Live data from Hacker News

Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

v4.chriskrycho.com

391–400 of 400 posts

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I disagree. The images showed me what it does, or at least gave me an idea what it would do.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#393

I actually agree whole heartedly with the intentions behind this article. I find Apples documentation to be incomplete and not nearly as detailed as I think it should be. I think that personally it’s not all that well organized either. My minimum standard for good documentation has and always been Python’s[0]. While no documentation is perfect, I think they mostly get it right by providing good explanations and examp…

I’ve also found links in Microsoft’s documentation that often link to things they have already marked as outdated or not going to be updated IMHO that's usually a good sign --- that the API you're using is not ever going to change again. MS values stability and backwards compatibility far more than others (and in the past, that was even better) so "not going to be updated" means "this has become mature and stable, do…

Then why mark the documents as deprecated?

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#394

I actually agree whole heartedly with the intentions behind this article. I find Apples documentation to be incomplete and not nearly as detailed as I think it should be. I think that personally it’s not all that well organized either. My minimum standard for good documentation has and always been Python’s[0]. While no documentation is perfect, I think they mostly get it right by providing good explanations and examp…

For things like those broken links on docs.microsoft.com, you can file an issue (using the on page feedback tool, which generates github issues), or even send a pull request to the docs: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/xamarin-docs

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#396

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…

At some point, especially after working there briefly, I came to the conclusion that Apple leans more heavily as a hardware company. They do great hardware integration and great work with connectivity and device ecosystems. However they are not a software company, and are not too keen on things being DX (developer experience) oriented.

> However they are not a software company

The stellar user interface that preceded industrial design dazzle was pure software. Apple does many things, and one of them is developing software. It is possibly fair to say they are no longer doing software as well as in the past.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#397
post #195

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'…

I had a high level google interviewer throw a tantrum because I didn't know the exact STL threading mechanism when I specifically said I could interview in elixir because it's my day job or C (not c/c++) because I also do embedded assembly. Like dude I can tell you the giest of how to handle concurrency management using multiple paradigms the exact library call on a specific language is just an implementation detail.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#398
post #205

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…

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.

They didn't look at the portfolio.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also found links in Microsoft’s documentation that often link to things they have already marked as outdated or not going to be updated IMHO that's usually a good sign --- that the API you're using is not ever going to change again. MS values stability and backwards compatibility far more than others (and in the past, that was even better) so "not going to be updated" means "this has become mature and stable, do…

Then why mark the documents as deprecated?

MS uses "deprecated" as a marketing term, but their backwards-compatibility commitment normally do not allow them to actually break things this way.

Re: Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

#400

I’m surprised no one has complained about the lack of documentation for Safari, especially on iOS where special behavior is done for mobile. The best I could find from Apple was several years old, and clearly not up to date as the behavior no longer functioned as documented.

There is this: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap... . Not sure if this has what you'd need.

Came across that, but it's terribly outdated. Bottom of the page even says last updated in 2016.
Post reply on HN