Development has a nice helper concept that leaves the SHELL OF AN OBJECT around after it is removed. That lets there be something there to respond if you reference it again. That's a good idea.
Apple has a tendency to have a "fun" names. You would never see windows name something NSZombies.
Now, how to make that into a t-shirt. Hmmmmm.
At least they used to. Microsoft changes marketing names of things all the time. Trouble is that the more I explore Mac stuff, the more this minor help feature seems to go the way of the dodo.
I first noticed it navigating around an apple store on the web. The links just didn't seem to pop up at you. Then, when I installed iTunes on my PC, I was looking for the PAUSE button for some downloads from the free SDK lessons. You cannot tell that's a button!
I mean, the color doesn't change, the size, the cursor icon remains without response. I found myself hovering and hoping for a tag - hover help that is - a little help - moving parts.
The next thing you know I'm asking myself the big question: When I press this, will it pause it, try to play it or some thing that I can not guess yet?
See if Cocoa or Objective-c has this capacity. Maybe it's just a cultural thing.
Was it really a joke? Think about it.
Did a lot of roaming around looking to validate choices on how to learn this stuff as quickly as possible, without missing something vital. There is a lot of great information on the developer center from Apple, if you are a member (free), you can get at it (more free).
Cocoa and Objective-C book is awesome. Apparently the entire design of Cocoa is promoting the Model-Viewer-Controller ideas very strongly. Although there are apparently ways to paint yourself in a corner, I would think that is always the case if you look hard enough, or don't look hard enough for that matter.
Found an Apple PDF reference for enterprise deployment. Looks like a big corporation doesn't need to jailbreak the phones to keep their in-house applications in-house. That's nice. Wonder what kind of hardware we will need there?
At least I know what jailbreaking is now ...
Got a lesson this morning from a co-worker on Macs in general. They got a bunch of 'G' stuff but its already old hat. The new monsters are all Intel-based (hence the 'i' prefix) machines and this is required for iPad/iPhone development. Guess I haven't strayed that far from the path of light and goodness.
Conference attendance is official. Got signed up for a cool $1000 of the companies cash. Best part is MysteryPerson from the other group is going with - awesome developer! Only the best can happen now.
Out to the bookstore on lunch. Found a couple of things at Barnes & Noble (see refs) that look promising. The goal here is to figure out what it is that I don't know, then rework from there.
Later this evening, I find out that I am getting a new iMacBook Pro and iPhone ordered for me today. I saw the specs (i7 core 17inch with a SSD). Should be pretty fun.
I feel like a kid in a candy store
But not in this case. Apparently all this Mac stuff is built on Objective C and something called the Cocoa Dev system for iPad/iPhone.
Note to self: marketing 'e' prefixes are 'i' in the Mac world. ?
Signed up as an Apple Developer to start. I figure this will give me a place to figure out what I don't know; because right now I don't know what I don't know. About the worst position you can be in for any endeavor but I figure if you can admit it, recognize it, then you can move on.
hope this really does happen
Today the boss comes in and asks if I would be willing to go to a conference to grep some information on new technologies we need to work with soon. Turns out its an iPhone application. We are and always have been a Windows shop. I've been here almost eight years and we regularly laugh at anyone that even talks about alternatives.
But I secretly always wanted to know about the "other side" so I took the assignment. I don't actually know much about them but I'm not coding. I just need to figure out how to take the developer's code, build it on demand and over-night, provide QA services to validate it, set up and run automation testing and finally deploy new and updated releases to the users (ALL VPS!). Sounds like a nice challenge.
I'm getting fired up about this!
