On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 8:09 AM, Steve Weller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On May 17, 2008, at 7:19 AM, Hamish Allan wrote: > >> On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 3:03 PM, colo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >>> F-Script [...] gives you the code to Create a window from scratch >>> and logically place the buttons on the window by coordinates. That >>> kind of "knowing" how to make a window without IB is priceless to me >>> imo. >> >> I know you're never going to believe us about this, but it would be >> much more valuable for you to stop fighting the Cocoa way and forget >> about constructing windows in code until you absolutely need to... >> >> Hamish > > Of course, but that is not what is going on here.
I have taught a lot of people how to code in Cocoa, and this sure looks like fighting the system to me. Much like when I was learning how to play a guitar, or how to solve physics problems, higher level understanding often follows sufficient practice in the basics. Going through the tutorials, or the hillegas book, or noodling around on your own all give practice in opening xcode, building projects, navigating code, and using IB. Understanding will come, but it is helped by having the basic actions of these tasks nailed down. Sure, you may start out robotically dragging/clicking and copying code without sufficient understanding, but different people will fail to understand different things. Each person evolves their own techniques to fill in those gaps. F-script is not a bad one, but arguing that rewriting whole books to use it as the only manipulation tool indicates that the OP is walking a bit off the beaten track. That is rarely the best way to learn a new thing, if only because you cut down the pool of people who can help you. > He's quite happy to walk across the floor, but knowing how the floor is > constructed adds enormously to his confidence of doing so. Don't forget this > is an unfamiliar building, a type of which he has not encountered before. Sure. That said, perhaps digging into how it is constructed could wait until after he has successfully built a few applications the way Cocoa apps are usually built. That gives a gut feel for how the actual process works, and helps make it clear just what part of the process is not working. We are not talking about decades of unrelenting practice - going through Aaron's book takes only a week or two, and once you have done it, the basics are pretty much nailed down. > It's a different learning and understanding style that cannot be dismissed > by calling it fighting. If he were to refuse to touch anything but the green > tiles and make bridges out of chairs and tables to sustain that, well that > would certainly be fighting. Trying to create windows, etc. without ever touching IB, which was the original hope, is most definitely fighting how Cocoa expects to be used. I do not believe I have written a single substantive Cocoa app without using IB at least a little bit. F-script is a great tool, and certainly worth using, but it is not a replacement for IB. Don't get me wrong - there is a lot of benefit to knowing how the system is built, and some views or window hierarchies require assembly in code. That is not my complaint - my complaint is that the OP seems very certain that doing the tutorials, the book, etc, will not help because he is not going to understand the material as a result of the work. I contend that spending the week or so needed to really absorb the material will give him the context needed to understand what is going on behind the scenes. Scottt _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) 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/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
