[ODE] No tutorials? Really?

[Shaul Kedem]

I understand the redundancy of tutorials once you
understand what you are doing, but for someone who
doesn't understand what is to be done and does not
have the proper knowledge of understanding the
examples (there is no basic "drop a box on a plane"
example , except the one I wrote, and that was just
for the lisp ppl... btw, any news from them ?)

I think the little gap there is to fill is a basic
(*very* basic) C example in which the flow of a
simulation is being laid out in the most straight
forward fashion. Something like "ODE for beginners".
The simulation loop described in the docs is
excellent, but its pseudo code, the wiki and faq are
always one step ahead for the beginner, there is no
explanation of how to do it, read the examples (==
good knowledge of C), read the documentation (==
understand what the documentation is all about, and
that you can jump over the physics stuff and go
straight to the function prototypes) and then write
some code, be frustrated for a week or two - and only
then, maybe check the wiki, faq and mailing list
archives or in the common case - write a "I haven't
read the list so far, but what is a plane?" sort of a
question. Then if you stumble upon someone nice, which
doesn't send you back to RTFM you get an answer which
doesn't lead to anywhere because right after
understanding what a plane is you need to understand
why there is a callback and what to do with it...

--- Tim Field <nobbis at mcs.vuw.ac.nz> wrote:
> I personally don't understand what benefit a
> tutorial would give.  The
> available information out there includes:
> 
>   - comprehensive, well-written illustrated
> documentation (including a
> step-by-step overview of a typical simulation loop,
> a link to a
> rigid-body simulation tutorial, and a FAQ)
>   - well-commented source code
>   - around a dozen commented self-contained examples
> of varying lengths
>   - a Wiki, and a mailing-list archive of the past
> two years
> 
> Specifically, what more do you need?
> 
> On Sat, 2003-10-11 at 10:53, Shaul Kedem wrote:
> > With respect, Having a tutorial is just another
> > convenient way relaying an idea. Would you ask why
> > there are so many examples in a IP masquerading
> HOWTO?
> 
> No.  In fact I mentioned the many examples in ODE in
> my post.
> 
> > Would you query the reasoning behind opengl
> tutorials?
> 
> No.  I appreciate the reasoning behind tutorials.
> 
> > ODE is a tool, and as such should be available to
> > anyone who wishes to use it.
> 
> What point are you making here?  ODE *is* available
> to anyone who wishes to 
> use it.
> 
> 
> t.
> 
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> http://q12.org/mailman/listinfo/ode


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