Re: *That* book
Re: *That* book
- Subject: Re: *That* book
- From: jgo <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 18:40:50 -0700
>
A lot of people here seem to be working their way throught the O'Reilly
>
book. What's the general consensus on the quality? The first reveiws
>
I read said it was a waste of money but with so many using it I wonder
>
if it's worth a buy?
I'm a big fan of printed books over electronic.
But, most of the examples (all but 2 IIRC) are available free
from Apple's web site and with the dev tools CD.
As I read it at first I thought, well, this is just the intro
so I shouldn't be too harsh, there will be some more substantial
material soon. When I got to the half-way point I thought,
there was a detail or two it showed that I hadn't caught before
so maybe when I get to the new material, real soon now, it will
be more substantial. When I got 2/3 of the way through and
started seeing new material I realized it wasn't very well
done, at least for a "learning" book. When I tried some of
the example apps, they didn't work well & attempts to modify
them were frustrating. Still, when I got to the end I kept
thinking that it could have been worse.
But over time I started to realize we'd been robbed.
It was a couple months late arriving. All the enthusiasm
and promise of usefulness by the Apple folks before its
release failed of delivery.
At the end of each Chapter/example project, the whole source
should be shown so that you can see things in context.
There should be at least 2 screen-shots when an action (like
select this and drag or control+drag) is being illustrated
(before &/or during & after). New terms should be defined the
first several times they're used; not just the first. Actions
that are the least bit complex should be described in detail at
least the first 3 times they come up. If things are complex,
there should be a quick outline, and then another with more
layers of detail...
>
Bill Cheeseman wrote:
>
2. Those who find it too advanced and difficult seem to be
>
real beginners. People who haven't previously dealt with
>
object-oriented programming concepts seem to have a
>
particularly difficult time with it.
Even those who had had years of OO study & experience, but
didn't have experience from the particular school of OO also
found it inadequate.
>
+ Prem Chopra wrote:
>
+ It doesn't deal with advanced concepts(relatively)
It doesn't deal with many intermediate concepts. That would
be fine if there had been intermediate and advanced books
released more or less simultaneously, but the descriptions
are still "forthcoming".
>
- Robert S. Goldsmith wrote:
>
- On the other hand [studying class documentation, snippets
>
- of sample code, and some on-line tutorials] is very
>
- frustrating and slow and you are quite likely to miss a
>
- few concepts.
And miss a few release dates, pay-checks, car repairs, meals,
rent or mortgage payments... in the process.
People also have a tendency to miss remote implications of concepts
left unstated but that are necessary to do useful work.
>
++ Peter Sichel 2001-09-12 15:42 wrote:
>
++ Compared to a masterpiece like "The C Programming Language" by
>
++ K&R, "Learning Cocoa" is too limited and frustrating.
"Masterpiece"?! Adequate, at best, with a number of gaps & ambiguities.
Look at Jensen & Wirth's _Pascal User Manual & Report_ (IIRC) for one
much better example of a language reference + manual. As I've
mentioned before, Bolsky's _The C Programmer's HandBook_ is a much
better reference, though not intended as a manual.
>
-- Ken Tabb wrote:
>
-- APIs are by their very nature, vague in terms of what you
>
-- can do with them (as you build from the API objects).
OTOH, everything you can do with an API you can do with the
related language. There's essentially no limit to the
language, and yet, as you note, the documentation tends to
be better, more "nailed down". The question becomes: Can
one figure out how to cobble things together from the docs
that exist or are necessary aspects left out? And the answer
is that some people, people who were thinking the way the API
designers were thinking, will be able to do so. So the next
question is: Do the docs convey all of the essential aspects
of how the designers of the API were thinking so that one
whose thinking is different can understand and make use of it?
>
* Chilton Webb wrote:
>
* I think something to keep in mind is that... for the
>
* now-Classic MacOS, we had scores of Mac programming books,
>
* detailing some of the more specific things as well as
>
* covering a broad range of topics. How many Dave Mark
>
* books are on my shelf? A lot.
Lots of books of different kinds from a range of authors
covering (nearly) every level from the hardware to the most
complex derivative software constructs. Mark, Allen, Motorola,
Sydow, [the French guy whose name I can never recall], Carmack,
LeVitus, Scott... And Metrowerks CodeWarrior included a bunch
of books & other docs & example code on their Reference CD.
>
** ncallahan wrote:
>
** It feels washed over an not willing to explain and burrow.
>
** It reads like what almost a third of it is... A collection
>
** of Apple tutorials.
Yah, it did seem to be more a matter of having some examples
and slapping them together into a book with a few words
rather than a book that builds from basic to intermediate to
advanced, from simple to complex, and uses examples to
illustrate the concepts & practices.
Maybe if it had cost $8.00 it would have been worth it
(but I'm widely known as a tightwad WRT such things, so YMMV).
There are some 3rd party books expected to arrive between now
and January. Feiler has a new edition of his book, modified for
X (from NeXT). There are a couple others from list participants.
Do searches on O'Reilly, bn, borders, booksmatter to see fanciful
projected release dates. Perhaps they'll be better. The question
is whether I'll still be able to buy them when they eventually
make it to the stores.
This whole thing could be greatly simplified by having everyone
create do-it-yourself manuals. Simply type the phrase
"description forthcoming", copy and paste it about 3000 times,
then slap "Reference Manual" at the beginning and "Index"
at the end. :B-S
-- standard disclaimers apply --
John G. Otto, Eagle Scout, Knight, Cybernetic Praxeologist
Existence, Consciousness, Identity, Life, Liberty, Property, Privacy, Justice
| References: | |
| | >*That* book (From: "Smith, Bradley" <email@hidden>) |