Re: troubling article
Re: troubling article
- Subject: Re: troubling article
- From: Sherm Pendley <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 23:35:21 -0400
On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 10:33 PM, Chris Meyer wrote:
It would be interesting to hear developers having similar experiences
to the article's author, developers with cross platform development
experience, and other developers offering constructive (not reactive)
responses, if any.
Some of the points this guy makes are clearly off the mark, while
others are valid criticism and as a community it would be nice to
understand what those issues are and how to address them since it
benefits everyone on this mailing list to have more developers using
and happy with Cocoa, Project Builder, and the Mac in general.
Issue: In general, it sounds as if this guy has had a bit of experience
with various Windows development environments, and he approached IB/PB
expecting them to be similar. He was hoping to leverage some of his
prior knowledge and experience in this environment. That is perhaps the
*worst* mistake a Cocoa newbie can make - both the framework and
development tools are fundamentally different than Visual C++, Delphi,
VB, et al, and trying to treat them as just another variation on that
theme will lead to a lot of pain in a short amount of time.
Solution: Even if you've programmed for other GUI toolkits, make certain
that you're mentally prepared for something very different. Check any
preconceived notions you might have at the door. If you find yourself
struggling with something, step back and ask yourself - am I trying to
do it this way based on past experience? If so, you may find that what
you're really struggling to do is force a square peg into a round hole.
Issue: It also sounds as if he had this project more or less dropped in
his lap with little notice and a short deadline, leaving him angry
before he even started downloading the dev tools.
Solution: Be objective, and try to identify the real source of
frustration. Is it the tools and/or toolkit aren't as easy to learn as
you'd hoped - or is it that you made rash promises with no idea whether
you could actually deliver on them? It's far easier to blame one's tools
than admit to a mistake, but as the saying goes, it's a poor craftsman
who blames his tools.
Issue: One-button mouse.
Solution: Buy a better one. Plug it in. There is no step three. ;-)
sherm--
UNIX: Where /sbin/init is Job 1.
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