Please all, answer to this short (anonymous) poll. It is very important for the magazine future content and gives us a hint if we should continue publishing.
Feel free to give a written feedback also in this discussion thread.
The magazine content:
1. Overall impression of the content of the issue 1 (5 is best)?
1
2
3
4
5
0voters
2. Overall impression of the layout of the issue 1 (5 is best) ?
1
2
3
4
5
0voters
3. How much of the content was interesting to you (percentage %) in the issue 1?
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0voters
4. What kind of articles or other subjects you would like to see in the future (choose as many as you like)?
Beginner level articles
Advanced level articles
Programming articles
HW hacking articles
Interviews
Post-Mortems
Game highlights
Game reviews
Crosswords
Comic strips
Photo gallery
Other (post your suggestion to this thread)
0voters
The paper magazine:
1. The paper magazine print quality of the issue 1 (5 is best)?
1
2
3
4
5
0voters
2. A suitable paper magazine price (in euros, includes postage costs)?
Usually ā1ā is only ever used as ābestā when two or more things are being compared,
whilst for rating single entities higher is almost always better.
(And when I say āusuallyā or āalmostā I mean that Iāve never seen it happen any other way but Iām fully prepared for someone to tell me that people do it the other way around in some obscure situation that Iām not aware of.)
So far Iāve only voted on āwhat Iād like to seeā,
Iām going to wait until I have chance to reread the magazine before making a verdict on the earlier questions,
and I wonāt be answering for the paper edition because I didnāt pay for one,
so I feel it isnāt really right for me to judge.
While you can still continue to vote, I am making a recap of the current situation.
Overall impression of the content of the issue 1 (5 is best)? ==> 4.4
Overall impression of the layout of the issue 1 (5 is best) ? ==> 4.7
What can I say? Amazing results! Lets keep it in the same level in the next issue.
How much of the content was interesting to you (percentage %) in the issue 1? ==> 80%
This is higher than I expected. I was supposing there is something for everyone, but in reality looks like there is a lot for everyone! I personally read every single article with a great interest.
What kind of articles or other subjects you would like to see in the future (choose as many as you like)?
This is a tough one to analyse. The topics āHW hackingā, āInterviewsā and āPhoto Galleryā are the top tree. But on the other hand, almost half of the people would like to have e.g. āGame reviewsā, which is not bad either. A surprisingly small percentage for crosswords (what is the matter with you? ).
The paper magazine print quality of the issue 1 (5 is best)? ==> 3.8
While this is good, it could be better too. Also the question can be interpreted in many ways. What if we have better quality, but the price is higher? Anyway, for a hobby magazine, the quality is good in my opinion. And we can always try to make it better next time. Good news are that, as I was showing the magazine around, I have now a contact person that could help to find even better printing deals here in Tampere.
A suitable paper magazine price (in euros, includes postage costs)? ==> 15
A spot on, 15.90 is close enough!
Btw. I will now pin this thread to get the rest of the people to attend to the poll
Iām slightly surprised thereās more demand for advanced articles than beginnerās articles.
Iām presuming itās because our current userbase is mainly experienced programmers.
If there are going to be more advanced articles then the logical question (i.e. poll) to follow is āwhich topics?ā.
(I might be able to find time to contribute an article sometime,
but not without knowing what people are expecting.)
I personally think that if we really want the Pokitto to be a learning tool. We really should have beginners tutorial in the magazine. If we dont, I fear the user base wonāt grow as much as it will remain the same userbase.
For example, the thing that made me want to start coding on an open source device was the Arduboy Magazine, there was some nice tutorials in them to get started and have fun with the device.
I wonder if the magazine would be the best way to have a tutorial. Since it will appear only few times (maybe 2 times maybe 4 times?) a year. It would be really frustrating to have to wait another 3 or 6 months to be able to follow the next part of a tutorial in my opinion.
Maybe, but it could just be something like what Hanski did with his MicroPython tutorial. But in c++, or could be in Java in another issue too, just would be cool to have each issue giving an article on how to code a full game and have it all explained step by step following the way you need to think when doing a project. And offer the full listing at the end of the article. So beginners could learn, test and be proud of what they did.
If done this way, beginners will have what they need to at least get started and would attract more beginners I think. And wouldnāt be an issue if the magazine next issue is in a couple months.
That does mean that the said article will be longer to do because it could take many pages. But like said in the comments, next issue could use a smaller font size, so more content will fit in less pages probably.
Well I was just thinking about the tutorials for arduboy. They seem to consist of 10 parts or something on the forum. With that many parts it seems more suitable to have them in the form of blog posts in my opinion.
Or you would combine all of them in 1 bigger magazine article maybe?
I suppose majority of the people who have read the magazine have not attended to the poll. The magazine link in the forum has been clicked 40 times, and that do not count in the people that go directly to the shop. Of course, many people do not even have a forum account, so they are not able to attend.
Maybe the next magazine should recommend making a forum account so people can vote in the feedback polls even if they donāt wish to comment?
Perhaps they should be published on the forum or on a blog first and then published in groups of 3-4 within the magazine.
Perhaps even have several pre-written and publish them on the forum/blog at the same time the magazine is released or some time shortly after?
That way the people who buy the magazine either arenāt missing out or actually get a preview by buying the magazine.
I donāt think advanced articles would run for quite so long,
or at least if there were larger gaps between them it wouldnāt be as significant.
In the beginning thereās a daunting amount of stuff to learn,
particularly because a lot of programming techniques are interdependent and/or work best when combined with each other, but as time goes by thereās less and less to learn, and itās easier to apply new skills.
Come to think of it, perhaps the release of the online version of the magazine should be done after the physical copies have been delivered?
Purely for the sake of adding a bit more incentive (i.e. advanced knowledge) to buy them.
(I know this is common practice in some circles. Particularly with artists who release art on sites like Patreon a few weeks before publishing publicly so their supporters get something extra.)
Great!!! I just look through this magazine, its wonderful.
But as a beginner, I want to more about how to use API functions ( I notice API manual in website is just simply tell me its using, but I want to know how to using, and its detail influence)
So ! I hope this magazine can introduce more functions using!
).