Re: Cocoa-dev Digest, Vol 5, Issue 919
Re: Cocoa-dev Digest, Vol 5, Issue 919
- Subject: Re: Cocoa-dev Digest, Vol 5, Issue 919
- From: Graham Cox <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 17:37:06 +1000
On 27 May 2008, at 4:52 pm, Johnny Lundy wrote:
I wrote my first program in 1965.
I have degrees in CS from Brown. That was not today's "write a web
page" CS course - we wrote assemblers, compilers, databases with
hashes and buckets, time-shared interpreters, word processing
systems, multiprogramming with atomic semaphores, theory according
to structured programming ("go to statement considered harmful" --
recognize that phrase?).
Compiler: LSD (the language for systems development) - a
superoptimizing PL/I-like compiler - written in PL/I and then
bootstrapped in itself.
I studied computer graphics and computational linguistics under
Andries van Dam. Maybe you guys are too young to remember him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andries_van_Dam
And I don't mean just studying in the same department as him - I
mean he actually personally taught the courses I took, and we were
all one big happy group.
For my graduate work, I wrote a complete graphics package for the
Meta-4 minicomputer with Vector Graphics display and a hardware
matrix multiplier co-processor for doing transformation matrices. I
wrote the game of Life on that, to demo scrolling a viewport over a
large display space.
I worked for Foxboro Company as a design engineer doing assembly-
language programming for their real-time process control systems.
Then I went to med school, residency, 3-year fellowship, and 17
years of practice in OB/GYN. During my fellowship I wrote a real-
time data acquisition app in 6502 assembler that used a custom
circuit board that served as a Schmidt trigger to clean up a square
wave from the cardiotachometer we used.
During all the years I taught medicine, I programmed every day. I
read every computer manual that I was interested in. I am not
interested in Java, C++, or anything Web.
I first read the Cocoa docs when they were first published. I have
read them all numerous times. To satisfy the people here, I just re-
read for the nth time the Cocoa Fundamentals Guide, all of it, in
the last 2 days. Nothing there was new to me.
Thanks for the CV - good for you. However, it's not relevant. I've
been writing code since 1978 and building electronics since 1974.
Little of it is relevant to learning Cocoa. In fact, my point was that
all this experience may be hindering you rather than helping.
If the point of your listing your experience is to impress, or argue
from some supposed position of authority, it's bogus. Clearly, from
the questions you've asked and the most fundamental disconnects
demonstrated, none of the above is of even the slightest benefit.
If your CV landed on my desk and I was looking to employ a Cocoa
programmer, I would be looking for *relevant* experience. I see none.
To get even to an interview stage you'd have to pass a Cocoa-based
test. I would hazard that you wouldn't pass judging from your postings
so far.
The documentation is still bad.
I disagree. I started with Cocoa from scratch in 2003. My current
project is DrawKit (http://apptree.net/drawkitmain.htm), which
consists of well over 200 files which comprise a similar number of
classes and categories. I haven't had any major trouble extracting
information from the docs, and complementing that with the occasional
question on the list and also on sites such as CocoaDev. Most of what
I've read in the docs made sense on first reading. I didn't need to
draw on 30 years of programming experience because it was all right
there in front of me. I do not claim DrawKit is a perfect piece of
Cocoa coding, but what's there works and was written by me alone using
Xcode and the built-in documentation plus what is available online.
To be honest I took the pain in 1991 when I learned OOP (from straight
C) using the Think Class Library. If that had been anywhere near as
well-documented as Cocoa I doubt I would have struggled as hard as I
did. I still managed to write my thesis project using it in about 8
weeks flat, and then a full scale commercial app in it in 3 years.
I said it took me a year to understand the method declarations. That
year is over. It was over 5 years ago. For a newbie, the confusion
would still be there.
I don't know why you are therefore appointing yourself spokesman for
newbies. Yes, newbies have the odd problem getting on the learning
curve, but then they can ask for help without you having to do it for
them. Fight your own battles. It's confusing to everyone *else* when
you ask a totally newbie-ish question, then claim you had this down
pat 5 years ago.
Now since I am not prepared to repeat all of this every time I post,
I am not posting any more.
I'm sure that will come as a relief to most of those who have tried
(and failed) to help you.
But I will contact the mods and send feedback to Apple about this
list.
Saying what? After a great deal of patience was expended, all these
volunteers who don't work for Apple gave up on me! Waaaah.
A lot of people have helped, and I have personally sent them thanks.
Well, if your off-list responses to me are anything to go by, the tone
seems rather grudging. I can't force you to be helped - I can only
state facts that are true to my knowledge and try and offer advice. If
what I say doesn't help *you*, that's not a fault of the information
I'm giving. I would accept that maybe I write in a way that's hard to
understand, but others don't seem to find that.
Others are following the snotty "how to ask a question" thing that
has been circulating since the early days of mailing lists and
USENET. I have no fondness for that attitude.
Nevertheless it's not unreasonable. Why should anyone give up any time
at all to help, if you will not *be* helped? Your questions could be a
lot better phrased - half the trouble is trying to figure out what it
is you're actually asking. It seems to flit from one subject to
another - first it's File's Owner, then it's fundamental "how to cal a
message". Tryin gto pick the bones out of it and get to the root cause
of your problem takes a lot of effort and time. I personally have
spent about two and a half hours today trying to help you. I shall not
be taking any more time because it's just a waste for me and I'm not
only not getting any thanks, I'm getting abuse for my trouble.
As a junior, I was a TA for the introductory CS courses at Brown -
gave lectures on things like macros when the prof had to be away,
and graded the programming assignments that the students did. Do you
know what their very first assignment was? To write an assembler in
PL/I. This was no half-assed department.
Again, in what way is this *relevant to Cocoa*? This constant attempt
to demonstrate experience is starting to be a bit embarrassing, to be
honest.
Yelling at people for asking questions and telling them they are
ignorant is just pathetic.
I agree. But so is firing off tetchy emails to people who have bent
over backwards to help you listing your entire career in an attempt to
impress or pull rank or whatever. The fact remains, mamy people have
tried to help you, very patiently, and with very accurate and relevant
explanations. I've read many of them, and they all seemed pretty good
to me. I learned a few things myself, so all threads can have value.
If Apple knew the atmosphere in these mailing lists I think things
would change.
Who is "Apple"? Many Apple engineers frequent this list. I think you
are over-anthropomorphising.
The problem is that this thread has made no progress at all,
Huh? This thread just started today. The File's Owner thread is (or
should be; I gave up) over.
Well, you could have fooled me. It seems to be pretty much a
continuation of the earlier thread, with the same hobby-horses being
ridden.
It TOOK me a year. Obviously I get it now as I have been writing
Cocoa for the last 5.
I don't think I could have ported my app to the iPhone in 2 days if
I still was at that level.
Possibly not, but since you don't go into detail about what this app
is, it's a moot point. As I mentioned in another thread, in another
analogy, anyone can nail two planks together.
My point was that the docs didn't have a sample line. I still think
that is wrong. Almost every reference manual gives a line of sample
usage.
Any many people's point is that where it's ambiguous or needs
particular clarification, the docs do indeed include sample usage. But
most do not because it would be endless repetition of Objective-C 101.
shows to me that you are not taking a logical approach to learning
this, or else you are reading, and not understanding even the most
fundamental stuff. Go back to the beginning. Even seasoned
programmers still do that from time to time.
I re-read the Cocoa Fundamentals for the nth time over the last 2
days. Nothing new there, except it triggered another File's Owner
disaster.
Well, I rest my case. You are reading, and not understanding. I can't
say why - the problem is yours and yours alone. It's your brain, no-
one elses.
Inappropriate analogy. All I suggested was adding a line of usage
example.
My point was that many things in real life are complex, and we expec
to take the time to learn and train to use them properly. Why is
programming so often considered exempt from this requirement?
The many fine pieces of work done in Cocoa and the many programmers
using it without trouble suggest to me that there is little wrong
with the documentation.
Actually, almost all said they bought the third party books.
Speaking only for myself, I found Hillegass useful for my very initial
orientation to Cocoa. It got me making basic apps in about 2 days.
After that, I have only used Apple's (and other online sources)
documentation, dipping back into Hillegass at one point when I wanted
some clarification about NSInvocation forwarding. I will say one thing
though - I also own "Learning Cocoa" which was written by Apple and
published by O'Reilly, and I did find that a difficult book to use for
getting started. It made a lot more sense when I came back to it
having already got a lot further along the learning curve.
Nobody said they had to lose any patience. If they can explain it,
explain it. Otherwise ignore me. Although I won't be posting to this
list any more. For all the bragging these guys do about how learned
they are, they sure do misinterpret just about anything I post.
There's more than a touch of the pot calling the kettle black here, as
most of your message seems to be bragging about how learned *you* are.
If someone is repeatedly misinterpreted, perhaps that tells you
something about their communication skills rather than the many
different readers? After all, it's the common factor. Again, I have
found your messages confusing because they are inconsistent - you say
you know such-and-such in one paragraph and then in another reveal
that you don't know it at all. So the reader has to invest a lot of
time trying to get to the bottom of what you *really* mean, and are
probably failing. Again, whose fault is that? If you cannot make your
messages clear, unequivocal and consistent, you ought not to be
surprised when the answers you receive are not what you wanted.
G.
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