More thoughts on Visualizing Cocoa
More thoughts on Visualizing Cocoa
- Subject: More thoughts on Visualizing Cocoa
- From: Jim Rankin <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 13:59:21 -0400
Jumping in late on this thread, but wanted to give my take on
visualizing Cocoa development.
I believe the original question was, basically, "How do I visualize all
the different parts of a Cocoa application at once?"
My (un)answer is don't.
One of the important buzz-words for OO design is encapsulation. This
means that objects don't need to know about what's inside other
objects. But it also means you can think about one object, or one part
of the design without thinking about the others at the same time.
For example, in the model-view-controller design pattern, you can think
about what kinds of things you want the program to be able to do (the
model), and what you want the user to see (the view), totally
separately. You don't have to think about how they'll work together
until you create the controller, which knows about both.
That's just one example of how encapsulation and orthogonal design can
be very powerful. Instead of trying to get all of Cocoa in your head at
once, maybe you can try learning the separate paradigms (especially
design patterns) that make up Cocoa, then learn the limited points where
they touch one another.
Just some thoughts,
-jimbo