Re: Suggestion: A Getting Started FAQ
Re: Suggestion: A Getting Started FAQ
- Subject: Re: Suggestion: A Getting Started FAQ
- From: "Erik M. Buck" <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 22:56:37 -0600
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With all due respect Erik, has it dawned on you that finding this mailing
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list is significantly more difficult than finding those other
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resources? Maybe the problem is that those resources aren't particularly
Where would the FAQ go if not in this list ? How can Apple make this list
easier to find ? You are right; if a newbie can find this list at all
he/she can probably find all the "Getting Started" documentation they want.
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well organized (okay, except for Vermont Recipes) and, once again, not
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presented in a top-down, easy to digest overview. Once again, the newbie
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is relegated to sifting through dozens of different sites trying to learn
I sympathize with your desire for one stop shopping. How do you propose
that all information is gathered in one place ? CocoaDevCentral tries.
Stepwise tries. How is it any different when learning MFC or PowerPlant
from scattered resources on the web? Do you just mean that big introductory
books exist for MFC and PowerPlant and newbies don't need the web at all ?
If so then the only cure is going to be 5-10 thick Cocoa books for newbies.
We all know that no five books alone are adequate for all newbies.
>
what must be learned. An FAQ would ideally fix this.
What would you put in the FAQ ? Where would you put the FAQ ? Believe me, I
support FAQs and have contributed to several. I just don't think there is a
shortage of "Getting Started" information about Cocoa. Most of the
complaints I read in this forum are not about the absence of "Getting
Started" information. The complaints here are about lack of documentation
and examples for detailed use of (sometimes) obscure or very new parts of
Cocoa. Either that or questions that indicate that the poster has not read
or understood the prerequisite information. The prerequisite information
exists. Most of it is in "Object Oriented Programming and Objective-C" and
in the various Cocoa introductions. The people who will not read the
introductions and the "best available" language guide are not any more
likely to read a FAQ or follow the links in the FAQ.
I think we all agree that if a newbie jumps into Apple Cocoa _class_
documentation without reading anything else or looking anywhere else is
going to be completely lost. The _class_ documentation is actually pretty
good reference documentation in my opinion. It is not an architectural
overview. It is not a tutorial. It does not teach Objective-C. It does
not explain Cocoa conventions or idioms or justify them. It just uses them.
It does not help you find something if you don't know enough terminology to
search for it. It is just _class_ documentation and it does a good job of
telling you what methods are available and what they do.
- I think we all agree that an architectural overview that is more
comprehensive and/or less terse than the current versions is needed.
- I think we all agree that a detailed explanation of Cocoa's conventions
and idioms and their rationales is required.
- I think a comprehensive cross index and glossary of Cocoa might help some
people.
- I think detailed manuals for Project Builder and Interface Builder as well
as other tools is long overdue.
- I think that numerous cookbooks and example code using every aspect of
Cocoa, BSD, and the various C APIs would be great!
I am doing my best, I can only write one book at a time.