Re: An Excursus

FROM : I. Savant
DATE : Tue Mar 04 21:59:15 2008

> In talking off-list with another list member, he mentioned that I 
> needed to bind the Selection Indexes and Sort Descriptors of one of 
> my NSTableViews to the same for the controller for that table view, 
> in this case MessagesController. That's fine and I appreciate the 
> tip. (I'm not entirely sure I understand why, but at least I know I 
> need to investigate this aspect of bindings more.)


  I'm not sure why you would expect a tutorial on Core Data to 
explain the use of table views, sort descriptors, and the like. Cocoa 
is a huge API with a lot of beginner-to-intermediate-to-advanced 
technologies. Examples:

NSTableView & Sort Descriptors: beginner
Cocoa Bindings & Core Data: advanced

  Given that distinction, is it any wonder that a tutorial on an 
advanced part of the API casually references beginner-level topics 
without explaining it? More importantly, if you were already fully 
versed on sort descriptors, would it not be frustrating, time-
consuming, and annoying to have to fish through those details in every 
article that makes use of them?

> If anyone can offer tips about how to overcome this aspect of my 
> experience I would greatly appreciate it.


  If you want advice for overcoming your problem, the only advice 
anyone can really give is to widen your scope and read more of the 
documentation.

  For what it's worth, this is specific to Cocoa. I've run into this 
"problem" (interdependent concepts) in every language / API / 
complicated technology. It takes research, for which there is no 
substitute.

--
I.S.