Increasing traffic on PGD...

[Eric]

You should note that you are not allowed to give classes with this degree, nor do any scientific work in "traditional" universities/research centers

Actually, I am. :-) Though I've checked "Bachelor", that's two years less than I have, and a university degree. In France we have a system of "Grandes Ecoles" which runs in parallel to universities degrees aren't directly comparable to university degrees (it's another french historical oddity).

Anyway that's besides the point.

To get back on topic, I agree with the suggestions you made earlier.

1) 64-bit development and performance (I've opened the thread about it: no interest).
2) DirectX: nobody cares here because OpenGL is the only way to go for Unix/Mac OS guys, who are the majority here.
3) Mac OS specifics: there was some discussion in Delphi XE 2 news thread with Czar and me, but that's all.
4) iOS specifics: how to use sensors, compass, magnetometer, etc. There are random threads on Embarcadero forums, but I would like to see this material *here*.
5) Databases, networking, multiplayer in Delphi.
6) Publishing of Delphi made iOS apps and publishing in general.
7) Performance optimizations in 64-bit inline assembly in Delphi.
Math materials (libraries, code snippets, etc.)

To me 2, 3 and 4 are specs/docs material subjects, 1 and 7 are about programming in general (choosing the appropriate algorithm, profiling), 5 and 8 is what academic material is about (except multi-player), 6 is what WILL already does.

So all in all, they mostly fall into teaching programming from a gaming POV, and that's IMHO a good angle for PGD. What I disagreed with was

Actually I think teaching programming by itself is not a very useful tactic here because newbies have many options to choose from: C# and XNA, C/C++, Perl, Python, Lua, Java and so on.

When someone needs to do something, he'll use the tool for which material specific to his needs is available.
If all the material assumes you're already a Pascal pro, then you certainly won't be attracting any Pascal newcomers.

[LP]

Actually, I am. :-) Though I've checked "Bachelor", that's two years less than I have, and a university degree. In France we have a system of "Grandes Ecoles" which runs in parallel to universities degrees aren't directly comparable to university degrees (it's another french historical oddity).

Yes, but in France you have also additional degrees such as "Professor", which require even more time to get. However, translating these degrees to other countries is difficult and you may still need to take additional degrees to be able to give courses. This was the case of my brother as Doctoral degree in Ukraine is higher than Ph.D. yet he still had to do 2 postdoctoral stays (4 years total) before being able to do the research.

When someone needs to do something, he'll use the tool for which material specific to his needs is available.
If all the material assumes you're already a Pascal pro, then you certainly won't be attracting any Pascal newcomers.

You are repeating the mocking fallacy. I've never said to assume on PGD that visitors are Pascal "pro"s as you have put it. I suggested to assume some basic knowledge and as you have quoted my first posts, I've actually suggested some educational material with some specifics that not everyone may be aware of.

For instance, I agree that FlipCode had some very interesting stuff and in fact I've implemented some of it in Asphyre. Specifically, I think it will be very cool to have a specialized section here on PGD, which deals with issues such as: 1) calculating square root using pure integer math, 2) search algorithms (this is a general category, path-finding is a special case), 3) fixed-point math (not everyone is yet aware of its usefulness), etc.

Edit: I think Multi-threading Tutorial on PGD by Athena is an interesting topic, but instead of long discussion I would put some rudimentary code to illustrate how threads can be created and used, instead of arguing why they are useful.

[Eric]

> 1) calculating square root using pure integer math

Also introducing approaches where sqrt becomes unnecessary, the fastest sqrt is the one you don't do!

> 2) search algorithms (this is a general category, path-finding is a special case)

That is a good subject indeed, mostly when dealing with pathfinding in something else than a grid.

> 3) fixed-point math (not everyone is yet aware of its usefulness), etc.

More of a micro-optimization issue, was relevant in the days of software graphics, though still occasionally useful in shaders.

On the same subject, articles on usage of floating point in situations where finite or exact precision is required would be quite relevant these days.

On AI aspects, there are two subjects I rarely see mentioned, but often (mis)used, usually by people who don't know they're using them:
- PID controllers, and the way to "fuzzy" them to make them look like natural behavior
- introduction of delays and phase tricks in algorithms to simulate natural behavior
- decision and action trees, or how to get interesting behavior in complex simulated words where direct approaches are not practical
which could make good articles I guess (the theory behind them is light, they're more about applying simple concepts from a different perspective)