• Open Menu Close Menu
  • Apple
  • Shopping Bag
  • Apple
  • Mac
  • iPad
  • iPhone
  • Watch
  • TV
  • Music
  • Support
  • Search apple.com
  • Shopping Bag

Lists

Open Menu Close Menu
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Lists hosted on this site
  • Email the Postmaster
  • Tips for posting to public mailing lists
Re: AppKit source available as reference?
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: AppKit source available as reference?


  • Subject: Re: AppKit source available as reference?
  • From: Michael Dagate <email@hidden>
  • Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2001 21:00:47 -0500

From a theoretical perspective, objects should be black boxes, **but** this concept breaks-down in real world situations. Most of the documentation I've seen tends to be referential in nature. That is, it explains what specific methods in each class do, but it doesn't necessarily explain how various objects interact. The NSDocument documentation attempts to do this, but falls short. Yes, you can draw pretty UML maps of the connections between classes, but even that is not enough to adequately explain something as complex as a windowing system. It would be helpful to know, in a procedural/chronological sort of way, what methods get called when and why. So far, the best way to glean this is to just read the source code.

Michael

Bob Savage <email@hidden> Fri, 2001-06-29 20:49:41 -0700
?? wrote:
I should think a risk of learning from source is that
you may rely on things that you shouldn't, making it more
likely your code will break later.

That is really the whole issue. It has been stated over and
again by Apple, for example on page 18 of "Learning Cocoa",
but it is also a basic precept of Object Oriented programming.
Objects are black boxes. The only thing you can rely on is
the interface...


References: 
 >Re: AppKit source available as reference? (From: jgo <email@hidden>)

  • Prev by Date: Re: Let's hope XP doesn't keep this "one-up" on OS X!
  • Next by Date: Re: AppKit source available as reference?
  • Previous by thread: Re: AppKit source available as reference?
  • Next by thread: Re: AppKit source available as reference?
  • Index(es):
    • Date
    • Thread