Re: Cocoa et al as HCI usability problem
Re: Cocoa et al as HCI usability problem
- Subject: Re: Cocoa et al as HCI usability problem
- From: Erik Buck <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 18 May 2008 22:27:10 -0400
On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 8:41 PM, Julius Guzy
<<email_removed>> wrote:
Tthe fact is that there will be others like me who do not find it
easy to get into cocoa. At this stage I'll not be jumping ship but
believe me I've had sleeples nights about it. Mainly i'll not do it
because although I'm far from attack speed I can just about open a
few windows and pump bit map images to the screen, have menus and
buttons and get mouse and tablet input and hopefully will soon be
able to write to and from disk, and if i'm really lucky i might even
be able to archive system state! in short, I am just about able to do
the things I need to and I am actually progressing the technology
that this current program of mine is supposed to deliver. In short
the investment is beginning to pay off. But getting this far has been
the most difficult piece of learning I've ever done in my life.
As an author of two books about Cocoa programming, it breaks my heart
to read the above quote. I don't write Cocoa books for the money.
There isn't much money to be made. I do it precisely because I want
to share the joy and satisfaction of Cocoa programming. It is my
profession and my hobby. I share my experiences and knowledge for the
same reason anybody encourages others to join in a shared interest.
Reading about "...sleepless nights..." and "...the most difficult
learning I've ever done in my life", I despair that the universe has
tilted on its axis and all is not right with creation.
The brief description of the application being developed follows:
1) Open a few windows
2) pump a few images to the screen
3) have menus
4) have buttons
5) get mouse and tablet input
6) write to and from disk
7) Archive APPLICATION state
All of the described features are implemented in the Sketch example
application that comes with the developer tools. /Developer/Examples/
AppKit/Sketch Sketch also provides undo, redo, rulers, marque
selection, keyboard events handling, copy & paste, drag & drop,
inspectors, and more. Many veteran Cocoa programmers learned from
the much more voluminous Draw example that preceded Sketch.
There are of course more detailed and focused examples focusing on
image processing and tablet input etc.
What precisely was difficult to learn? The books I write are intended
to ease the learning curve. If you describe your difficulties
sufficiently, I might be able to alleviate them for the next person.
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