Re: C'mon Apple! DECIDE!
Re: C'mon Apple! DECIDE!
- Subject: Re: C'mon Apple! DECIDE!
- From: Christopher Holland <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 04:07:50 -0500
On Saturday, April 27, 2002, at 12:22 AM, Mark Weinstein wrote:
I am a software developer in the Seattle area and have recently moved
from
the Windoze platform over to the Mac and have several observations
that I
would like to make. Please understand that I am not flaming Apple (or
anybody else for that matter), but it makes it much easier to
understand why
software developers don't flock to develop for the platform.
Sounds good to me. Constructive criticism is a good thing. Let's see
where it takes us...
1) I have been a software developer for a little over 20 years, and
never
in my life have I seen such poor documentation. I have attempted to
work
with Cocoa, Carbon and even WebObjects and have found that any
documentation
that I have found that was even worth reading was not from Apple. In
addition to the quality of the documentation, it is nearly impossible to
even find anything more than quick samples here and there. If people
are
being actively recruited as developers, why aren't they getting any
support
or training out of the recruiter?
While I can't say much about WO (haven't used it) I find that I must
agree with you somewhat about the Carbon documentation. It seems to be
really hard to follow for me. On the other hand, I find the Cocoa
documentation to be quite easy to follow and I feel that I can pretty
much figure out how to do just about anything I want to do (if the
functionality is there...but that's for another thread).
2) Now, I admit that I am not a strong C programmer, but I can
certainly
get by. I have started to work with Cocoa and found that in general, it
seems really nice and stable. What I find annoying is that there is no
documentation on the very few frameworks that currently exist for
Cocoa. I
have been scraping help off of a few web pages here and there, but I
certainly don't have enough information to build a full application. I
have
searched Apple's web site and tried to go through their sample code, but
have found few Cocoa samples that did me any good.
I have to disagree with you here. IF you are programming in pure Cocoa,
I found that there are plenty of avenues for information. Try these (in
addition to the mainstay, Google):
http://www.cocoadev.com/
http://www.cocoadevcentral.com/
and, most importantly....
http://cocoa.mamasam.com/
You can pretty much find the answer to just about ANY question in one of
those forums. If you can't find the answer, chances are someone can at
least get you started in the right direction.
These aren't "Apple" sources but many of the Apple OS X development team
read and answer questions in these forums, so it might be as close as
you can get to finite answers to your questions. I've found that it's
pretty nice to have one of the Cocoa programmers answer a question I
have about how an NSImage or NSView is supposed to work....it pretty
much clears up the question and leaves little to be wondered about. This
is a pretty nice thing about developing for the Mac platform right now.
There are fewer programmers so there is much more interaction and more
of a community atmosphere. Use that to your advantage...this isn't the
Windows world. People in these forums really want to see you succeed.
3) Is Carbon a permanent or temporary technology? I ask because
while I
want to develop applications for the Mac, I do not want to use Carbon if
time is not on my side in the long run.
That's the $1 million question. As far as Apple has officially
announced, both Carbon and Cocoa will continue to live side-by-side for
years(?) to come. The plan is to get them on par with each other and
effectively be able to use either one for your code. That's what I've
heard...though I certainly am not "in the know."
In addition, the majority of the
sample code on Apple's site is still built in CodeWarrior! I have been
working with and learning how to use Project Builder and Interface
Builder
from every bit of documentation I find! Why are code samples still
being
distributed in CW?
Apple has stated that every new sample program that is/has been posted
since OS X came out is in ProjectBuilder or has a PB version. I haven't
checked every one, but the few that I have checked out seemed to be true
to the word. They haven't gone back and rebuilt the older projects in
PB, though. My guess is that they have bigger fish to fry right now and
they are working as fast as they can. We'll see.
4) How long will it be before we actually see Cocoa frameworks for the
applications like QuickTime? I have a client right now that wants some
software developed to process video and due to the lack of
documentation and
support that I have been able to find, I had to refer back to the PC.
Nobody hates doing this any more than me, but I didn't really feel
that i
had an out.
I have to agree with you here. Amen, brother. I think QuickTime is the
most lacking part of Cocoa right now. But, that's just me. Of course,
ask me next week and I may have another opinion.
Again, I do understand that migrating to a new technology like OSX can
be
frustrating. I would love nothing more than to literally throw my
Windoze
boxes out the window, but until I can successfully develop a useable
application on the Mac, I am stuck with it.
I have to say that you must give ObjC a little time to get used to it.
That's what I did and I can't believe that I ever programmed in any
other languages now. I really like it. Cocoa is pretty much the same
way. You have to give it a few weeks. There are over 300 classes to get
to know. Until you have a good grasp on them, things can seem a bit
nebulous.
Stick with it. You'll like it. No, really, you will.
If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for me, I would love to hear
them and
am very excited about being a new member of the Mac community!
Mark
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