Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#281

Post by edw » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 7:11 PM UTC

hesarenu wrote: post #252

edw wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am totally with you regarding React: I've been distracted from my current SwiftUI project writing a React "teaser" version because it's so much easier to make progress in React, in large part thanks to the strong documentation. But even there, there are nontrivial problems. Look at the front page of reactjs.org: all of the examples use component classes. The tutorial introduces component classes without mentioning…

Component classes are not legacy, you can still use them. Functional are better in most cases.

You're splitting hairs and all but disagreeing with yourself in your own comment. Notice that I did not say "deprecated." The React Way is to not obsolete working code. Component functions are preferred and better and recommended. Class based component code should indeed be considered legacy code.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#282

Post by derefr » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 7:16 PM UTC

fnord123 wrote: post #262

SkyPuncher wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>You need to know the principle of a BST. Unless you're building a database working in a unique scenario, actually traversing it going to be done by some library. Looks like you got stung by the confusion between binary tree and B-Tree (and B+Trees). 1. The b in btree isn't binary. 2. Databases use B+Trees. 3. binary trees are almost worthless.

> 3. binary trees are almost worthless.

Interval trees reduce to Binary Search Trees when the nodes can't overlap. Most markup DOMs (in browsers, WYSIWYG editors, etc.) are held as an Interval-tree ADT which is actually implemented by a BST.

Also, Red-Black trees specifically are used in many database clients to implement an in-memory write-back cache of a database table, as the combination of performance requirements for flushing batches of writes to the DB, and reading back arbitrary keys that were written to the cache, make these BSTs nearly optimal for this use-case.

But yes, DBMSes themselves don't tend to use BSTs for much. Maybe as a query-plan-AST term-rewriting-phase ADT.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#283

Post by tonyjstark » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 7:17 PM UTC

trangon wrote: post #225

phendrenad2 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

Leetcode is just a game that you have to play to get into these companies. I suspect that OP had other interview rounds that went poorly. There is always a chance of getting a bad interviewer, but it doesn’t often happen in every single round.

I never understand this kind of comments. Is there a reason why OP should have bad intentions when writing the comment? The article is about Apple not providing sufficient documentation for their APIs and OP wrote about a experience that supports reasoning why Apple seemingly is not focusing on delivering documentation.

So how about giving reasonable arguments why OP probably had rounds that went poorly and is salty about it and why Apple has a wonderful software developer culture that focuses on quality instead of assumptions? Apple has problems with documentation since years, one example I had to deal with recently: their maps API. The MapKit programming guide is still in Objective-C, old design and outdated.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#284

Post by anchpop » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 7:20 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #261

wolco wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair but these companies also claim it is hard to find developers and more hb1's are needed. Hard to have it both ways. I feel like there should be a course for passing these exams run by ex-FAANG employees. Perhaps a bootcamp.

1. There are plenty of websites which will let you grind away at FAANG interview questions. If you have a few weeks of time to waste on gaming this signal, you'll be coding self-balancing trees in your sleep... And have no issues with passing an interview for at least one of these firms. Depending on your current salary, this may be a much better ROI than your entire undergrad degree was. 2. Some of these firms occas…

> There are plenty of websites which will let you grind away at FAANG interview questions. If you have a few weeks of time to waste on gaming this signal, you'll be coding self-balancing trees in your sleep.

I'd like to practice this, any recommendations?

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#285

Post by wolco » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

dbt00 wrote: post #195

onion2k wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even worse than that really. Most of these white board tests seem to be "Have you revised this specific algorithm for your interview, and found the specific implementation we're looking for?" If you have, great. If not, rejected. As a method of finding good candidates it feels like it must suck but so few companies are willing to actually measure their hiring effectiveness (and be open about it).

> Most of these white board tests seem to be "Have you revised this specific algorithm for your interview, and found the specific implementation we're looking for?" If you have, great. If not, rejected. As someone who has given hundreds (maybe thousands) and received dozens of these types of interviews, it's really not. Generally speaking I'm looking for at least 2-3 of these abilities, depending on which question I'…

It feels like we test for one thing when hiring but then ask the employee to do something else after getting hired.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#286

Post by WAHa_06x36 » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

escape_goat wrote: post #30

macinjosh wrote: post #4

I am sure all the documentation this guy has ever written has been 100% perfect. /s Calling out other people's work as 'garbage' is pretty shameful. In my experience Apple's documentation is some of the best around. They have sample projects showing you how APIs work, good integration into their IDE, and lots of talks on video about their APIs given by the very engineers that built the thing. Not even to mention thei…

I'm sure it hasn't been perfect either, but "I write better developer documentation than the large software corporation Apple" wasn't the focus of his complaint. Specifically, he claims: that large portions of the Swift user interface API are entirely undocumented; that he was unable understand the full capabilities and limitations of the package manager through reference to its documentation; that he finds himself f…

SwiftUI is not "large portions of the Swift user interface API". SwiftUI is a brand new API, still in beta, released during the last month.

The actual, in-production APIs are documented.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#287

Post by 52-6F-62 » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

revscat wrote: post #275

52-6F-62 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. As much as I appreciate their responsiveness on Twitter, it doesn't much help those of us who are not on Twitter. (Tangential rant: I dislike how it seems like the most effective path for anything resembling customer service from many companies is to call them out on Twitter alone. I've written emails to some companies over months to no single response—but to look on their Twitter you'll see an answer within ho…

I get what you're saying -- that companies should be internally driven to address concerns such as yours -- but I'm starting to shift away from that thinking. We're social apes. We evolved in groups, and respond to group pressures. Responding to public shaming is perhaps a more natural state of things than what we tend to expect. It certainly seems more effective.

It's the dirty road, though. In capitalism the market is supposed to correct for bad acting like poor customer service.

Instead it's a public haranguing like putting someone in the stocks, except in exponentially less response time.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#288

Post by WAHa_06x36 » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 7:31 PM UTC

chriskrycho wrote: post #71

DagAgren wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is part of the Swift project, but it is not really part of the Apple development ecosystem. It might at some point be, but it is not now, and it is a small side project. And it is not, in general, used when developing for the ecosystem. And you may feel that way about docs, but it is not reasonable to find one single rushed release, and use that as an argument against the entire ecosystem. That is not a reasonable…

This isn't one single rushed release. This is perhaps the worst example at present, but it's not particularly unusual: https://nooverviewavailable.com

That looks like a pretty good state to me. Not perfect, but nothing is. Certainly not cause for such an inflammatory article.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#289

Post by uwuhn » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

pfranz wrote: post #228

phendrenad2 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

I was at a place that had been around for 20+ years, but needed to grow fairly quickly. So they systematized their hiring process. The focus was on generalists both because a lot of their technology was written in-house (it predated the commodity, off the shelf, solutions). It used the theory of the off the shelf solutions, but often had a different name or a slight difference. But the major reason they wanted genera…

Do any specific interviews come to mind? I'm curious what sort of questions you asked, since I am a specialist :)

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#290

Post by rayascott » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

thfc06 wrote: post #267

This is exactly what I've been dealing with for the last month, as I attempt to completely re-write an Electron app in Swift. The part about scavenging through WWDC transcripts particularly resonated with me. Coming from JS ecosystem, I was also shocked at how few google results (even stack overflow) would come up for issues I was running into.

What annoys me about Apple, is that clearly their time is valuable to them, but us paying Developer Program members are forced to waste days worth of business hours hunting through their appallingly maintained "documentation". And that really pisses me off.