I received a total of 11 responses the the Readership Survey. Some of the surveys came with some long comments that were good to hear.
What languages do you program in?
C (8 votes), Basic (7 votes) and Assembly (6 votes) were the highest answers. There were a few votes for Pascal, XLISP, Prolog, Forth, and Postscript. I’d like to see more assembly, but I’m am not an assembly programer. Any volunteers?
What compiler/interpreter do you use?
As expected C68 got the most votes (7). QLiberator got 3 votes. The test of a packages got 2 or less votes. A number of assemblers that I had not heard of were mentioned.
What languages would you like to see covered?
C and Assembly both got 3 votes. Basic, Pascal, Postscript, and OOP got 1 vote. I might be able to rope someone into doing some articles using XLISP for Object Oriented Programming (OOP).
State your areas of interest in programming?
This was varied. Some wanted low-level, including hardware. Some wanted high-level programming. Other interests were Pointer Interface, fax software, graphics, math, compression, communications, encryption, and utilities. Some of these areas may be grabbed from other mags and ported to the QL.
How much time do you program?
These responses were varies. Any where from a half hour a day, to 4 hrs a day. Most said that it went in spurts. They did not program that many hours every day.
Do you program professionally?
Four people said that they did program professionally. Some hoped to. Some people were still in college.
What level of training have you had in programming?
Of all the questions in the survey, this one seemed to confuse a few people. They responded by not knowing what the question was asking. I chalk it up to a language barrier thing. 6 people said that they were had computer classes in college. 3 said that they had no teaching at all.
What is your favorite text editor?
As expected, the highest votes went to QED (6 votes). Emacs got 2 votes. DME, SEDIT, ED, MasterSpy, and QDIII each got 1 vote.
QHJ Related Questions
What languages would you like to see covered?
Only after the survey went out I noticed this was a repeat of a previous question. Even then, some people still answered, and, as expected, the answer was the same (C and Assembly).
What areas of programming would you like to see covered?
This also was a repeat question. Refer to the first question for the responses.
Do you prefer code intensive articles?
Not too many responded to this. Two said yes, one said no.
Do you prefer more verbose articles?
This question too was not answered by many. One each said yes and no.
Do you prefer the hard-copy or the electronic version?
Six readers said that they prefer the electronic, one said the hard copy and one said that he likes it on disk.
How many persons read your copy of the QHJ?
Most said that no one read their copy, but one said one other person did, and one said that two other persons did. I know some people get the QHJ via BBS’s and not directly from me.
Would you be interested in a QHJ T-shirt?
This one was a tie with four answering yes and no. The reason I asked this was to see if I should print up some more T-shirts. The last set was done by a old friend. Once he finished his current move, I may ask him to do some more.
QL Environment Questions
Do you use the Pointer Environment?
Six said yes, and 2 said no.
Do you use Toolkit II?
Ten responded with yes. A few said that they felt TKII was almost an integral part of QDOS. Personally, I load it only when I need it and try not to rely on it in programming. Since I still have a JSU rom system, I like to program so those with a plain QL can use my programs.
Do you use other computers?
Nine readers said yes. Obviously, most QHJ readers are using other computers, either at work or home. I’m not one that feels the QL or QDOS is the only computer to use. I would not recommend the QL to the average person. If a person wanted a neat computer to tinker with and learn on, then I’d recommend the QL. MS-DOS is really just CP/M, Unix is more fun and hackable, but the QL has character.
I am glad that I did this survey. I gave me a little more insight into the people that read the QHJ. Gave me an idea of what readers like and dislike. If you did not respond to the survey and want to make a few comments, I’m always ready to hear any suggestions or comments. I don’t want to produce something that no one will read.