More Learning Than I Can Shake A Stick At
Out of the Tunnel: 1/30s f/6.3 ISO400 17mm -0.3ev, Canon 30D, Canon 17-55 f/2.8 IS
I've been a bad blogger -- not blogging. It has something to do with working harder, commuting further, and earning less, but it's also also tied up with my head being in continual input mode right now.
My temporary spot tech writing has morphed a little and I have another writing client for whom I'm doing a developer guide for cell phone middleware, so I seem to have become a technical writer without really meaning to (talking to others, this is how it apparently happens). Not only that, I'm hiring and managing other tech writers. Plus I continue to plug away at my Cocoa application in my "spare" time.
Let's see, I'm learning:
- Ruby
- Rails
- XML
- XForms
- XPath
- How to hire and manage tech writers, set up a tech pubs department, etc.
- How enormous chips are designed
- Big chunks of Cocoa
- Object-oriented programming
- The practical application of MVC
- PDF document structure
- The math of Bezier curves
Aperture: Apple's World Tour
Apple is starting a world tour for Aperture on March 5th. I plan on being at the San Francisco event on March 26th.
Photographing Light Trails
Digital Photography School shows how to shoot light trails. Some good advice on exposure, location, and other technique.
Learn Cocoa At Stanford
Stanford University has a Cocoa programming course. Information about the course, code, and the lecture slides are available online.
The Knowledgeable Novices Syndrome
Why is it impossible to find a tutorial on how to write a jpg or bmp etc file from an nsview? surely this is basic bread and butter programming. I have finally got through the IB barrier, I can delegate, i can use a timer, i can draw paths with mice but i cant get to write a b****@@@@ view to file! I've been googling for 4 days now, i have "programming with quartz" in front ofg me as i write, i have "cocoa programming for os x" i have "vermont recipes", i have wall to wall bookmarks to the cocoa drawing guide and yet i still cant find a single example to get me on my way!!!!!!
And everyone is telling me how wonderfully simple it all is.
AAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
I replied thus in the answer to this conundrum:It's not as if I havn't programmed most of my life!!
I write c, perl, pascal, prolog, cobaol, algol, fortran name ive programmed it. why can't i jkjlskadjlsajdljsdlsadflkahjsjdkalj
I have a name for this: it's the knowledgeable novices syndrome.
Ignorant novices feed fine by nibbling on the tasty morsels of code that Scott and other serve up. Ignorant experts need help with the unfamiliar utensils and spices, but are otherwise great code cooks. Knowledgeable experts make entire code meals table-side from raw reference materials in real time.
I'm one of these knowledgeable novices -- not as frustrated as the quoted poster -- but still encountering the same kind of issues.Knowledgeable novices are a challenge. They just want to make and eat a sandwich, but are having the darndest time doing it. Their knowledge is actually an encumberance, since they must unlearn what they think they know about sandwiches in order to make one the Cocoa way. There is no cutting of bread and spreading of peanut butter as they are sure there must be; just lamination, repitition, and bounding polygons applied to a couple of raw materials.
A Taste Of Cocoa
Scott Stevenson has gone to great lengths to post an introductory article on learning Cocoa. He describes it thus:
Send Scott money if you like what you see and he will spend more time on this endeavor. The message of this tutorial is that Cocoa is a very powerful tool. I'm interested to see what is next.