Re: [semi-OT] Apple's Help Viewer: a note to the frustrated
Re: [semi-OT] Apple's Help Viewer: a note to the frustrated
- Subject: Re: [semi-OT] Apple's Help Viewer: a note to the frustrated
- From: Gwynne <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 8 May 2004 10:33:46 -0400
On May 8, 2004, at 10:11 AM, Gregory Weston wrote:
And, most importantly, the capability is already there. Documented or
not, I will not have been the only person to discover it, and I can't
believe I'd be the only person to take advantage of the power.
But that's precisely the point: It's not safe to assume that Help
Viewer has any capability at all beyond what's documented. Apple is
under no obligation to support something that's merely empirically
observed. So certainly it's reasonable to urge them to provide such
documentation. But until they do, you're acting at your own (trivial
though it may be) peril.
I've filed a bug (rdar://3648102) about the outdated docs. If they come
back and say they definitely intend to remove the new functionality,
I'll set about downgrading my help book. Until then...
Apple's opened the door by providing it in Panther, and they'll
cause breakage by undoing that.
Apple's opened no door. You found the key hidden in the hollow rock
next to the mat. Apple has not been especially shy about changing the
lock in the past.
And I consider that a generally bad thing. They put the key there to be
found.
Granted, they've shown astonishingly little respect for causing
breakage lately, but if they're willing to do this they'd better give
me a _very_ good reason I have to rewrite my entire help book to be
three times as big on-disk and not look half as good.
I can give you a good reason right now: You relied on undocumented
behavior.
So I did. But there's no reason I'm aware of (yes, those are the key
words) for the functionality to not become documented and supported,
especially in light of the consequences of ceasing to support it.
They'd better have a hell of a reason for cripping an HTML reader that
way, or they'll suddenly find me not using it.
-- Gwynne, key to the Code that runs us all
Formerly known as Sailor Quasar.
Email: email@hidden
Web:
http://musicimage.plasticchicken.com/
_______________________________________________
cocoa-dev mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/cocoa-dev
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.