Re: core data app questions - help!
Re: core data app questions - help!
- Subject: Re: core data app questions - help!
- From: Jacob Scheckman <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:31:14 -0500
On Sep 10, 2007, at 6:49 AM, Alastair Houghton wrote:
On 10 Sep 2007, at 05:33, mmalc crawford wrote:
On Sep 9, 2007, at 7:28 PM, Jacob Scheckman wrote:
I do appreciate mmalc's suggestion to start from the beginning
and develop an in depth background knowledge of cocoa, etc. I
also understand that not doing this will cause me to struggle,
such as I am with my "wish list". That said, as I said above,
its not really what I'm interested in. I guess you could say I
want to develop a functional knowledge of writing these programs,
not an academic one. But I'm sure, if this were a topic which I
have a more academic interest, I would have given the same advice
that mmalc gave me, so thank you for the advice.
It's not quite clear why regard the advice as "academic", it's
extremely *practical* and based on years of watching people
struggling with Cocoa because they haven't yet learned the
basics. What you're saying is akin to, "I just want to translate
The Iliad, so I don't really need to learn about declensions,
conjugations, tenses, or voices first".
I consider the knowledge you're describing as more academic because
it represents a deeper understanding of what happens behind the
scenes in the program. I KNOW that this will result in gaps in my
knowledge, but if I decide that I need to fill those, eventually I
will. Here is an example: http://developer.apple.com/cocoa/
coredatatutorial/index.html
I didn't completely start from scratch, and I did go through these
simple tutorials. The example I'm pointing to is the second to last
part of this tutorial, basically how to make the input date field
default to the current date. The tutorial was straightforward and
told me what to do to make it work, and it does work, even though in
the end I don't have that deep of an understanding of what I actually
did and WHY it works.
Or in terms of differential equations, which you claim to be
familiar with, it's like someone insisting on learning the Laplace
transform before they've mastered addition, claiming that they
don't really need to understand how to add two numbers to do
Laplace transforms. I'm sure you can see both (a) how someone
could argue this (since the Laplace transform is an algebraic
rather than arithmetic operation), and (b) that they are mistaken.
It seems to me like a bit of an exaggeration that my questions were
like asking how to translate the Iliad or to perform a Laplace
transform, but maybe I'm very mistaken. It also seems a little bit
much to continue the analogy to say that I don't even know how to
add. Again, I could be wrong. If I am wrong I would've appreciated
if someone early on had said that the things I was asking really WERE
kind of complicated. Nobody really said that. Some people tried to
help, others made it clear that I didn't know enough to be qualified
to ask a question on the forum and that I should hit the books before
I talk to them.
There's nothing wrong with jumping in feet first for a toy
application, but:
1. Few people get good results first time using the feet-first
approach, so it's normally only appropriate for toy apps (and even
then you might find that, after doing it once, you want to re-
implement it with your new found knowledge).
2. It can be very confusing, particularly if you don't have
sufficient grounding in the basics first. Since the basics of ObjC
and Cocoa are very simple, it really is worth familiarising
yourself with them first.
This I appreciate, and completely agree with (thank you for saying
this in a respectful way). I'm sure that I'll re-implement the
program several times with my approach - I already have. I'm also
sure I'll be confused, but I'd rather fill in the gaps in my
knowledge as I go than to spend a lot of time studying up front.
Being able to effectively and efficiently use I.S.'s suggestions
will depend upon more than just a superficial understanding of
Cocoa and its idioms. Again, I strongly encourage you to start
with simpler examples and build on those. If you choose not to do
this, I would also ask that you don't post questions to the list
about the more complex technologies if you find them to be
confusing -- it's simply not fair on the membership.
No kidding - but I.S.'s suggestions give me a place to start
learning, rather than others which suggested just to start at the
beginning. I KNOW I need to learn more about this, but thats why I'm
asking questions, so that I can target what I learn about to what I
want to get done.
Again, I strongly encourage you to start with simpler examples and
build on those. If you choose not to do this, I would also ask
that you don't post questions to the list about the more complex
technologies if you find them to be confusing -- it's simply not
fair on the membership.
? Don't ask questions if you're confused? At what point is someone
qualified to post on this forum? My suggestion to you would be that
if a post is annoying to you just don't respond. Any forum that I've
ever posted on before has been a place for someone with less
knowledge to ask questions of people with more knowledge, and
questions that people pose, even if they are elementary questions are
met with respect and understanding. If my questions are too basic to
be asked on this forum, I wholeheartedly apologize for wasting your
time, and needless to say you won't hear from me again.
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