Frans,

Ever thought of creating a couple of videos to accomodate your product. I for one would love some explainations other than the documentation as to when to use this and when to use that would really come in handy for us novices. Would cut down on your support as well I'm sure

Just a thought, maybe someone else out there might want to earn a few bob?

Geoff.

We have some video's available: http://www.llblgen.com/pages/tutorials.aspx

With inheritance etc., the designer will become much more important, so more videos are planned

I aren't knocking it and I saw them and they are indeed helpful but was thinking more on the lines of syntax in code, i.e. How to build buckets, how to perform paging, etc... I know it's in the documentation but sometimes it's nicer to listen to 'watch out for this', 'one of the common mistakes people make when creating PrePaths is that they usually pick the wrong entity', etc...

Glad to hear more vids on the way though, c00l.

Geoff.

I didn't add video's on writing code as that's IMHO not that helpful, as you then can better have some text with the code there. Or do you find video's of code being written helpful?

Otis wrote:

I didn't add video's on writing code as that's IMHO not that helpful, as you then can better have some text with the code there. Or do you find video's of code being written helpful?

Well IMO it's not the code as per se it's the best practices to be adopted when using LLBLGen Pro and to highlight any shortfalls and gotcha's as it's being written that I find works best.

What would be very useful is to create a video series based on writing a fictious application suite using the Northwind database for instance. The project could be based on Windows, Webforms and Mobile technologies but the main thing is that all of them use LLBLGen Pro; Entities, EntityCollections, Typed Lists/Views, PrePath, UnitOfWork, etc, etc...

The application being written doesn't have to conform to a programming standard as they differ from programmer to programmer but the main fundementals such as when to use SelfServicing vs Adapter should be discussed only to reiterate their importance when designing applications using LLBLGenPro.

I know this would take up a lot of time to produce but it's an investment at the end of the day. I think a video series would:

a) Instantly educate your new customers on what LLBLGen Pro is and how it can be used. Documentation is fine and we can all read but it just adds that extra WOW factor, a picture is a 1000 words as so to speak.

b) Reduce the support time required because you are showing your customers how to go about implementing LLBLGen Pro in their own projects. Before you beat me up on this one I know that LLBLGen Pro is not about showing people how to code properly but seeing when to use EntityCollections vs Typed List is priceless to people who have not spent hours trying this out.

c) It's how the brain works IMO (No, i'm not a brain specialist ), we remember things because we put them into perspective, like a story as so to speak. For instance if I told you to remember: Tree Bear Deep Forest Little and now visualise a Little Bear wandering down into the Deep Forest to climb a Tree you will remember the words - ROFL, Man, where the hell did that come from? this is way too deep but you get the picture and hopefully I might have made your day

d) Expand your audience, you was at DotNED in May right?... Well I wasn't but it would have been brilliant if I could of at least seen a video of your talks about LLBLGen Pro. It might have made me put certain things into perspective. How many people actually bought your product based on your talks down there? If there was just one then it would have been worth it ehh, thats what I think a video series can do for you.

e) I'm sure there are other benefits too... Leave that up to others to chip in?

These are just my comments... Okay, Okay I know option c) was over the top, forget it already, huh? It's one of those days where I am at work and don't have LLBLGen Pro to play with...

Geoff.

Whoa, lots of questions..

davisg wrote:

Otis wrote:

I didn't add video's on writing code as that's IMHO not that helpful, as you then can better have some text with the code there. Or do you find video's of code being written helpful?

Well IMO it's not the code as per se it's the best practices to be adopted when using LLBLGen Pro and to highlight any shortfalls and gotcha's as it's being written that I find works best.

Ok, but the thing is: one's problems are another one's 'I don't see that as a problem'. It's hard to setup a set of tutorials which are usable for a lot of problems.

What would be very useful is to create a video series based on writing a fictious application suite using the Northwind database for instance. The project could be based on Windows, Webforms and Mobile technologies but the main thing is that all of them use LLBLGen Pro; Entities, EntityCollections, Typed Lists/Views, PrePath, UnitOfWork, etc, etc...

You mean, like a webcast? personally I find the pace of a video way too slow. Text allows users to consume it at their own speed.

The application being written doesn't have to conform to a programming standard as they differ from programmer to programmer but the main fundementals such as when to use SelfServicing vs Adapter should be discussed only to reiterate their importance when designing applications using LLBLGenPro.

ok, though this is a very broad subject

I know this would take up a lot of time to produce but it's an investment at the end of the day. I think a video series would:

a) Instantly educate your new customers on what LLBLGen Pro is and how it can be used. Documentation is fine and we can all read but it just adds that extra WOW factor, a picture is a 1000 words as so to speak.

I know pictures say a 1000 words, though is this more on the marketing side or on the developer's side? Because I firmly believe in the down-to-earth no nonsense approach when it comes down to how to do things: no pretty pictures, but real stuff, the way it looks like when you're fighting with it in your own cubicle.

b) Reduce the support time required because you are showing your customers how to go about implementing LLBLGen Pro in their own projects. Before you beat me up on this one I know that LLBLGen Pro is not about showing people how to code properly but seeing when to use EntityCollections vs Typed List is priceless to people who have not spent hours trying this out.

I understand your point, and I agree with it, the problem is though, that there is no single 'how to do it in your project', as the scope of projects is huge: from smart client desktop apps to large webapplications to services to webservices to (soon) mobile apps. Well, the point of consuming data isn't different from eachother in most of those applications, THAT's true, the issue is (I think) that a lot of developers don't see it as that. I mean: we had a winforms app which showed some functionality usage. We got a lot of questions how to use llblgen pro code in a webapp using asp.net. That's no different but how to explain that? I gave up on that and added a webapp example. Now people can use that as a reference how to use it in a webapp.

d) Expand your audience, you was at DotNED in May right?... Well I wasn't but it would have been brilliant if I could of at least seen a video of your talks about LLBLGen Pro. It might have made me put certain things into perspective. How many people actually bought your product based on your talks down there? If there was just one then it would have been worth it ehh, thats what I think a video series can do for you.

I'm not sure how many people bought a license after the presentation, as it was a small presentation and I wanted to explain O/R mapping and data-access first, which didn't leave me a lot of time to show off a lot of the functionality.

I think a video series of what LLBLGen Pro can do is pure for marketing, not for the developer who has to write code with it. The developer who writes code needs first educational elements about the foundation of the framework and the philosophy behind it, then has to learn the different ways to do things. Most people have problems with the step from SQL to object oriented queries. That's the main issue. I'm not sure how a video will work in that area (I never watch video's online which explain a given technical element, as it's useless for reference and has a slow pace. ).

Once the developer grasps the oo queries, the questions drop dramatically and if they need to ask a question again, it's one focussed on a specific detail.