[openbeos] Re: OS Propaganda.... A new world order!

>I appreciate the time you guys have taken to respond to my ramblings.  
I
>am one of those lurkers.  I would like to get involved, but am a
>windows(Borland, even) C, C++, Delphi programmer so I have little to 
no
>experience.  

[This may apply to a lot of you lurkers:]

Wow, if you are already a C and C++ programmer you are in great shape!  
Better than me actually since I'm mostly just a Java programmer.  The 
Be API is really nice and very easy to learn (much like the VCL in 
Delphi), so I really think you could get going quickly.  Coming from 
Borland on Windows is actually an advantage!

>I'm hoping I can get read access or anonymous access and
>take a look at the source code.  I see you have an article on 
accessing
>the CVS and I'm trying to find one of my computers that I can get BeOS
>up and running on and I'm going to take it from there.  Hopefully, 
I'll
>either be able to contribute some code or some debugging or something 
to
>the project.

Once you have a Be machine set up (remember you can install BeOS R5 
Personal Edition from Windows on a fat32 partition), I would recommend 
starting with a small command-line program.  There is a list of the 
programs in /bin that need to be implemented here:
http://clapcrest.free.fr/revol/beos/openbeos_bin_commands.html

Look for one of the native programs that hasn't been done yet.  Most of 
them are just programs that take some command-line options and convert 
those to some API calls.  You could probably code one of the simpler 
ones in a day (given the fact that you would be learning parts of the 
Be API at the same time), and then any more could be done very quick 
once you had the hang of it.  Since most of these are text-only, there 
would be no need to mess with the Be Interface Kit in the beginning.  
It is probably the most complex thing to learn in BeOS (like any GUI 
API.)  But even in that case some example code can get you a long way.

I would just like to stress how fun programming on BeOS is.  It is just 
so cool to code up a little 40 line C++ program that can start up 
NetPositive (or use one that is already running) and send it a URL to 
go to (along with more complicated scripting.)  All of this without any 
heavy COM or OLE stuff like on Windows.  Very cool...

Ryan Leavengood
OpenBeOS Preferences Team

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