Xcode does seem hard on newbies(was Xcode release notes)
Xcode does seem hard on newbies(was Xcode release notes)
- Subject: Xcode does seem hard on newbies(was Xcode release notes)
- From: Ray Peterson <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 20:56:50 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Rob Dye <email@hidden>
>Subject: Re: Xcode release notes
>Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 14:29:35 -0500
>To: Xcode-Users mailing list
<email@hidden>
>This little exchange between a relative newcomer (?)
to Xcode and the
>head of developer tools at Apple (I'm not sure about
that title,
>Godfrey) strikes me as indicative of a systemic
problem with Xcode: the
>developers of Xcode do not appear to have a good
understanding of the
>users of Xcode.
i have to agree as i am finding Xcode/Interface
Builder/the whole Apple development environment to be
more obtuse, complicated and convoluted than i was
expecting. i've been trying to create a simple
program to manage a small inventory using a mySQL
database as the datasource. i was able to get mySQL
up and running(despite the bad documentation on their
site) and was even able to use Xcode to get some c
type programs to read and write to the database.
however, i've spent more time and in fact had to break
down and buy aaron hilligases book on cocoa
programming to make any real headway (the doc on the
apple web site is unfortunately very complex and
difficult to navigate on it's own). i find the
interface builder to Xcode connections to be
particularily weak (why are these two separate
products btw?)
...
>Also, on a fairly regular basis, Xcode users post to
this list with
questions that have apparently obvious answers to an
Xcode expert. >You
>could say that is just the natural consequence of the
Xcode learning
>curve. However, these questions and my experience
with Xcode (and years
>of usage of other IDEs including VC, Project Builder,
CodeWarrior,
>Think C, Lightspeed C and Megamax C) lead me to
believe that that is an
>easy answer that masks a deeper problem: there
appears to be mental
>model that the Xcode developers have about Xcode that
is not shared by
>a large number of users.
my own background includes being a programmer and then
a database administrator(10 years total) using IMS/DB2
databases on IBM/MVS mainframes and Sybase databases
on Solaris.I've written code in BASIC, Pascal,
Fortran, assembler languages(Intel and Motorola and
IBM MVS 370), PL/1, Cobol and C/C++. I've dealt with
programmers and network administrators trying to sort
out various incarnations of programs/gui development
tools acessing databases as client/server programs. i
worked pretty extensily with entity/relationship
modeling for relational databases which is (imho) the
forrunner of object oriented programming concepts.
ok, i may be a bit rusty these days(haven't worked in
computers for about 4 years now) but when i see a
'chmod' command, i do actually remember what it's
supposed to be doing! maybe i just expect too much.
somehow i thought the apple development environment
would be significantly easier than what i used to see
in other development environments. it's certainly not
easier(i reserve judgement on it being more difficult
- i need a few more months to understand it) and it is
significantly different than what i've been used to.
...
> Stupid users are usually just the innocent victims
of a stupid user interface.
have to agree with this statement. my experience is
that 'intuitive' is different for technical people and
those of us wishing to be non-technical. one could
argue that being a programmer requires one to be a
technical person. i would argue that even as a
technical person, my time is wasted struggling with
obtuse technical problems when all i really want is to
get a simple program up and running. i would further
argue that if you're trying to make a computer more
popular, you need more software for it and the easier
the development environment, the better likelyhood of
more software (ok, maybe a bit obvious but sometimes i
feel this overwhelming need to state the obvious -
indulge me).
>Rob Dye
>LabVIEW R&D
>National Instruments
rantingly yours,
ray peterson
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