Re: Mac OS X Developer's Guide - another opinion
Re: Mac OS X Developer's Guide - another opinion
- Subject: Re: Mac OS X Developer's Guide - another opinion
- From: James Bredijk <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 08:16:15 -0500
On Wednesday, November 7, 2001, at 01:03 PM, Brian Hook wrote:
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.
That's why the called it "Learning Cocoa" (the same goes for "Learning
Carbon"). When I bought "Learning (Perl, Python, XML, WML, etc)", I did
it to *learn* about the language, not to master it.
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.
Many of us want an 'advanced' text, and we are a little unforgiving of
any title that doesn't satisfy that. This is partially due to the delays
in the arrival of OS X, Dev Tools and complete developer documentation,
etc - I'm not casting blame on Apple, I'm sure that they got OS X out as
soon as they could (waiting certainly doesn't help them financially or
in the marketplace). We're all waiting for "Mastering Cocoa", "Advanced
Cocoa" and "Cocoa By Example".
Most of the information in the book can be found elsewhere on the
net ...
Never underestimate the value of a good Index & TOC. I don't buy every
book for "learning" - sometimes I need a good 'reference'.
... 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.
There are a lot of resources on the web for ANY programming language or
environment, but that doesn't keep us from buying many books on many
programming subjects. Not every title is for everybody. Personally, I've
bought a shelf full of O'Reilly's 'Nutshell' series. Not because I
expected them to teach me a complete subject for $29.95, but because
they are valuable reference material. When I want to look something up
(syntax, options, etc), I check my 'Nutshell' book first - but that
doesn't mean it's for everybody.
The Developer's Guide is big, covers a lot of basic material ...
How many of us "missed" something early on in a language because we
didn't want to spend the time to read the basics. We just wanted to
learn what we needed to know to get our programs going.
But once again, I don't think it's truly appreciated just how much new
information there is to learn ...
I've been reading Mac programming books (all sorts of comp sci tomes,
really) for years, so I'm not overwhelmed by the glut of "new"
information. Other people? They may not have my personal library, or the
spare time to read everything that I do. And I never assume that they do.
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.
The value of a book (or a code library, etc) is dependent on the amount
of time that it saves you. If a "programming cookbook" solves a specific
problem that you have, it may be worth it to you just for that one
item - and you may never need return to that title.
Not every book is for every programmer, every level, or every
expectation. Neither is every application for that matter ...
James
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
James Bredijk
email@hidden
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I know something about everything, more or less - hopefully more,
but usually less. No warranty, guaranteed or sanity is implied.