Author Topic: Thinking about wrapping up my ASM lessons since I reached my goal early  (Read 9647 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Hot_Dog

  • Project Author
  • LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 3006
  • Rating: +445/-10
    • View Profile
As you all probably know, my goal in writing my Z80 lessons was to help people reach the point where they could read lessons such as 28 days without having any issues.  Now it seems I reached my goal eariler than I expected.  I've heard a lot of good things about my lessons, but apparently, people who read the lessons at this stage know enough to understand other ASM topics.  And that's a good thing.

But now, it seems like all I'm doing is repeating 28 days, even if more in-depth.  That was fine beforehand, because I though people would need deep explination of some of the topics in the lesson.  But since people can read these without any trouble, there's no sense in repeating them.

I'm thinking about cutting out the ASM gorillas lessons, removing the lessons past lesson 12, and adding a 13th lesson to wrap things up.  I'm also thinking about writing 3-4 appendixes to help people with 28 days and discuss flash applications.

This decision is not final, so feel free to discuss "yays" or "nays" here.

Offline DJ Omnimaga

  • Clacualters are teh gr33t
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
  • *
  • Posts: 55941
  • Rating: +3154/-232
  • CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
    • View Profile
    • Dream of Omnimaga Music
Re: Thinking about wrapping up my ASM lessons since I reached my goal early
« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2010, 09:09:24 pm »
I hope it doesn't die or something :(

You could maybe have some sort of practice-type section, so people can write a simple ASM program or something?

Offline Hot_Dog

  • Project Author
  • LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 3006
  • Rating: +445/-10
    • View Profile
Re: Thinking about wrapping up my ASM lessons since I reached my goal early
« Reply #2 on: September 20, 2010, 09:10:34 pm »
I'm not talking about it dying, I'm talking about releasing it sooner than I thought--ironically, that's how "well it's doing"

Offline ztrumpet

  • The Rarely Active One
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *
  • Posts: 5712
  • Rating: +364/-4
  • If you see this, send me a PM. Just for fun.
    • View Profile
Re: Thinking about wrapping up my ASM lessons since I reached my goal early
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2010, 09:12:14 pm »
Hmm, I don't know.  I like your format better, but the lessons were to make Asm in 28 easier.  I'd say it's your call. :)

Offline Hot_Dog

  • Project Author
  • LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 3006
  • Rating: +445/-10
    • View Profile
Re: Thinking about wrapping up my ASM lessons since I reached my goal early
« Reply #4 on: September 20, 2010, 09:13:34 pm »
Hmm, I don't know.  I like your format better, but the lessons were to make Asm in 28 easier.  I'd say it's your call. :)

I guess the biggest issue is I have no idea whether people understand lesson 17 or not.  But if there's no need for them to read it, that's good news on my part.

Offline DJ Omnimaga

  • Clacualters are teh gr33t
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
  • *
  • Posts: 55941
  • Rating: +3154/-232
  • CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
    • View Profile
    • Dream of Omnimaga Music
Re: Thinking about wrapping up my ASM lessons since I reached my goal early
« Reply #5 on: September 20, 2010, 09:18:13 pm »
I'm not talking about it dying, I'm talking about releasing it sooner than I thought--ironically, that's how "well it's doing"
Ok, I was worried it was because of ThePenguin77 announcing his version of 28 day or something.

Offline Hot_Dog

  • Project Author
  • LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 3006
  • Rating: +445/-10
    • View Profile
Re: Thinking about wrapping up my ASM lessons since I reached my goal early
« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2010, 10:33:06 am »
Yeah, it's settled!  :)  I'll cut out lessons 6, 11, and 15, leaving 11 lessons already written (stopping at displaying pictures).  Lesson 12 will contain shavings of lessons 13, 15 and 17.  Lesson 13 will be about floating point numbers, and Lesson 14 will wrap up the series.  Lesson 14 will give the player the next steps, final information (including terms that ASM 28 doesn't define clearly), talk about 28 days and one other ASM tutorial I found useful, and encourage people to visit Omnimaga for ASM questions.

Appendixes I will also include:
--------------------------------

A. Designing flash applications with SPASM
B. Sprite routines.  Rather than go into the technical details like lesson 17, I'll just tell people the basics behind sprites and transparency, and then give them some routines
C. The Key Routine Ztrumpet was looking forward to (known to ASM programmers as using the keyboard port)
D. Interrupts.  28 Days is not clear enough on this, and most of the example programs I've seen on other ASM lessons are not very helpful
E. Tables/References
« Last Edit: September 21, 2010, 01:44:10 pm by Hot_Dog »

Offline DJ Omnimaga

  • Clacualters are teh gr33t
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
  • *
  • Posts: 55941
  • Rating: +3154/-232
  • CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
    • View Profile
    • Dream of Omnimaga Music
Re: Thinking about wrapping up my ASM lessons since I reached my goal early
« Reply #7 on: September 21, 2010, 01:32:14 pm »
Cool! You should put a link to the ASM sub-forum here so people can easily find it :). It might be good to refer to 28 days from time to time whenever your tutorial is missing things that 28 days is explaining, and explain this tutorial is kinda like an add-on to 28 days as well. Good luck on this :)

Offline Hot_Dog

  • Project Author
  • LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 3006
  • Rating: +445/-10
    • View Profile
Re: Thinking about wrapping up my ASM lessons since I reached my goal early
« Reply #8 on: September 21, 2010, 02:02:03 pm »
It might be good to refer to 28 days from time to time whenever your tutorial is missing things that 28 days is explaining, and explain this tutorial is kinda like an add-on to 28 days as well.

You haven't read the tutorials, have you? :D  Yeah, it's all there
« Last Edit: September 21, 2010, 02:02:15 pm by Hot_Dog »

Offline DJ Omnimaga

  • Clacualters are teh gr33t
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
  • *
  • Posts: 55941
  • Rating: +3154/-232
  • CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
    • View Profile
    • Dream of Omnimaga Music
Re: Thinking about wrapping up my ASM lessons since I reached my goal early
« Reply #9 on: September 21, 2010, 02:16:15 pm »
Unfortunately I only skimmed through some so far, since ASM isn't in my priority yet, but I was just making sure in case :P

Offline ztrumpet

  • The Rarely Active One
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *
  • Posts: 5712
  • Rating: +364/-4
  • If you see this, send me a PM. Just for fun.
    • View Profile
Re: Thinking about wrapping up my ASM lessons since I reached my goal early
« Reply #10 on: September 22, 2010, 05:06:02 pm »
Can you include an appendix of errors in Asm in 28?  I think that'd be great! :)

Offline Hot_Dog

  • Project Author
  • LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 3006
  • Rating: +445/-10
    • View Profile
Re: Thinking about wrapping up my ASM lessons since I reached my goal early
« Reply #11 on: September 22, 2010, 05:43:56 pm »
Can you include an appendix of errors in Asm in 28?  I think that'd be great! :)

'Fraid not, because I never tested any of the programs.  I'll leave that to penguin77, mentioning it in my last lesson