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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!xanth!mcnc!ece-csc!jnh
From: jnh@ece-csc.UUCP (Joseph Nathan Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: New Mac Programmer -- HELP!  *Commentary added
Message-ID: <3958@ece-csc.UUCP>
Date: 16 Mar 89 02:32:05 GMT
References: <67@sppy00.UUCP> <169@indri.primate.wisc.edu> <18784@srcsip.UUCP>
Reply-To: jnh@ece-csc.UUCP (Joseph Nathan Hall)
Distribution: na
Organization: North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Lines: 44

In article <18784@srcsip.UUCP> mnkonar@gorby.UUCP (Murat N. Konar) writes:
>In article <169@indri.primate.wisc.edu> bin@primate.wisc.edu writes:
>> (stuff deleted)>
>>Of course, you have to be able to get source code, and since HARDLY
>>ANYONE POSTS ANY --- STILL!!! --- you may be out of luck.
>
> Or you can go out and get "Macintosh Revealed" Volumes I and II by
>Stephen Chericoff.  These are available almost anywhere that sells
>computer books.  The second volume takes you through the 
>implementation of a text editing program that supports the Mac 
>user interface.  The two volumes together shouldn't cost more than
>around $50.  They document the toolbox well enough that you can
>get away with not buying Inside Macintosh unless you are really
>doing some major thing or something esoteric (relatively speaking).
>
I have Volumes I and II and I am ambivalent about them.  I find them
to have very little use to me in general since they cover only beginning
and low-to-intermediate level topics, and do not address most of my
"problem" areas, i.e., those that are vaguely or inadequately documented
in Inside Macintosh.  They are also, of course, Pascal-based, and you can
really get screwed trying to figure out how to (for example) declare
callback routines in "C" from descriptions of similar Pascal routines.

There are *no* good "C" programming references for the Mac, unless one has
been released in the past few months.

I might look at MR Volume III, but if it's as leisurely-paced as the first
two volumes, I'll pass on it.

I'd recommend the books only if you are a novice programmer who will be
working in Pascal, and would recommend you spring for at least the first
four volumes of IM while you're at it, since you will run into issues MR
doesn't cover as soon as you start fiddling around with controls, printing,
complicated dialogs, file operations, etc.

To a "C" programmer I'd recommend Lightspeed C (or MPW) and all the Tech
Notes and examples you can get your hands on.  Look at TransSkel--better
yet, use it.  (But we have to write a non-TextEdit-based editor!)  

-- 
v   v sssss|| joseph hall                      || 201-1D Hampton Lee Court
 v v s   s || jnh@ece-csc.ncsu.edu (Internet)  || Cary, NC  27511
  v   sss  || the opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of my
-----------|| employer, north carolina state university . . . . . . . . . . .