[deleted]
But there is no clear specific conceptual reason (that I know of) why
a list of these connections could not be made more user-editable.
What's more, this makes documenting simple code examples much harder,
as the drags all need to be documented in a necessarily less-rigourous
way (and possibly compounded by IB changing over the years).
This is a common complaint that has been made since at least 1989, and
I agree with it.
Here is the complaint in 1994
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.next.programmer/browse_thread/thread/66b55d8b2efb30e7/690f391ee5091f39?lnk=st&q=#690f391ee5091f39
Here is an announcement for a tool to document nib files:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.next.announce/browse_thread/thread/77778a1fddf192c/028a209f4e0da4fd?lnk=st&q=#028a209f4e0da4fd
Here is another announcement for another nib connection documenting
tool: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.next.announce/browse_thread/thread/91001fc2e11173d4/a8a30e3763fd0250?lnk=st&q=#a8a30e3763fd0250
Here is the complaint in 1991:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.next/browse_thread/thread/34c455a3a0329b4/b94d58ea2af6a909?lnk=st&q=#b94d58ea2af6a909
On a related note, it's been said (I'm paraphrasing) that the dragging
connections is doing really cool useful stuff under the hood for me;
I'm guessing that after reading all the conceptual docs and some more
detailed info I might understand how to do it in code... but why is
there such a disconnect between the textual and graphical approaches?
Or you could read some posts in this very forum from 7 days ago:
http://www.cocoabuilder.com/archive/message/cocoa/2008/5/15/206771
http://www.cocoabuilder.com/archive/message/cocoa/2008/5/15/206813
But have no fear, I'm loving developing using Cocoa :) - I just can't
stand by and not add my agreement on the "room for improvement" and
"support different development approaches" issues.
There is always room for improvement in everything.
I don't claim that text is superior for everyone - but for me it is of
value.
PS what's inferior about writing code? (I am curious as to whether
dragging connections is an accessibility for blind Cocoa
developers ...)
Every line of code is a potential bug. Every line of code has to be
maintained and has a life cycle cost. The only way that the software
development community will ever increase developer productivity is by
accomplishing more work with each new line of code. Object re-use is
the primary way that Cocoa and other frameworks reduce the number of
new lines that have to be written for each application. The use of
data files including .nib files instead of code is another way to
reduce the number of lines of code needed for each new application.
Data files should almost always be preferred over lines of code even
when those lines of code are a declarative language specifying a user
interface.
I like the fact that IB produces data files. I like the fact that the
data files consist of an archived graph of interconnected encoded
objects. I just wish the data file format was more accessible and
useful for both documenting the contents of the nib and enabling text
based editing of the nib. The xib files are a big step in the right
direction, but not good enough. Everything can always be improved.
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