Re: Visualizing Cocoa
Re: Visualizing Cocoa
- Subject: Re: Visualizing Cocoa
- From: jgo <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 01:20:43 -0700
>
> I think one of my big problems with trying to get a grip on
>
> Cocoa is visualization--or rather the lack thereof! A simple
>
> procedural program is essentially linear... it is child's play
>
> to diagram the program on a sheet of paper. And therefor easy
>
> to Grok at a glance what's going on. If I understand Cocoa
>
> right--a big IF since I feel like I'm still waiting for the
>
> FIRST shoe to drop--the construct here is three dimensional.
>
> It is exceedingly difficult to lay out a Cocoa program on a
>
> sheet of paper.
>
>
Honestly, the problem you are having is not cocoa so much as
>
grasping the mental constructs around object-oriented programming.
Yes, we understand object-oriented programming. We've been
using the concepts and methods associated with objects (classes
and instances), inheritance, encapsulation, etc., for more than
a decade... in analysis for a couple decades. Don't be insulting.
It is much more likely to be related to the specific OOD/P
environment, i.e. Cocoa & Objective-C and the available
documentation.
>
start learning about UML
I did start learning UML several years ago, before it was "unified".
UML isn't mature, yet, nor are the tools. It's still little more
than a loose collection of extremely overpriced toys.
>
Part of the problem here is expectations
Yes, I expect much better documentation than I see. What I see
is incomplete (discussion forthcoming), and lacks in integration
and description of integration.
>
developing Cocoa applications involves complex mental constructs
Agreed. It & the organization of the documentation violates
the magic number 7, which is cited by Booch as one of the
reasons to engage in OO analysis, design and programming.
Your suggestion to look at the historical docs is well-taken;
I've noticed in other cases that such tend to cut through the
gibberish to the clear concepts from which it has become, ahh,
mutated (to be generous).
Listen to Steve, though. He wants apps by last year if not sooner...
but if that is true we need to see some reasonable docs and other
tools (which is not to say that PB & IB aren't an excellent start).
But here I am with nearly a hundred pages to go in _LC_ and 1600
e-mail messages back-logged from these lists, so I'd better send
this and move on.
John G. Otto Nisus Software, Engineering
www.infoclick.com www.mathhelp.com www.nisus.com software4usa.com
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My opinions are probably not those of Nisus Software, Inc.