Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sgi!decwrl!adobe!greid
From: greid@adobe.com (Glenn Reid)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Why is the application kit so frustrating?
Message-ID: <1095@adobe.UUCP>
Date: 21 Aug 89 22:14:20 GMT
References: <1520@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Sender: news@adobe.COM
Reply-To: greid@adobe.COM (Glenn Reid)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated, Mountain View
Lines: 30

In article <1520@hydra.gatech.EDU> roy@prism.gatech.EDU (Roy Mongiovi) writes:
>I am having an incredibly frustrating time trying to figure out what messages
>to send to what objects to get my interface to behave the way I want it to.
>Is this all because of the lack of documentation, is it bugs in the
>application kit, or is it a deficiency in the object definitions themselves?
>
>I've got a copy of the 0.9 technical references, but I find I still have to
>basically try every combination of possibly applicable methods and objects to
>get the interface to behave in the desired fashion.  I can't tell you how
>tired I get of "well, let's see.  I can invoke this method of the matrix,
>or this method of the cell of the matrix, or maybe it should be this
>method...."

In my opinion, the main reason for this is that the AppKit documentation
only tells you WHAT the methods and instance variables are, but comes
up a bit short in telling you WHY or WHEN you might want to use them.
They also don't provide much sample usage.

This is especially important for object-oriented programming beginners
(like me :-) who are sure which is the cart and which is the horse,
let alone the distinction between an instance variable, a method, an
outlet, and an action.  Just make sure to keep the outlets out of
the reach of small children.

But, first things first.  It is better to have all of the elements of
the AppKit documented in a skeletal form, and hope that someone will
come back later and improve the documentation at each individual method
and instance variable.

Glenn Reid