Learning Calcs - best approach?

[Wickerman]

Despite the enormous and varied online resources for learning FIlemaker, I've yet to hit upon what I most need: a workbook that teaches Calculation functions by providing a series of increasingly sophisticated real-world calc tasks that the reader can work through, thereby gaining familiarity with the various functions.

The earliest tasks would be very short and simple and many would use the same functions that are of most common use, while as you progress, you'd be introduced to more and more obscure functions and longer calculations. The vital thing is that each example pose a real-world scenario that challenges the user to select the needful functions.

If such a resource exists, could someone point me in its direction? If it doesn't, could someone write it, so I can buy it?

A second workbook on Scripting would also be welcome!

Best,

wickerman

[Søren Dyhr]

While I by and large disagree with this as an intellectual/tutorial approach - since it in this case is a poor remedy for lack of math skills.

The vital thing is that each example pose a real-world scenario that challenges the user to select the needful functions.

Could this be of some bearing - violating my own principle!

http://filemakerblog.blogspot.com/

The reason for my point of view here is probably most concisely put with this short quote:

i have had numerous students complain

that they understood completely in the lecture but then, on the

exam, i "changed the wording"! to me that says they're just

remembering, not learning, certainly not internalizing the material.

Excerpted too boldly from:

http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/plant-ed/2001-May/006966.html

So a person with either Down's syndrome or autism is then likely to be the best performer with filemaker due to his/her photographic memory - or is realworld filemaker development oftentimes "changed the wording"??

--sd

[Wickerman]

Judging form your reply, I think you're misunderstanding the learning method I'm trying to describe. The point of having "real world examples" *isn't* to learn specific solutions for situations that may arise, but to build facility with the programming vocabulary (functions) by practicing the problem-solving process inherent in database design.

I'm not talking about photographically memorizing anything -- exactly the opposite! Currently, the learning aids I've encountered tend to present a long series of functions or tools, providing guidlines for use and one or two examples. *This* approach is the one that requires rote memorization -- as though now that I've read through every page opf 'the Functions & Scripts Desk Reference" I will be able to magically remember which of the 100's of techniques will solve my problem.

Thank you for the site -- it does look useful -- but again, as a Reference source and a place for learning about particular skills -- but I don't see anything there that actually *exercises* these skills.

Compare: you want to learn golf. There are websites that break the game down into all the component tools and shots. Pages on the sand wedge, the putt, the proper stance. You read them. You hire a coach, who refers you again to the web pages and takes you out on the course, where he just demonstrates all the strokes while you sit in the cart and "see how it's done". He even shows you some really really advanced, nuanced techniques that "you'll find really useful when you're a pro."

To learn the game you need to play the game. I'm finding that Calculations and Scripts functions are so numerous, and their use so various, that it is quite difficult to develop facility with them in the natural course of creating solutions. I need a driving range, and a putting green, that allow me to practice the skills by using them many times in a short space of time.

I'd be surprised to discover that my learning style is peculiar in this regard -- don't people learn math by doing exercises? Do artists get a reference book on the thousands of brush and paint media options and then immediately know which ones to use to capture a sunset?

wickerman

[Hare]

To learn the game you need to play the game.

exercise material galore on the forums... and expert opinions as a side dish B)

[Søren Dyhr]

but I don't see anything there that actually *exercises* these skills.

There are chapters dedicated to the calculations, somewhat towards the end of his roster of topics covered. He uses javascripting to blur the actual linking!

Do artists get a reference book on the thousands of brush and paint media options and then immediately know which ones to use to capture a sunset?

Both golf and painting are not pure abstractions are they? Hands on makes more sense when there is a practical angle to things. Here is pure sensemaking!

Putting your swung of a golf club on mathematical formulas are similarly a daft attempt!

--sd

Edited May 24, 2008 by Guest

[Wickerman]

Exercise material galore on the forums...

So I hear -- but I've yet to *see* any. Since you find them so ubiquitous, could you post a couple of links to such exercises?

wickerman

Soren - thanks for your attention, but I don't think you grasp what I'm asking for. I'm sorry if my analogies to other learning activities failed to make sense. I saw the links you mention on the site -- they list and explain various functions. They do not offer practive applying them. This is not what I'm looking for.

[Hare]

well I was hinting at all the "i've got this date problem, that text parse problem, the other how do I extract averages from my found set" calc problems that people post. I try to treat questions posted as exercises. Because they are practical problems people struggle with. And because there are so many high grade people around you are more than likely to see posted a solution to the calc that is better than what you came up with yourself. So you build your experience treating othr peoples problems as your own exercise. Make sense?

[Wickerman]

Ok, yes, that does make sense, and I do use the forums in this way, certainly. But while it's a wonderful learning tool in itself, and it's supremely efficient in extending the usefulness of the labor that goes into all these helpful replies, it's not the sort of resource I'm looking for.

I didn't realize this question would be so vexed. In every other skill I've learned (and taught), there have been User manuals, Reference texts, Lectures, Demonstrations, Q&A opportunities. . . and *Workbooks*.

Workbooks are designed to move methodically through a set of vocabularies and skills and provide the intensive sort of repetitive and varied application of concepts that endows the student with competence in these basic skills.

Maybe what I'm looking for doesn't exist! Then I'll soldier on and learn as best I can. I'll also waste a lot more of people's time around here asking pretty basic questions proceeding from my basic lack of skills.

wickerman

[Fitch]

Probably the closest thing I've seen is the $99 self-paced FileMaker Training course. It does contain exercises, with solutions on CD, and is generally well-done, especially if you're interested in getting certified. Another source you might like is ISO FileMaker Magazine.

As you've already noted, there's no substitute for practice, practice, practice.

It also has to do with your frame of mind. I've seen people on this very forum either give up or take the first easy solution offered, even if another option is potentially better. That's OK -- not everyone is a professional FileMaker developer. But the way you get better is looking for new techniques and trying them out.

[Søren Dyhr]

Maybe what I'm looking for doesn't exist! Then I'll soldier on and learn as best I can. I'll also waste a lot more of people's time around here asking pretty basic questions proceeding from my basic lack of skills.

More or less the point I tried to convey, when picking up filemaker as tool - should some basic math/abstraction skills be acquired some 20-30 years earlier in our lives ... something utterly tiresome to catch up with later!

--sd

[Wickerman]

Thanks for the suggestions Tom (as well as helping out on my other recent thread!)-- I'm already hooked in at the ISO Magazine, which I've really enjoyed and learned a lot from. I've ordered the Filemaker Training Series thanks to your tip. Looks like it should be worthwhile.

I'm trying to get my skills foundation as firm as I can since I'm investing in a trip out to Devcon in July -- figure the more I already know, the more I'll learn on top of it.

Albert

[Fitch]

Cool, see you at DevCon!

Will explain FileMaker functions for beer. B)

[Lee Smith]

I use the file by Foundation Database System, found Here called [color:blue], Developer Storage, to some of the calculations I feel I will use often.

If you use it for those Calculations you find here and elsewhere, you might want to keep a lot of information about where you got it, and what the purpose was.

HTH

Lee

[Wickerman]

Just a follow-up -- I received the Filemaker Training Series book that Tom recommended and am finding it very helpful, not just for calcs and scripts but for firming up my knowledge in a number of other areas. So thanks for that!

And thanks, Lee, for the ;pointer to Developer Storage -- I do have that already and am finding it useful, as you suggest.

Wickerman