Re: Cocoa docs
Re: Cocoa docs
- Subject: Re: Cocoa docs
- From: "Dennis C. De Mars" <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 17:12:13 -0700
on 5/12/01 3:35 PM, email@hidden at email@hidden wrote:
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Hello everyone, I'm new to the list, as well as to Objective C and Mac
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OS X programming (though certainly not new to the Mac!. So far I really
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like cocoa but there are a few shortcomings I'm hoping Apple will
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address in the near future.
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The biggest shortcoming is the documentation, which I have found to be
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sadly incomplete. So far I've found several key areas which have
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"description forthcoming" or some such thing and find that Apple's web
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site copy is still the same as the one which came on the developer CD.
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So when can we expect finished docs?
There are two "legacy" documents that are hopefully being re-written for
Cocoa. One is called "OpenStep Tools & Techniques" and the other is called
"Discovering OpenStep." They both cover the same material, but Tools &
Techiniques is a detailed user's manual organized by topic, whereas
"Discovering OpenStep" is a series of increasingly complex examples,
interleaved by explanatory blurbs.
Unfortunately, I can't find a link to the "Tools and Techiniques" document
on Apple's web site anymore. The "Discovering OpenStep" doc is still there
as a PDF file, though. I don't think it is on the developer's CD. Go to
Apple's web site and look under the "Legacy" category. That's "Legacy" under
the Mac OS X Documentation page, not the Cocoa Documentation page.
The book is pre-Aqua and there have been a lot of changes in ProjectBuilder
and Interface Builder also, so you have to keep that in mind. However, it is
still largely applicable, especially the stuff on the Cocoa framework
itself. I think it is quite helpful (and if you didn't know these documents
existed, you might wonder about the big hole in Cocoa documentation, but
when you see it, you realize they have to update these things for the
current tool set).
The first chapter is basically equivalent to the "Currency Converter"
tutorial which has already been rewritten and posted separetly.
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Also anyone have any idea when the O'riley book will be out? I've had
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it on order for ages now and am hoping that it will answer a lot of my
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questions before I have to bring them up here.
It's supposed to be published this month. In fact, I heard WWDC attendees
will get a free copy, so I guess it will be in print by then.
If you go to the O'Reilly site, you can look at the table of contents of
"Learning Cocoa." If you then download "Discovering OpenStep" you will find
that the contents of the former from Chapter 6 on pretty much matches the
contents of the latter. So I think we will have the rewrite of "Discovering
OpenStep" in this book.
- Dennis D.