[Development] Development Digest, Vol 69, Issue 22 - Getting Started Tutorials

[Steve Schilz]

Sze-Howe Wrote:
> On the topic of showing users "how to use Qt" and "leverage our tooling", I feel that our "getting started" tutorials/examples need some love too.
> 
> IMHO, the "Getting Started" tutorial from Qt 4.3 (
> https://doc.qt.io/archives/4.3/tutorial-t1.html) is more accessible to beginners than http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/gettingstartedqt.html mainly because the Qt 4.3 tute
> presents material in digestible chunks. Readers are introduced to the bare bones, and get to compile and interact with their code very early on. Then, the tute
> gradually introduces more and more concepts across a number of chapters; each chapter builds upon the previous. The reader gets to build and try out the new 
> concepts in each chapter, before moving on to the next.
>
> In contrast, the Qt 5 tutorial takes the reader through a multitude of concepts (Qt Designer, the UIC file format, the *.pro file, subclassing widgets, the Q_OBJECT
> macro, properties, signals and slots, layouts, and many different classes) before the reader is taught how to compile and run their first app. If the reader made a
> mistake somewhere along the way, it's hard to find out where. There is far too much material packed into a single "getting started" article.
>
> I'm thinking of spending some time to update the Qt 4.3 tutorial (chapters
> 1 - 7) for Qt 5, presented in a few different ways to show how to do the same thing using different Qt technologies:
>
>
> 1. C++ only
> 2. C++ with Qt Designer
> 3. QML only
> 4. QML with Qt Quick Designer
>
> Is this something you'd want in the official documentation?
>
>
>Regards,
>Sze-Howe

Well, when I got my current job 7 years ago they asked me about Qt, and I went through the Cannon Field tutorial: https://doc.qt.io/archives/qtextended4.4/tutorials-tutorial.html,  It was a fun progression from hello world through a very rudimentary game. I was able to talk about what I learned in the second Interview and I got the job.  

I have been very successful in learning other languages with that sort of chapter-based incremental tutorial. 
They take a little while to get through, but at the end of it, you have a firm grasp of the fundamentals.

+1

Steve Schilz
PASCO scientific
think science