Thanks for reply Mr. Duncan, but it doesn't matter how you spin it. The title of the para. reads: "A complete Colored Pattern Painting Function" followed by: "The function incorporates all the steps discussed previously" - and this is what I expected.
If the piece meal approach was taken to explanation, then a complete working example would be very helpful. I strongly believe that I'm not alone who finds playing with the working code the best, fastest and most rewarding way of learning. I hate as much reading instructions stretching over several pages, especially on the computer screen, as I hate reading ubiquitous programming soap-opera books, trying to teach by developing a single project over few hundred pages, often with missing information (D. Shaffer and few ADC books I own) and examples which don't work, often because the author didn't do any proof reading. As to the forums like this one, all questions should be answered. If the owner and moderators care about keeping it alive, they could appoint enough deputies to handle the workload. I'm also curious, but do not understand motivation of those who waste time with comments like: "it should be obvious//clear", especially if the poster says he's a newbie. This may be an instant ego massage therapy for the respondent, but for the poster it is unhelpful. My expectation was that someone would copy&paste the lines from the e-manual into a complete working example without error(s). This wouldn't take much more effort then what was written and would definitely earn him a big "Thank you" note. Finally, please do not construe the above as a request for such an effort. I printed the pages and am reading. Once again thank you and Merry Xmas. Jack. On 2010-12-23, at 6:01 PM, David Duncan wrote: > On Dec 23, 2010, at 1:09 PM, FF wrote: > >> On 2010-12-23, at 12:56 PM, David Duncan wrote: >> >>> On Dec 23, 2010, at 5:58 AM, FF wrote: >>> >>>> I copied this example from Apple docs. >>> >>> Generally the examples are there to show you how to use an API, not >>> necessarily to be complete standalone code. You shouldn't necessarily >>> expect doc examples to compile without doing extra work or cross >>> referencing with another example. >> >> I thought, naively, that examples and tutorials in the docs are also aimed >> at beginners and showing them working examples, which compile without >> hiccups, is the best way to speed up the learning process. > > > The examples are intended to demonstrate how the API works but have a greater > context. In particular the example you saw is but one of a few in the same > section describing different parts of the pattern creation. Listing 6-1 and > 6-2 also have critical parts of the code that you should understand before > being able to use listing 6-5. Because these listings are shown first, it is > expected that by the time you get to listing 6-5 that you understand the > parts that are being glazed over in that example – that is, you cannot just > jump to listing 6-5 and use it without having read the entire section > describing how patterns work. > > This isn't unlike a textbook on algorithms that expects you to have a > familiarity with data structures (either via earlier chapters or externally) > before you are able to understand how to perform operations on them. > -- > David Duncan _______________________________________________ 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 arch...@mail-archive.com
