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Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

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Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#201

Post by phendrenad2 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #70

Some time ago, I was contacted by Apple to apply for a job. My code is insanely well-documented. I like to think that a lot of the inspiration for my code docs comes from Apple's open codebases. Their code is exceptionally well-documented. In any case, as is usual with all employers, these days, they completely ignored the focused, relevant links that I sent them to elements of my extensive portfolio of repos, and, i…

I used to think Google and Apple were making a poor choice by doing this kind of interview, but I wonder now if it gets the results they want: they want interchangeable cogs that don't stand out too much. They want known quantities. If you're "the documentation guy" or "the security-testing girl", you've wasted time learning skills they won't utilize, since they want you to be exactly like every other developer. If documentation and security are going to happen at the company, a dedicated team will be formed for that, with monthly reports on key metrics going up the chain to management. That's how big corporations work, from what I've seen.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#202

Post by lasermike026 »

If there is a problem with Apple documentation issue a bug report. I'm not from apple but I worked in their ecosystem for some time. When you experience real problems your manager or CTO might have to get in touch with a managing director. If you go to WWDC make sure you complain directly to the guys wearing the checkered shirts. They are the ones in change. The cool thing about WWDC is that you can communicate directly with Apple developers. They will even look at your code to help.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#203

Post by FpUser »

scarface74 wrote: post #188
FpUser wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...interest free 24 month loan Getting a loan to buy a friggin phone? It does look like a status symbol to me.

They were called “contracts with free phones” before. Why wouldn’t you break them up into payments if you can interest free? They don’t even show up on your credit report as a loan. They offer “loans” on $100 Android phones.

I'v always paid in full for my phones. No contract. Granted my phones are cheap as the only thing I care about them doing anything other then phone calls is off-line GPS software and cycling computer. My current $200 Canadian Redmi Note 5 does this just fine and has quite decent camera as well. Do not even have data plan on a friggin thing.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#204

Post by username90 »

jerf wrote: post #183
mmahemoff wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking the same questions also makes it easier to compare between candidates and the questions can become optimised over time to ensure they are fair and valid performance predictors. Also, it's never obvious how much someone contributed to their portfolio. Just being able to explain it doesn't mean you were the sole contributor, or the contributor at all, and it doesn't give a great indication of how you work or how…

"Asking the same questions also makes it easier to compare between candidates and the questions can become optimised over time to ensure they are fair and valid performance predictors." I've seen this claim getting bandied about a lot lately, but I'm increasingly less convinced. You receive 10 n-dimensional vectors of programming and engineering skill, aka "applicants". You take their dot product with a ten-dimension…

The most important aspect of an interview process is that it is easy to teach. It doesn't matter if you have enough insight if you can't transfer said insight to those who will be on the floor and interview. So no assumptions about common sense of the interviewer is allowed, because common sense isn't common.

So the only thing you really can do is ask objective questions or check technical skills. Thus the choice is not between hard skills or soft skills, but between hard skills and no skills because the soft part deteriorates extremely quickly and becomes essentially useless at scale.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#205

Post by lxe »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #127
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #70

Some time ago, I was contacted by Apple to apply for a job. My code is insanely well-documented. I like to think that a lot of the inspiration for my code docs comes from Apple's open codebases. Their code is exceptionally well-documented. In any case, as is usual with all employers, these days, they completely ignored the focused, relevant links that I sent them to elements of my extensive portfolio of repos, and, i…

> I'll make it clear that I'm NOT a fan of these. I am mediocre, at best, at them, as I don't come from a traditional CS background (I started as an EE). I come from a CS background and struggle with these too. The big problem I have is this performance stuff is often barely relevant to the position. You need to know the principle of a BST. Unless you're building a database working in a unique scenario, actually trav…

They already know your documentation style based on the portfolio. They are testing your grasp of language fundamentals and various features, and how you can use them to solve a simple and common problem.

Writing documentation headers in an interview setting should only happen if they explicitly state that you should write them, or after you ask the interviewer if you should be writing them.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#206

Post by eclipxe »

e40 wrote: post #169
mypalmike wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large companies tend to aim for standardization in the hiring process. They want apples to apples comparisons as much as possible, largely for legal reasons, but also for tracking metrics. Unfortunately, someone submitting high quality GitHub repo links doesn't fit a model where not many candidates are doing that.

And that process doesn't seem to be workout out too well, based on all the posts I see here.

Selection bias.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#207

Post by scarface74 »

FpUser wrote: post #203
scarface74 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were called “contracts with free phones” before. Why wouldn’t you break them up into payments if you can interest free? They don’t even show up on your credit report as a loan. They offer “loans” on $100 Android phones.

I'v always paid in full for my phones. No contract. Granted my phones are cheap as the only thing I care about them doing anything other then phone calls is off-line GPS software and cycling computer. My current $200 Canadian Redmi Note 5 does this just fine and has quite decent camera as well. Do not even have data plan on a friggin thing.

Well, you are in the minority. When discussing things in a public forum, isn’t it better to use longitudinal trends when we have them instead of anecdotes?

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#208

Post by AlanYx »

gdubs wrote: post #191
AlanYx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I haven't checked, but are things like the MIDI framework still badly documented in the Swift docs? Documentation for the entire audio stack has actually gotten quite a bit worse. Many references have been removed without new replacements being provided. In many cases, there are broken links in what little documentation remains. (For example, TN2274, which describes the USB audio stack is still around, but several o…

What makes it particularly hard is that the Core Audio folks are a C++ crowd, so they use a bunch of design patterns that don’t really make any intuitive sense if you’re familiar with the other Apple frameworks. Audio developers starting today are fortunate though because there’s AudioKit, which is the right choice for the vast majority of apps.

AudioKit is quite good, but it's a third-party solution that covers a fairly defined problem domain.

And while the AudioKit devs are among the most experienced Core Audio developers around, even they are frustrated by the lack of documentation. See, e.g., [1], where they say:

"The most important example of this is that we don’t really understand at present how to create AUs which have polymorphic input and output busses. [snip] This is fundamentally because the Apple documentation on how this is supposed to work is essentially non-existent. I undoubtedly leverages the fact that the input and output busses are KVO compliant, but this is about as much as we know. We will have to figure it out via experimentation."

[1] https://github.com/AudioKit/AudioKit/blob/master/docs/AudioU...

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#209

Post by mpweiher »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #13
chooseaname wrote: post #9

> Apple, if you want developers to love your platform — and you should, because good developers are your lifeblood — and if you don’t want them to flee for other platforms — and you should be worried about that, because the web is everywhere and Microsoft is coming for you — then you need to take this seriously. Adopt the mentality that has served other frameworks and languages so well: If it isn’t documented, it isn…

Look, this is just going to fall on deaf ears. Apple isn't listening. Their machine is output only. That's not really true. Apple is active on Twitter and actively reaches out to correct problems. For example, when I complained that their Xcode beta hangs when you open a large file, an Xcode dev reached out to me and asked for a repro case. https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1175197286349119490 (I'm not an Apple fa…

As far as I can tell, this is individual developers reaching out, possibly at risk violating company policy.

They do it anyway, and should be commended, but this isn't Apple per se.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#210

Post by jmull »

chriskrycho wrote: post #84
jmull wrote: post #67

The Swift language has excellent documentation. For SwiftUI, the WWDC presentations are essential, IMO, for the high-level stuff. There is basic reference documentation, but there's no way to put it all together without a high-level understanding. It follows the patterns of some other frameworks so depending on your experience you may be able to get by without the WWDC presentations, but I'd still watch them or at le…

Noted the first two bits in the post . Did you read it? :) As far as SPM goes: they've got it built into Xcode at this point, and are doing WWDC sessions about it. At what point does it become "official" enough to warrant "This needs to be better" criticism? As far as "useless internet karma points": I couldn't care less. History has shown that when people make enough stink about this kind of thing, it sometimes—rare…

> Noted the first two bits in the post. Did you read it? :) Yes, I did read. Come on. However, you're not quite right. You called Swift "relatively well covered". I disagree with that and consider the Swift language documentation excellent. That's not really the same thing.

I did see you mention the WWDC videos, but I think you mischaracterize the role of them. My point is, people who are interested in learning SwiftUI should start with the WWDC videos, not feel "reduced to searching through" them.

Anyway, if you want to work on top of something solid, forget about SwiftUI. It's very raw and changing fast. I wouldn't rewrite on top of it now unless you aren't planning to release for at least a year. And you might end up throwing it all away anyway.

And shout all you want. I'm letting you know it's a bad look.

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