's going to spend the time to come up with course material and teach it, it would be much better to have the work archived so that someone 5 years from now can still benefit. If you make it a series of youtube videos it should not be a huge amount of extra work and it will be archived for ever.

@CodeSmith

Youtube vids would be a good idea too. I think that maybe video tutorials for more Amiga apps would be a good idea too but that should be subject of another thread.

@billt

Quote:

billt wrote: @amigadave Is MUI C or C++? Is there coverage of language as well as of MUI in particular, or are we expected to know the language already? Just wondering if I need to read a C++ book, or if I'm good with C... (already started one, but got distracted half way through with other things)

MUI is not a programming language...

It's a collection of libraries and routines that some programs and some programmers use to enhance & add a user interface gadgets to intuition windows. It's quite simply eye candy with a few useful features...

You can add it's routines to a system friendly programme you are writing in either Assembler or C but of course you have to learn Assembler or C first...

Hence the reason why it's NOT a good way to teach someone about coding as not everyone uses it or likes it and you still have to learn a coding language first and proper use of the Amigas system libraries, (DOS, Exec, Intuition, Graphics etc...)...

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@amigadave

I would prefer/like to see more programming in "c".

The classes run at Amiwest2012 were great. If something like that could be worked out...

But count me in.

M

@all,

Thanks for all the responses, I am glad to see that many people are interested in this project. I probably should have thought it out more thoroughly before making my first post in this thread, but let me try to clarify and answer some of your questions.

The programming language we will be focusing on is "C", and we may add some "C++" to the "C" teachings in the future if warranted. I mentioned MUI only because it is available on all (or almost all) Amiga and Amiga-Like systems and knowing how to create MUI windows and gadgets will aid us in creating new software. I should have stated that the instruction would be in the "C" language, and that besides the basics of general programming methods, MUI would be included as one of the first Amiga specific parts that would be focused on.

I am one of the students, so I will probably make many mistakes in trying to describe what will be taught, so don't hold me to any of the specifics until the programmer(s) who are actually teaching the project step forward and explain what will be covered and how they plan to begin. The only thing that seems to make obvious sense is that we do this project in the "C" language, for portability reasons as well as the fact that we have the most tools available and the most power and flexibility by using "C", instead of some other programming language.

On the topic of why we should have to pay for this instruction, instead of it being free, the simple answer is that these programmers who will be teaching deserve to be compensated for their time, as they could easily be doing other things with their available free time, such as working on freelance projects that could earn them additional income. The amount that I am suggesting is a small price to pay for experienced instruction and in no way will actually pay the programmer(s) teaching the students their actual worth (unless we can get well over 30 students).

This project is not for those who can teach themselves, or who prefer to learn from a book, or a video tutorial, or from online articles, even though some or all of those resources may be included in this teaching project. Frankly, this project is a selfish one for myself and for anyone else who wants to join me. I want to learn how to program on the Amiga and Amiga-Like systems, and so far I have failed at following through and sticking to any studying schedule. I am hoping that by organizing this project, I can find enough other interested Amiga enthusiasts who share my desire to become proficient at programming on the Amiga, and who are willing to pay a small fee to the instructors that are willing to spend a few hours a week helping us to succeed.

Unless I can find at least 10 to 20 students who agree with me that this is a good idea, the project will probably not go forward. If you want to join me and SACC-dude, please add reply to this message and add your name to the list of students below.

1. AmigaDave
2. SACC-dude
3. ??????
4. ??????
5. ??????

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Amiga! The computer that inspired so many, to accomplish so much, but has ended up in the hands of . . . . . . . . . .

@amigadave

I know basically how to compile a C program on AOS4 and how to create a window and a button with MUI, but I want to learn more advanced techniques,
is it interresting for me ?

If yes, please, count me.

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@billt

Quote:

s MUI C or C++?

mui must be written in c, no amiga native software i know of is written in c++, event if i dont know the difference..

@zzd10h

Sorry, but this project may not be advanced enough for you to enjoy participating in it. Of course the actual instructor(s) will determine the content of the course of instruction, and they might be able to include some separate and more advanced content for you, instead of the more rudimentary content for me and the others who have less knowledge than you already have.

This initiative is just getting started, so no rules or decisions have been written in stone yet. I will keep you posted on our progress and you can correspond directly with the instructor(s) in the future to determine if this project is good for you.

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@wawa

Don't ask me for names, but there's quite some C++ Amiga genuine programs out there. For MUI there's MUI++ to use it with C++ - albeit it's not too easy to setup. At least i failed the last time I tried. Pressure to do it decreased, since MUI Royale for Hollywood, hence I haven't pursued it further yet (it's still on my to do list).
Btw.: Hollywood is pretty good with MUI now - Andreas did a really astonishing job with MUI Royale. In my opinion the best development tool/extension since ages.

btw.: MUI can be used with many languages. For example with Arexx (rxMUI) or python (pyMUI).

Last edited by Zylesea on 03-May-2013 at 10:01 PM.

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@wawa

Quote:

wawa wrote: @billt Quote: s MUI C or C++? mui must be written in c, no amiga native software i know of is written in c++, event if i dont know the difference..

Nah... you can code perfectly easily in Assembler to utilise MUI into your programmes as it's mainly nothing more than library calls and setting up some simple structures and variables...

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@amigadave

Cheers for you explanation of what you are actually trying to put together...

I've got no problem if people are happy to pay for such tuition, I just think that anyone whom can code be it Assembler or C on the Amiga would be happy to pass on their knowledge...

As lets face it making money from coding for the Amiga isn't going to pay any bills and as most folk only seem to regard it as a "hobby" machine then to me it should be more in keeping with a club/ community feeling where people help others out for the benefit of all and not expect monetary compensation for it...

I can't add myself to the list as C or it's derivatives is one language I simply don't want to learn, I'll stick with Assembler myself...

Good luck, though and hopefully by doing things this way it'll keep you motivated to see it through this time...

Personally coding on the Amiga for me is actually the most enjoyable aspect of it all and the feeling of satisfaction and even pride you get when you write even the smallest bit of code that performs a task you needed simply can't be beaten...

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@Franko

Quote:

Personally coding on the Amiga for me is actually the most enjoyable aspect of it all and the feeling of satisfaction and even pride you get when you write even the smallest bit of code that performs a task you needed simply can't be beaten...

Amen!

Coder

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@amigadave

I'm not exactly a "beginner", but I'd be very interested in learning about Amiga-specific topics that can be extremely complex, like exec and inter-process messaging. A topic that is totally new to me is amiga sound. I don't know how much I'd be willing to pay. Whatever happened to Amiga Wiki. Maybe experienced authors could receive a small sum from the community for contributing.

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@Rob

I'd prefer a book or text on the subject.

http://krashan.ppa.pl/mph/

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