Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ogicse!uwm.edu!rpi!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!apple.com!chewy
From: chewy@apple.com (Paul Snively)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Obligatory beginning-Mac-programmer questions
Message-ID: <7179@goofy.Apple.COM>
Date: 14 Mar 90 18:33:20 GMT
Sender: usenet@Apple.COM
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.
Lines: 108
References:<2392@milton.acs.washington.edu> <2217@husc6.harvard.edu>

In article <2217@husc6.harvard.edu> siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) 
writes:
> In article <2392@milton.acs.washington.edu> 
phaedrus@milton.acs.washington.edu (The Wanderer) writes:
> >
> >     A few quick questions:
> >     Aside from Inside Mac and the other official documentation, what 
books
> >would you recommend for an experienced Pascal/C programmer trying to 
learn
> >the Macintosh programming structure?
> 
>         "How to Write Macintosh Software" and "Macintosh Programming 
Secrets",
> both by Scott Knaster. The first is a good guide to coping with the OS, 
and
> the second describes lots of interesting Toolbox tricks.

I'd like to ditto Rich's recommendations here and add the current editions 
of Chernicoff's books; they're pretty good Q&D intros to the subjects 
covered in IM I-V.

BTW, be sure to get IM I-IV absolutely and V if you intend to run on SEs 
or Mac IIs.  Also get the Tech Notes (yeah, all 250+ of them).  Ugh.

In article <2217@husc6.harvard.edu> siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) 
writes:
>         Another good book is the TMON user's manual. It comes with a free
> machine-level debugger.

Gee, thanks, Rich (I wrote the TMON User's Guide, in my previous life at 
ICOM Simulations, Inc.)  I'll second his recommendation here, too, in my 
obviously completely unbiased opinion. ;-)

In article <2217@husc6.harvard.edu> siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) 
writes:
> >     How much easier does MacApp make the programming process?  
Assuming it's
> >the wonderful base I've heard it is and I immediately rush out to use 
it, how
> >strongly should that influence the development environment I buy?  (How 
many
> >contortions do I have to go through to use MacApp with Think Pascal, 
that I
> >could avoid by using MPW?)
> 
>         Ultimately, MacApp helps a lot, but the learning curve is very 
long.
> It shouldn't make a difference in your choice of Pascal compiler; THINK
> Pascal 3.0 supports MacApp practically out of the box, with some 
automatic
> conversion.

Rich is oversimplifying just a little here.  The MacApp that THINK Pascal 
3.0 compiles "practically out of the box" is MacApp 2.0b9; THINK has done 
a very good job of providing conversion tools that handle the general 
case, but my experiences in attempting to convert versions of MacApp later 
than 2.0b9 haven't been very successful.  Which is not to say that THINK 
did anything wrong; they were in the unfortunate position of having to 
ship before Apple made MacApp 2.0 final.  C'est la vie.

In article <2217@husc6.harvard.edu> siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) 
writes:
>         Both THINK C and THINK Pascal include the THINK Class Library, 
which
> is similar in concept to MacApp, but is much easier to learn and use; you
> can always save your pennies and get MacApp later if the TCL doesn't 
suit your needs.

Sounds like sound advice to me.

In addition to the above, let me just add that, since you're already an 
experienced Pascal/C programmer, it _is_ worth your while to learn 
object-oriented programming now, as Apple's world is clearly headed in 
that direction.  THINK's TCL and related tutorials offer a good 
introduction both to the concepts and to the class libraries themselves.  
MacApp might be thought of as "industrial strength"--it has had some of 
Apple's best Mac Wizards involved in its evolution over its roughly 
five-year lifespan, and does lots of very cool things for you.  It also 
has tutorials available, and is supported not only by us in MacDTS, but 
also by the MacApp Developers' Association, and has a regular newsletter, 
"Frameworks," associated with it, should you wish to subscribe to it.

I must also take issue with a previous post that said, in effect, that 
once you start doing real work with MacApp that you find yourself changing 
the MacApp sources.  This simple isn't true; the whole nature of 
object-oriented programming is that, when you wish to alter the 
functionality of some piece of code, you override it (this does _not_ 
imply changing the sources of the libraries).  It _may_ imply knowing 
exactly what the thing you wish to override does.  To simplify that 
process, MacApp 2.0 versions ship with a very nice little Object 
Pascal/C++ browser, itself written in MacApp (sorry, no sources for the 
browser yet--maybe later).

I hope all of this helps somewhat!

__________________________________________________________________________
                                Paul Snively
                      Macintosh Developer Technical Support
                             Apple Computer, Inc.

1st Choice: Paul_Snively.DTS@qm.gateway.apple.com
2nd Choice: CHEWBACCA@applelink.apple.com
Last Choice: chewy@apple.com

Just because I work for Apple Computer, Inc. doesn't mean that I believe 
what they believe, or vice-versa.
__________________________________________________________________________