Re: All these newbie questions that are answered by documentation
Re: All these newbie questions that are answered by documentation
- Subject: Re: All these newbie questions that are answered by documentation
- From: k barnd <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 13:32:08 -0800 (PST)
i am a newbie trying to program Cocoa using Java.
because of my company situation i am forced to use
java instead of obj c. i spend most of my days reading
the apple docs. there isn't, but a couple of examples
using java with cocoa. it is a struggle to learn with
the limited resources. i have come a long way with a
long way to go. and i am thankful for those who take
the time on these lists to help out us newbies.
--- "Erik M. Buck" <email@hidden> wrote:
>
It seems to me that most of the newbie questions
>
that are easily answered by
>
documentation and keep recurring in this forum and
>
others are due to 4
>
general causes:
>
>
1) People seemingly refuse to look at the super
>
class's documentation
>
>
2) Sherlock sucks so bad that people will not use it
>
to search the
>
documentation and newbies can not be bothered to use
>
MTLibrarian or another
>
search tool.
>
>
3) There is a lack of good concepts and overview
>
documentation. Newbies
>
refuse to just dive in and read the details about
>
classes. They seem to
>
want broad overviews that at least tell them where
>
to look. Combined with
>
the fact that newbies don't even know the
>
terminology to use when searching,
>
they can not find anything.
>
>
4) Familiarity with C++ and MFC has warped their
>
minds to the point that
>
they just can not understand a dynamic language like
>
Objective-C and
>
flexible frameworks like the Application Kit. A
>
refusal to change mindsets
>
locks people out of Cocoa.
>
>
>
I see several solutions:
>
For 1), Apple could include every method from every
>
superclass in the
>
documentation for every class. That would only
>
expand the size of the
>
documentation by a factor of 5 or so, but then
>
people would not have to look
>
in more than one place as often.
>
>
For 2), Apple could/should just scrap the shitty
>
Sherlock and revive Digital
>
Librarian or something better. People could also
>
start using google.
>
Google is very handy for searching Apple's on-line
>
documentation.
>
>
For 3), more is better, but most of the newbies
>
posting have never bothered
>
to read Object Oriented Programming and Objective-C.
>
I don't know how we
>
can expect these people to read any kind of overview
>
if they are not willing
>
to even learn the language of the frameworks.
>
>
For 4) If people will not change and/or can not see
>
the advantages of a
>
different way of doing things then I don't think
>
Cocoa will ever appeal to
>
them. I suggest that we forward all such people to
>
the Carbon lists.
>
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>
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>
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>
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