Re: Guidance for Cocoa's steep learning curve

FROM : Ilan Volow
DATE : Fri May 16 08:55:26 2008

The NSTableView is based on the MVC paradigm which has existed for 
quite some time. A method you implement gets called to return the 
value for each cell (more or less). So if you have a table with forty 
cells, then at least 40 times the method will get called. After I 
started looking at it this way, the whole NSTableView thing clicked.

The NSTableView docs aren't too bad. Trust me, you haven't hit the 
depths of Apple documentation suckage until you hit current 
documentation that refers you to documentation written a zillion years 
ago where all the example code is in Pascal.

-- Ilan

On May 15, 2008, at 9:33 PM, Joseph Ayers wrote:

> I think what is missing here is some history. I'm working on an APP 
> to make a series of arbitrary measurements
> (i.e. positions, distances angles, shapes) on each of the frames of 
> a movie. On some movies I might want to make
> three position measurements, on others I want to make 4 angle 
> measurements, etc. Dealing with the movie and
> indeed Firewire controlled acquistion and mouse controlled 
> measurement has been rather cool. What is absolutely
> baffling is dealing with NSTableView. The documentation absolutely 
> sucks. How does one map table rows and columns
> on NSMutableArrays and NSMutableDictionaries. How does one map the 
> Rows and Columns of a "dataSource"
> on a NSTable view?  What about records and fields.  Imagine growing 
> up on Excel and then dealing with NSTableView.
> How did this Cocoa NSTableView architecture evolve. Where is the 
> history?
>
> ja
>
> mmalc crawford wrote:

>>
>> On May 15, 2008, at 3:39 PM, Bruno Sanz Marino wrote:
>>

>>> The really first step with a language is allways to write code and 
>>> forget the "GUI" and the "buttons and windows" .....Then when you 
>>> know what are you doing and you can do what you want to do (like a 
>>> painter), you can think in the "GUIS" and all these stuff
>>>

>> I think this is a crucial point.
>>
>> My guidance for Cocoa's alleged "steep learning curve" is, "Why are 
>> you making it steep?"
>> It reminds me of the clichéd joke: "Doctor, it hurts when I do 
>> this."  "Well, don't do that."
>>
>> There are plenty of ways to ease yourself it Cocoa development, 
>> notably just as Bruno suggests here by ignoring the GUI and 
>> learning about the Objective-C language an the basics of the 
>> Foundation Frameworks.
>>
>> Yet week in, week out, we see people who ignore the advice given in 
>> the documentation and try to learn Objective-C, Foundation, 
>> Interface Builder, *and* Cocoa bindings and Core Data all in one 
>> go.  It's no wonder it's daunting.
>>
>> mmalc
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>> Cocoa-dev mailing list (<email_removed>)
>>
>> Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list.
>> Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com
>>
>> Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
>> http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/<email_removed>
>>
>> This email sent to <email_removed>
>>

>
> --
> Joseph Ayers, Professor
> Department of Biology and
> Marine Science Center
> Northeastern University
> East Point, Nahant, MA 01908
> Phone (781) 581-7370 x309(office), x335(lab)
> Cellular (617) 755-7523, FAX: (781) 581-6076 Boston Office 444RI, 
> (617) 373-4044
> eMail: <email_removed>
> http://www.neurotechnology.neu.edu/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Cocoa-dev mailing list (<email_removed>)
>
> Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list.
> Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com
>
> Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
> http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/<email_removed>
>
> This email sent to <email_removed>