Mac OS X Developer's Guide - another opinion
Mac OS X Developer's Guide - another opinion
- Subject: Mac OS X Developer's Guide - another opinion
- From: Brian Hook <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 10:03:47 -0800
- Organization: Pyrogon, Inc.
I had already ordered Mac OS X Developer's Guide before the hubbub about
it erupted, and I'm glad I did.
My feeling is that it's being vilified for much the same reason
"Learning Cocoa" was tarred and feathered -- it states a lot of stuff
that people on this list (or other Mac programmers) know. There's basic
remedial stuff, such as a very even and lucid comparison of Java, Obj-C
and C++ (not just syntax...it talks about things like mix-ins,
delegation, fragile base classes in C++, etc.). It talks about the
evolution of OS X and things like CFM vs. Mach-O.
To me, the book is wonderful because I DON'T KNOW THIS STUFF ALREADY. I
think developers like me (experienced developers with little experience
on the OS X platform) are the intended target audience, not experienced
Cocoa/Obj-C/OS X coders that are looking for something more.
Most of the information in the book can be found elsewhere on the net,
either by downloading a zillion PDFs off of Apple's Web site or
collating all the information at the various third party sites like
CocoaDevCentral, O'Reilly and StepWise. But that is a massive pain in
the ass for those that are just starting out.
The Developer's Guide is big, covers a lot of basic material, but still
manages to cover things that I'd always wondered about but never knew.
It covers a LOT of stuff that most of you reading this e-mail would care
less about -- CodeWarrior, ProjectBuilder, a lot of basic overviews of
things like AppKit, Foundation, CoreFoundation, Carbon, OOP, Obj-C, etc.
But once again, I don't think it's truly appreciated just how much new
information there is to learn (and how difficult it is to find) when
coming to OS X from another platform. Even on some of the other mailing
lists the same questions keep popping up over and over ("Should I use
Carbon or Cocoa?" "Which OpenGL interface should I use?" "How do I do
fullscreen?"). Hopefully some of the basic questions are answered by
this book.
Yes, the book "wastes" a lot of time on things that many people don't
care about, but that "wasted" space is saving me a LOT of time and
frustration.
Regards,
Brian
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