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Re: Documentation still not being installed
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Re: Documentation still not being installed


  • Subject: Re: Documentation still not being installed
  • From: Ronald Hayden <email@hidden>
  • Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2011 10:01:36 -0700

In case it helps with the discussion, I'll say that in designing the doc set download system we were very aware of these issues and spent considerable time working through all our options and considering many different approaches.  While I can't guarantee we chose the best approach, and it's always possible we'll make changes in the future based on experience, we chose the approach that solved the most problems given that no approach solved all problems.

 -- Ron

On Aug 4, 2011, at 2:57 AM, David Frantz wrote:

You have some good points here and one or two bad ones.   I'm especially concerned that you don't recognize a common practice here.   That is; get a new Mac or an old one with a new OS and proceed to install your flavor of apps on it. This is not an uncommon practice by any means.  The expectation that one will immediately launch an application and play with it after an install does not reflect reality. 

As to parsing all the net for opinions on XCode well let's be honest everybody has opinions.  In this regard though I don't think you will see a lot of specific comments on the documentation download, it would be very easy to mis.    Obviously now we have a growing thread on the issue.  

In any event I do have to agree with you on one point, that is Apple makes a huge assumption that people have a reliable and high speed connection available to the all the time.   I believe this is a fundamental mistake on Apples part and leads to these massive XCode downloads that do require effort to obtain reliably.    It seems like Apple is focused on the geek crowd, at some of the bigger software development houses, that may be willing to put up with things the rest of us find frustrating. 

Frankly this opinion of mine has been reinforced a bit after I mad the comment about XCodes reliability or bugginess.  A lot of people defended XCode and frankly I don't know why.  As developers we expect some bugs, but small time or corporate developers can't really be spending their time battling basic issues that indicate unfinished software or poor quality control.  

In any event I just wanted to point out that unless you have already been imitated into the XCode world there are more than a few gotchas.  Documentation being one of them.    Another is the assumption of 24/7 attachment to the net. 


Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 4, 2011, at 3:56 AM, Jean-Denis MUYS <email@hidden> wrote:


On 3 août 2011, at 20:57, G S wrote:

I didn't run Xcode, nor should I have to.  Nowhere did the installer
say that I needed to, so why would I?

Duh! You run the Xcode installer and you don't see why you would launch the product you just installed?

 I was setting up the machine
from scratch with a new Lion installation, going through all the
applications I needed and installing them.  Now I'm supposed to run
every single app on the machine, looking for Easter-egg installations?

This design is irresponsible

And your arrogance is overwhelming. If you had researched your issue, or perhaps spent *just* a few weeks reading around the developer community, you would have:

1- Known about how Xcode and its installer handle the documentation
2- Known that many many developers have the exact opposite opinion than yours for reasons that have been detailed time and time again

So here you come out from nowhere and you bark "irresponsibility"?

and lacks common sense.

Common sense is that the potential for a break down grows exponentially with the size of the installer. That's why many developers have filed bug reports requesting Apple to split its Xcode installer in smaller pieces, usually by separating the SDK from the tools.

 If I'm
downloading a massive SDK, it stands to reason I've allocated the time
or bandwidth to do so.

No it doesn't. Many developers live in a world where bandwidth is a precious commodity, that must no be wasted. Some of us have flaky connections that will disconnect any time for any or no reason. When that happens, it's likely that the download has to be restarted from scratch. Some of us have very slow connections, where downloading 2 GB takes ages, let alone 10 GB. Including huge documentation within will waste bandwidth in many cases and require answering 2 questions:

- What when Xcode is updated, but not the documentation?
- What when the documentation is updated, but not Xcode?

 Why would I then want to be surprised at some
later date with another download for the documentation?

Perhaps because the documentation is a moving target and is updated far more often than the tools? And if you are really *surprised*, then you are a newbie. Newbies are welcome, but should not come on high horses.


My scenario provides the obvious example of why that's unacceptable.

Your scenario is about the most contrived I can imagine. There are far more common scenarios that would suggest doing exactly the opposite of what you demand.

And even if I had Internet access, I might be at some remote location
with a relatively slow mobile data card.  Or, heaven forbid, I have
some work to do NOW and I need to look something up without waiting
for yet another massive download.

If you had any experience, you would know that the documentation is *also* available instantly for querying online. You are welcome. But even then, adding the documentation to Xcode would make for an even more massive download. So even your potential situation here would not be helped by including the doc within.

 These are all very good reasons

not

that the current design is stupid,
and I can't think of one reason
that it's wise.  
The idea of saving download time initially just
doesn't stand up to even superficial consideration.  
Unless the
contention is that the majority of users will NEVER use the
documentation.

I did file a bug on this, but it's sad that I had to.

No need to comment further on all that.


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References: 
 >Documentation still not being installed (From: G S <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Documentation still not being installed (From: Ronald Hayden <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Documentation still not being installed (From: G S <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Documentation still not being installed (From: Jean-Denis MUYS <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Documentation still not being installed (From: David Frantz <email@hidden>)

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