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#Post#: 11--------------------------------------------------
How To Create a Tutorial
DIR By: Y_Less
Date: July 22, 2012, 8:36 am
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How to write a tutorial
Introduction
Time and time again I see people writing bad tutorials and bad
how-tos on this forum, so I'm writing this one as a guide to
those people.
Please note that I'm not trying to discourage people from
writing tutorials, just trying to explain how to go about doing
it.
Problems
Authority
If you write a tutorial people will assume you know what you're
talking about - why write a whole tutorial on something you
don't know about? If they're doing something a different way
they very rarely check which way is better, they simply assume
the tutorial way is because it's in a tutorial!
For that reason if you write a tutorial you are effectively
saying you have knowledge on a subject and are qualified to
write about it.
Not a thread
In a thread people will question things, if you put a solution
to a problem forward other people may think they have a better
solution and put forward theirs, it doesn't matter if it is or
not - the discussion is there.
In a tutorial people will assume that your way is right, you
don't make topics to teach something that's wrong (well, people
do, but that's what I'm trying to stop). Very rarely will people
actually question information in a tutorial.
Dating
There is a big problem in this community of bad information
propagation. I'll take two common examples - 256 and strtok. In
the early days of SA:MP scripting these were common and accepted
methods, they got the job done and people didn't know any
better. As time went on people developed better methods (namely
dcmd/sscanf, smaller arrays etc) so the old methods should have
been forgotten right? Wrong!
Because people still used the old methods in their modes
(updating is a lot of work so this may be fair enough) they
continued to teach new people them, who then themselves taught
people them. If you know you're not using the most up-to-date
way of doing something WHY POST? Either explain the better way,
regardless of whether or not you use it, or just don't post in
the first place!
Calling
For the reasons above I make an effort to read all tutorials
posted and if I find something I know to be wrong I'll call them
on it. If you post a topic you are telling the world you know
something, if someone else can show that you DON'T know it then
you shouldn't have posted the topic in the first place. Very few
people call people on information in tutorials and it's a shame,
I honestly wish people would do it to mine!
Research
This seems to be sorely lacking when people write tutorials - if
you are going to tell someone else how to do something the FIRST
thing you should ask yourself is if YOU are doing it as well as
you can? Just because you've been doing something for years and
it's never failed you doesn't make it good.
If you're posting a function - review it, review the literature
on it, see if there are alternate implementations about. If you
have to get multiple versions and time them, see which uses the
most time or the most resources etc. It may mean you have to
alter your tutorial but so what? It means other people are
learning a better method, which is what the point of writing a
tutorial is in the first place.
Explanations
Tutorials which simply say "do this, then that, then the other
and you're done" are stupid. Some people may just want
step-by-step instructions but other people want to know WHY
you're doing that. Write the step-by-step guide, put it at the
top, but then add explanations further down. Any scripter that's
likely to ever be any good will be the sort who finds out WHY
you do things, not just WHAT you do.
Also, if you explain why something is done they can improve your
method or decide better when to use it and when to not.
Presentation
This is quite important, however it's not my strong suit so I
won't write too much.
Just make sure it's neat, and in small sections if possible. I
realise this is a very text-based tutorial so is not the best
example for this, but try to break up large chunks of text with
a code block or the like. People don't like large chunks of
text.
Also WHERE to post it is important. I would 99.9% of the time
say the wiki but it can depend. And if it's on a single mode or
include put it in that thing's topic - you know the rules on
topics about releases!
An introduction and conclusion also tend to be good.
Misinformation
I just want to stress this point again - make sure what you post
is in line with current practices. If you have a command use
dcmd (or similar), if you need an array work out how big it
should be etc.
Also make sure that what you're saying is as good as it gets, it
may well be improved upon later but just make sure it's not been
improved upon in the past.
Conclusion
Research your article and remember that if you post bad
information I, and hopefully others now, will call you on it and
make you look like a fool.
__________________
If your topic says "REP+", I ignore it.
#Post#: 12--------------------------------------------------
Re: How To Create a Tutourial
DIR By: Lord
Date: July 22, 2012, 8:50 am
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Hmm,nice posting.
#Post#: 29--------------------------------------------------
Re: How To Create a Tutourial
DIR By: SUDARSHAN
Date: July 24, 2012, 1:33 am
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donot got anything
#Post#: 39--------------------------------------------------
Re: How To Create a Tutorial
DIR By: Xtreme
Date: July 24, 2012, 9:25 am
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I hate lectures from teachers,especially for history.
This post is like this,i dont think there should be a rule like
this for posting tutorials.
No this,no then...
Wth?
Begginers aint give good tutorials without 'this' 'then' etc.
#Post#: 72--------------------------------------------------
Re: How To Create a Tutorial
DIR By: YoUnG_Ca$h
Date: July 28, 2012, 6:30 am
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--- Quote from: Kalroz link ---
>
> I hate lectures from teachers,especially for history.
> This post is like this,i dont think there should be a rule
like this for posting tutorials.
> No this,no then...
> Wth?
> Begginers aint give good tutorials without 'this' 'then' etc.
>
--- End Quote ---
Agreed.
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