Re: AppKit source available as reference?
Re: AppKit source available as reference?
- Subject: Re: AppKit source available as reference?
- From: jgo <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2001 11:37:12 -0700
>
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...
So, that interface needs to be thoroughly documented.
But what does "thoroughly documented" mean? Does it mean
formulaic tables of terse data (a la the STL)? Or does
it mean that, plus description and examples of how it
might be used within a number of contexts?
Interestingly enough, a few months ago, as I was working
on some of the Example code and was puzzled why it seemed
to be preparing to make something persistent, getting the
description of the format of the data (I thought) ready
and written out, but never seeming to write out the thing
itself. I was reminded by one of the Apple folk that it,
indeed, was writing out a description of the objects in
question... a complete description, which was to say the
entire object.
In the SF of van Vogt, spring-boarding from _General Symantics_
by Korzybski, he posits that there is a point when the description
of a thing is sufficiently complete to be the thing itself, in
which case a complete description of the API would require
a complete description of the object, which would be the
object itself. And this is especially true when it comes to
sub-classing.
John G. Otto Nisus Software, Engineering
www.infoclick.com www.mathhelp.com www.nisus.com software4usa.com
EasyAlarms PowerSleuth NisusEMail NisusWriter MailKeeper QUED/M
Will program Macs for food.