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: Steve Bird <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 09:34:16 -0500
On Saturday, November 10, 2001, at 06:28 , Rainer Brockerhoff wrote:
At 15:45 -0800 09/11/2001, John C. Randolph wrote:
On Friday, November 9, 2001, at 02:32 PM, Rainer Brockerhoff wrote:
At first, it was very difficult for me to find out _what_ the
superclasses were, due to unfamiliarity with Objective-C notation,
header organization, and Help Viewer's deficiencies. Now, with the new
PB's class browser, that's very easy and it's what I first look at.
The first thing in the docs on *every* class is a block like this:
NSRulerView
Inherits from:
NSView : NSResponder : NSObject
Conforms to:
NSCoding (NSResponder)
NSObject (NSObject)
Declared in:
AppKit/NSRulerView.h
Of course, but it took me a couple of weeks to notice that - and to
understand what "conforms to" et al. mean.
This in itself is amazing to me. When an item is repeated on every page, I
automatically assume it's important, and find out what the heck it means,
before moving on.
HOWEVER
That being said, I am reminded of one of the tenets of Apple user
interface design: testing with real users. Basically, you should test
your app with a batch of real users. Whenever they cannot figure out how
to do something with your app, IT'S YOUR FAULT. It's not acceptable (or
productive) to say that these users aren't trying, are too lazy, or are
incompetent. If -*THEY*- cannot do it, it's -*YOUR*- fault.
It would seem to me that the same thing is true in this case - Apple
clearly needs to take a hint and produce better docs, because a lot of
folks have difficulty with what is there.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Bird
Culverson Software - Elegant software that is a pleasure to use.
www.Culverson.com (toll free) 1-877-676-8175