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Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

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Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#381
It's unclear to me how this post made to the top when it references SwiftUI - a framework which is still in beta and shouldn't even be brought into discussion. On the other hand, UIKit is documented about ~90% which is an insane amount and this is what most of the iOS devs are using on a day-to-day basis.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driver development docs on macOS largely haven't been updated in 10+ years. I started doing macOS kernel stuff when Snow Leopard was the latest release, and the only documentation I can think of since then has been sample code for Audio Server Plugins (for writing new-style audio drivers) and headerdocs explaining the transition from IOUSB* to IOUSBHost* APIs. Any additional information has been buried in a bunch of…

I hope Apple credited you the DTS incidents back for something like that!

They have credited a bunch of DTS incidents back, but that normally only applies where they determine that they either:

* can't help you

* don't want to help you

TBH, compared to the person-hours required to write up the DTS incident in the first place and keep the conversation going, test out their responses, etc., the cost of the incident itself is minimal.

Let alone the cost of the times where I decide to go it alone and figure it out by trial & error or reverse engineering…

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#383
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not the only one. My most recent experience with Apple's documentation (regarding some iOS 13 API concern), left me with a sense of impending doom and hopelessness. After about 5 minutes I gave up and went back to playing the google/stackoverflow search game. I have become very addicted to the quality of Microsoft's documentation for things like .Net Core & C#, and have found it virtually impossible to tolera…

A better example would be: - Apple: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coreimage/cicolorc... - Microsoft: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/coreimage.cicolo...

And the sad thing is, that there is almost no added information in the Microsoft version except for some _documentation theater_.

I find Microsoft's documentation as unusable as Apple's, with the difference that nowadays I can hunt down the source code for dotnet core while Apple's source is still private.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#384
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only two examples he gives for this "a lot" is a completely new framework that was released about a month ago, and a tool that is, honestly, still in development and not part of normal development workflows for Apple platforms.

Official documentation may be more important for a framework that is new, especially if it's one that developers are being required or encouraged to switch to.

It is still in beta, and only runs on the newest OS versions. Nobody is required to switch to it, nor especially encouraged.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#386
post #203

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.

Sometimes Dougal, you can be status signalling simply by explaining how you’re more insightful and above all that normal person stuff, and look down upon it.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#387
post #383
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better example would be: - Apple: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coreimage/cicolorc... - Microsoft: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/coreimage.cicolo...

And the sad thing is, that there is almost no added information in the Microsoft version except for some _documentation theater_. I find Microsoft's documentation as unusable as Apple's, with the difference that nowadays I can hunt down the source code for dotnet core while Apple's source is still private.

Can you explain what you mean by this? I have never heard the term "documentation theater", yet it seems like you're using it pejoratively here. The Microsoft version has a summary of the intended purpose of the class, a brief code snippet showing what its use might look like, images demonstrating the output of using the class, and lists of all available constructors, properties, and methods along with a brief description of each. If this is "documentation theater", please sign me up for more.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#388
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the sad thing is, that there is almost no added information in the Microsoft version except for some _documentation theater_. I find Microsoft's documentation as unusable as Apple's, with the difference that nowadays I can hunt down the source code for dotnet core while Apple's source is still private.

Can you explain what you mean by this? I have never heard the term "documentation theater", yet it seems like you're using it pejoratively here. The Microsoft version has a summary of the intended purpose of the class, a brief code snippet showing what its use might look like, images demonstrating the output of using the class, and lists of all available constructors, properties, and methods along with a brief descri…

His point is that none of those things actually tell you about the class, it’s just theater. If you want to know what it really does, you need to look at the source code, that’s where the truth lies.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. FWIW, I don't see how "I tried to add documentation in my interview and my interviewer didn't like it" translates to "everyone at Apple hates documentation". > The MapKit programming guide is still in Objective-C, ol…

> FWIW, I don't see how "I tried to add documentation in my interview and my interviewer didn't like it" translates to "everyone at Apple hates documentation".

You're absolutely right and this could have been an argument made by trangon, instead of an assumption about bad intentions by the OP. The interview story is just an anecdote in the end.

> Objective-C guides are not inherently old and outdated.

I agree in parts, they're not outdated in terms of facts present (although I wonder if MapKit didn't have any changes since October 2016). What I meant is outdated in a sense that Apple is pushing Swift but doesn't provide a programming guide in that language for this particular topic. Still supports my point of Apple having problems with documenting their APIs. SwiftUI is another example.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm extremely comfortable reading documentation for a very wide variety of platforms, languages, etc. (The first software I ever wrote was Fortran via `gfortran`. Trial by fire!) It's not just me. This is just straight-up absent : https://nooverviewavailable.com/swiftui/ As I noted in the post, I'm getting by anyway … but it's more work than it needs to be, and more work/worse state of docs than other ecosystems I've…

My comment wasn't about your comfort level. It was about comparing your experience 4 months in, to your experience 4 years in, anecdotally .

Erm, yes. Any possible comparison anyone could do of their own experiences would by definition be anecdotal.

I also know exactly what my first 4 months in other ecosystems were like. Including picking up Fortran! That was rough! :)

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