Re: Customized document creation
Re: Customized document creation
- Subject: Re: Customized document creation
- From: Phillip Mills <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2001 14:17:53 -0400
On 7/4/01 1:17 PM, "Brian Webster" <email@hidden> wrote:
>
I really think that
>
most of the problems that people want to solve by having access
>
to the source could be solved by just having good documentation,
>
and being able to trust that what the docs say is actually
>
true.
I suppose, in the extreme case, that's true. Practically, however, I have
two objections (neither of which are specific to Cocoa or Apple): the
documentation never seems to get good enough whether in timeliness,
coverage, or accuracy to be a valid substitute for "the truth"; and,
considering that people learn in different ways, there's lots of evidence
that some people have success using source -- often with the help of a
debugger -- to become proficient with frameworks.
Good documentation is necessary. I find it very valuable to introduce a
subject and as a reference for things I understand, but haven't memorized.
It's that middle ground of coming to understand what's really happening
where access to source and sample applications helps most.
(In Cocoa, I'm finding myself overriding methods just so I can set
breakpoints, see the stack trace into the framework, and make some
calculated guesses.)