Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cbmvax!vu-vlsi!swatsun!jackiw
From: jackiw@cs.swarthmore.edu (Nick Jackiw)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: New Mac Programmer -- HELP!  *Commentary added
Message-ID: <2569@ilium.cs.swarthmore.edu>
Date: 17 Mar 89 18:20:41 GMT
References: <67@sppy00.UUCP> <169@indri.primate.wisc.edu> <3955@ece-csc.UUCP> <28672@sri-unix.SRI.COM>
Reply-To: jackiw@ilium.UUCP (Nick Jackiw)
Distribution: na
Organization: Visual Geometry Project, Swarthmore College, PA
Lines: 46

In article <28672@sri-unix.SRI.COM> stores@unix.sri.com (Matt Mora) writes:
> let's say you wanted to write a 
> MDEF. You could scan the back issues of Mactutor to try to
> find a good example (if you have all the volumes) only to find
> that the author wrote it in a different language. Instead you
> can pull out your trusty "Mac Programming Guide" look for the
> chapter MDEF's and there you have it. Examples in of mdef's in 
> C, Pascal, asm or whatever. Also at the end of the chapter will 
> be a Gothcas and bug report.
> 
> Matt Mora
> SRI International

This "topic-by-topic" approach seems like it might actually work (for
great examples of failed USENET-collaborative-integrated-systems, read
rec.games.programmer, etc.). 

Someone needs to be in charge. S/he, with the help of comp.mac.programmer,
compiles a list of topics, many of them gathered into a tutorial about
a novice's-approach (i. e. development systems -> event loop programming
-> resources -> etc.); some of them those topics which are more advanced
but are spread out over 1,200 pages of Inside Mac+tech notes (e. g.
MDEFs, the complete guide to offscreen bitmaps, etc.). These are put up
for grabs; people who want to write the appropriate chapters grab them.
Put maybe 5 or 6 people per chapter. Among themselves, they break it into
subtasks, discuss its form and contents, co-author and/or co-edit it,
write (review and debug) some source-examples, etc. This gets sent back to
the Director, who with his/her chosen community of editors decide whether
they like it, can do with it, or hate it. In the first case, they revise
it and put it into a format similar to the rest of the contributions 
(maybe they need to work up some guidelines before we write chapters);
in the second, they send it back with their objections; in the third, they
trash it and put the topic back on the net as up for grabs.

Does the original poster of this chain have the expertise and time to
consider this?  If not, does anyone out there want to?  We need programmers
AND PEOPLE WHO CAN WRITE.

I'm in for exactly-as-long-as-this-remains-a-nonprofit-venture.


-- 
+-------------------+-jackiw@cs.swarthmore.edu / !rutgers!bpa!swatsun!jackiw-+
|  nicholas jackiw  | jackiw%campus.swarthmore.edu@swarthmr.bitnet           |
+-------------------+-VGP/MathDept/Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081--+
"Ah...I've got this CHRONIC pain."                             _True Believer_