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Geek Culture / Coders Workshop RIP?

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 18th Sep 2006 21:04
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Hi all,

I know some of you used to visit the Coders Workshop site, especially the forums there. They used to have a massive projects section, cool screen shots and active forums - and it appears it's now dead.

http://www.codersworkshop.com

Does anyone know why? Also interesting to read the message on the home page about this 'Cobra' programming language, now being tailored specifically for the educational market to be taught in schools. This is an interesting move for them (for those who don't know, Cobra was/is supposed to be a Blitz3D style package, but better).

Here in the UK they don't actually teach programming on the curriculum any more, or any facet of it in ICT classes, so I'm very surprised to read this quite promising looking package is shifting orientation to that sector. Talk about a tough nut to crack.

Cheers,

Rich

"Bite my shiny metal ass" (Futurama)
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OSX Using Happy Dude
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Posted: 18th Sep 2006 21:28
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I took it that they knew that they wouldn't be able to get a fully fledged product out before the next Ice Age, so decided to cut the product down... Which will make things quite hard for them.

As for the forums, I presume its because they cant spare the time to keep it running.

Come to the last Unofficial DBPro Convention - register interest by Saturday 2/9/06 (http://convention.logicstudios.net/)
Demoing at the last Chichester Convention : Humans On A Planet
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Richard Davey
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Posted: 18th Sep 2006 21:41
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Was it the Cobra people who ran CW, or Idigicon? If it was Idigicon then I'm very surprised to see them go, if it was the Cobra author/s then that makes more sense I guess - but still, why remove such a great resource? Weirdness.

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lagmaster
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Posted: 18th Sep 2006 23:43
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the only way schools would encourage kids to learn how to program would maybe at lunch clubs since buying the software wont be in their budget. but due to the amount of kids who use computers for homework, it's almost impossible to get a few interested.

lagmaster
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Banshee
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Posted: 19th Sep 2006 01:02
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That's a shame, the web page showing all those freeware projects was the best software to come out of Indigicon.

If Cobra LE is twice as good as their previous releases then it will be ideally suited to the educational sector.

To me it sounds like the product falls short of the one it was intended to replace, so they thought they'd flog it to a load of civil servants instead.
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OSX Using Happy Dude
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Posted: 19th Sep 2006 12:29
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Quote: "Was it the Cobra people who ran CW, or Idigicon?"

I think it was Idigicon.

Come to the last Unofficial DBPro Convention - register interest by Saturday 2/9/06 (http://convention.logicstudios.net/)
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Van B
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Posted: 19th Sep 2006 13:10
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I'm sure that this is the main website for Cobra:

http://www.squeakyduck.co.uk/

Seriously, read some of it - it's like it's been written by the village idiot. No offence, but calling a language Cobra then making a big deal out of a Cobra Shop (gimme a brek!) is just embarassing. The writing style is atrocious too - if I was idigicon, then I'd be having serious words about the professionalism shown there. It might be a blog site, but anyone looking into Cobra is gonna be disapointed wherever they go.

Personally, I find it difficult to care anything about Cobra, it's yet another 'just wait' language that is slipping faster than the PS3 - oldbies who fought the initial DBPro arguments with Blitzers should feel obliged to snigger to themselves right about... now.

''Stick that in your text and scroll it!.''
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BatVink
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Posted: 19th Sep 2006 13:26
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Van B, I agree totally. I didn't know anything about Cobra until a few weeks ago. My immediate impression was that it resembled a WIP page that was never going to make it to Program Announcements.

Maybe it is a worthwhile project, but if that's the case they need to erase their website from the annals of history and try again!

I also wouldn't have converted it to Pirate speak for Speak Like a Pirate Day if I was serious about my product



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OSX Using Happy Dude
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Posted: 19th Sep 2006 14:12 Edited at: 19th Sep 2006 14:15
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They might get into trouble with the name too - as its the name of a refreshing alcoholic beverage (originally make in India, but now made in England).

Quote: "Seriously, read some of it - it's like it's been written by the village idiot."

I wouldn't go that far - they just seem to have a vastly inflated sense of self-worth... And immense trouble with the English language.

Quote: "I also wouldn't have converted it to Pirate speak for Speak Like a Pirate Day if I was serious about my product "

Maybe they're not

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 19th Sep 2006 14:37
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Quote: "it's like it's been written by the village idiot"


That's a tad harsh Van! I'm quite sure Graham is a very competent coder, and the screen shots of Cobra in action would back that up. I was just a bit surprised to see CW gone and wasn't sure who's decision it was, Idigicons or the Cobra people (or both?!).

On the Cobra front - if they want to break into the educational market then fair play to them, but it's a real tough one for sure. We ship thousands of units into the educational sector (of DB, DBPro, Lua, etc) to various Universities, Colleges and schools - and the consistent thing about them all is that there is nothing consistent at all Some schools will jump on it like a gold mine, others will ignore it totally, as its not curriculum it is entirely down to the personal interests of the ICT teachers or those running a school computer club.

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Cash Curtis II
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Posted: 19th Sep 2006 15:14
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Van B -
Can you elaborate on this?
Quote: "oldbies who fought the initial DBPro arguments with Blitzers should feel obliged to snigger to themselves right about... now."



Come see the WIP!
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BatVink
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Posted: 19th Sep 2006 15:38
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This place used to be a warzone, as did the Blitz forums. Every now and then, there would be a full-on attack of one side against the other, usually blatantly destroying any serious thread with complete tosh, simply to render it useless.

Of course, it's obvious who won



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the_winch
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Posted: 19th Sep 2006 16:00
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Quote: "Here in the UK they don't actually teach programming on the curriculum any more, or any facet of it in ICT classes, so I'm very surprised to read this quite promising looking package is shifting orientation to that sector. Talk about a tough nut to crack."


Not only that but it appears a big aim is to teach students stuff that makes them attractive to employers. You would think if programming was introduced to the curriculum they would use somthing like VBA in office or javascript. They have the software already and in the case of office employers use it. With the amount of time they have to teach they won't get past the basics anyway.

By way of demonstration, he emitted a batlike squeak that was indeed bothersome.
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Van B
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Posted: 19th Sep 2006 16:11
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Yeah, when DBPro was released, they all had their say, mostly about the wonders of BlitzMAX, then Cobra.

Hehe, Rich, go try and read the piratesque lingo - really this is what we have on the page linked by CW:



My point was that having this info in stupid piratespeek is not good marketing, not when a major portal like CW is advertising that as an official link - I never got the chance to read the un-pirate version of the site, I'm sure Graham is smart as hell.

''Stick that in your text and scroll it!.''
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Jeku
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Posted: 19th Sep 2006 21:41
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That pirate talk is so annoying


http://www.codercafe.com - My blog
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OSX Using Happy Dude
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Posted: 20th Sep 2006 00:05
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Its practially unreadable.

Wibble
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HandK
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Posted: 20th Sep 2006 00:22 Edited at: 20th Sep 2006 00:23
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Idigicon are marketing CobraLE the education version.
Graham has the rights to anyother version. Apparantly the delay in release of Cobra was due to a dispute over this decistion by Idigicon.

It seemed the main reason for codersworkshop to exist was as a way to pull Blitz users and sell them on the idea to switch to Cobra. Now that Cobra will only be marketed to LEAs it seemed the reason for Coderworkshop to exist has disapeared.

I would link you to the threads at BRL that Graham responded to and explained the situation. But BRL have pulled those threads.

As to what Cobra will be like, I think BDPro will probably look more like Blitzbasic than Cobra will.

H&K
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Squeakyduck
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2006 00:07
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Ok, I don't log in here much even though I've been a dbpro owner for quite a long while...

I'm really sad to see the reaction and language of people classed as moderators over here are.

Sure you may not like Cobra, but a certain author of the language you all love seemed to quite like what I was doing, while we discussed things over a beer.

As for the 'talk like a pirate thing',1) it was up for a day (on talk like a pirate day) and 2) it's called 'having a laugh', sorry for being human! I'll try and refrain..

I fully expect this to be nuked, considering it's a mod doing the slagging.

So long and thanks for all the fish!
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