Apple Launches Reference Library 46
andy55 writes "If you thought Apple's online dev resources were already the best out there, they just got better. Apple has announced the launch of their new ADC Reference Library. Named features are: powerful search options, added navigation, 'Getting Started; docs on key technologies, and a more consistent organization. Impressively, the first search I ran in their search engine on a painful Mach-O dev issue I've been fighting for the last week turned up the key obscure tech info I needed!"
Meanwhile, skrysakj writes "Apple has launched a new Reference Library. I always thought their help/references for Developers was spotty (either non-existent or dead on) so this should be a welcome change."
Re:Paranoid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Paranoid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Paranoid (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh please. Who exactly will benefit, and how?
Go read up on the history of HyperCard, yo. Plenty of people benefited from the use of it, and many are still benefiting today.
Re:Paranoid (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, if anything Apple has gotten more free with its documentation. It used to be that Apple sold huge tomes called "Inside Macintosh" which described the inner workings and APIs of the Mac. There were at least 2 dozen of these books which covered every inch of programming on a Mac, gathered by topic. Each of these books would run $35 or so. You didn't need every one of them but it really helped to have about a half dozen of the key ones, so figure about $35 * 6 = around $200.
As Apple entered its current Mac OS X stage it began to take on more and more of a open-source flavor. Documentation was being distributed along with free programming tools, prices were dropping to become a registered developer, a free type of registered developer appeared, code was being released back to the community with minimal licenses, etc.
Right now it is the best time to be an Apple developer. It literally costs you nothing to become an official registered developer. If you do pay for one of the higher levels of being a registered developer you get significant price breaks and free stuff which pays many timed over for the price of registering. Students can pay a pittance of $100 and they get way over $500 in benefits. Apple staff is very responsive on their mailing lists and there are a ton of new developers out there who share your enthusiasm and who are willing to help.
As a worst case, even if Apple does change its policy (not likely because they WANT people to program for the Mac) and starts charging for programming documentation it is unlikely that the free programming information out there will disappear. That's because EVERY version of Mac OS sold in the last few years includes this free documentation. There's no way that Apple will change its APIs fast enough to make that documentation obsolete for at least a decade. Yeah a command here or there might get depreciated but Apple takes their time in truly tossing anything out. You will be fairly safe using old, free documentation that you can get freely off a Mac OS X cd from a few years past.
Re:Paranoid (Score:3, Insightful)
But then they stopped putting out Inside Macintosh. Everything started being documented in technotes and hard-to-find articles.
But it looks like Apple's definitely got their act together as far as content goes. Now all they need is a better look-up system in their mailing list archives.
Re:Paranoid (Score:5, Insightful)
I started a new job in January and my supervisor is a big AppleScript guy. From that, I've started learning AppleScript Studio in Xcode. There isn't much I can't do with AppleScript and shell scripts, and that's led me to write my own little apps in the past month or so.
Every user has the power to make his own software. How cool is that?
Re:Paranoid (Score:5, Insightful)
Every user which develops applications is a good thing. Talent is only 20% of art. The other 80% come from experience and practice. Nobody is a born coder. Some of the greatest developers in the industry started their career with such development tools. And it took them years of coding to get them where they are today.
Every new application is an argument for using that particular platform even if it is only a mediocre program.
A Linus Torvalds had 12 years working on the linux kernel-code to take him from an apprentice student programmer to the wizkid he is today.
Without gcc and similar free development tools we would never have had something like the current BSDs, Linux, Apache, Gnome, KDE you name it.
Even Microsoft releases the basic development tools for free. (Platform SDK)
This benefits everybody. Without free development tools we would have to pay premium for even the simplest programs and would be very limited in choice because only those who could afford the $1500 Visual Studio or the $3000 IBM Tools could develop applications.
"It is sad that programming is becoming yet another wannabe art and is rather ceasing to be an art altogether."
Elitist bullshit. Even Dali or Picasso had to do mundane tasks to earn their living and it took them decades to perfect their art.
Art lies in the eye of the beholder. The more people are practicing it the more will come out of it. The beginners can learn from the professionals (reading code for example) and the professionals have enough competition so that they are not likely to grow content with what they have accomplished already.
This is what is driving on every art form. Those who would like to limit it are the ones who fear to lose their renown, fame or status.
p.s. i apologise in advance for the spelling and grammar mistakes i am not a native speaker.
Re:good for beginners (Score:1, Insightful)
Add the fact that there isn't a decent editor like vim or emacs. I just double-checked Windows 2003 Server command line, and the about box says "MS-Dos Editor Version 2.0.026 (C) 1995". They haven't updated the QBasic pad, in an operating system that's supposedly cutting-edge.
No, I'm sorry. It cannot.
Re:Paranoid (Score:3, Insightful)
It didn't USED to be spotty... (Score:4, Insightful)
From 1984 through, say, 1998, Apple documentation was some of the best documentation I've ever used. (And I've used the VAX/VMS documentation that came in thirty-or-so China-red binders). Apple documentation accurate, well-written, well-organized, thorough, complete, and written in a down-to-earth developer-to-developer tone of voice.
Meanwhile, my colleagues developing for Windows were struggling with DDK components that were "documented" only with sample code, getting hints and tips from magazine articles, or reading "official" MS material that mixed an enormous amount of propaganda with the technical information.
Unfortunately, one of the things that appears to have come in with the NeXT subculture is a more casual attitude toward documentation. Perhaps they were too much in a hurry to release OS X (did I actually say perhaps?) Perhaps it's a not-so-benign influence of open-source development. I still find all too often that the header files are as good or better documentation than the documents.
OS X documentation is much, much better than it was, say, a year-and-a-half ago, so hopefully this is being addressed. But it really is a pity to journey from superb documentation to inadequate documentation, then climb slowly up to sorta-OK documentation.
The release of the hardbound Inside Mac volumes 1-3 had a tremendous impact within a certain now-defunct Fortune 500 minicomputer company. One director was running around slamming it down on peoples' desks and saying "Look at this! What does it say about Apple? They expect their software to be around forever!"