carter@sloth.gatech.edu (Carter Bullard) (01/30/89)
The problem that I have with the notion of not having source code
is; how am I going to make a significant contribution to the, lets say,
Objective C class definitions, if I don't have access to the existing
class methods?
I learned how to program in C by looking at Unix source code. Am I
going to learn how to program in Objective C using StepStone's five
minute tutorial? If I had NeXT's source code for the existing classes,
however, I could probably be producing usable code in a short period
of time.
It is going to be hard to make this box a sound development system
without access to the internals. Any other situation reduces us all
to the lowest of all common denominators, just users.
Carter Bullard
School of Information & Computer Science, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,rutgers}!gatech!carter
Internet: carter@gatech.edujohnl@ima.ima.isc.com (John R. Levine) (01/31/89)
In article <17848@gatech.edu> carter@sloth.gatech.edu (Carter Bullard) writes: >The problem that I have with the notion of not having source code >is; how am I going to make a significant contribution to the, lets say, >Objective C class definitions, if I don't have access to the existing >class methods? They ship a variety of example programs that I found quite helpful to figure out how to do stuff. The documentation for the Application kit classes is quite complete, enough so that I've had little trouble writing my own subclasses of View and Application. -- John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869 { bbn | spdcc | decvax | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something You're never too old to have a happy childhood.
danielg@earl.med.unc.edu (Daniel Gene Sinclair) (02/03/89)
In article <17848@gatech.edu> carter@sloth.gatech.edu (Carter Bullard) writes: >The problem that I have with the notion of not having source code [...] I realize the inanity (is that a word?) of the following questions, but I thought I'd ask. Firstly, can anyone recommend a good book for beginners that will explain things like Unix, operating systems, source code, and all of these things that I only have the faintest idea about? I have never taken any CS, and don't feel like going back to school (money and time :-). And, if any of you wants to flex his/her muscles, please explain in *simple* *layman's* terms what source code is for me. Answer by e-mail, or post. With unashamed ignorance, Daniel G. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | 'If you only knew how much I was holding danielg@med.unc.edu | back, you'd commend me.' - Spurgeon ================================================================================
bob@tinman.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) (02/03/89)
In article <374@uncmed.med.unc.edu> danielg@earl.med.unc.edu (Daniel Gene Sinclair) writes:
please explain in *simple* *layman's* terms what source code is for me.
If someone hands you a program that says "hello, world" you can run it
on the same type of computer that they compiled it on. If they hand
you a tape containing a file containing
main(){printf("helo, world\n");}
then you can compile that program on any type of machine you might
encounter with an appropriate compiler for the language. You might be
able to learn something about programming from looking at the text of
the program. And if the program has bugs (as it turns out this one
does) then you can fix them and recompile the program. Then it will
work right for you, for anyone else with whom you share your fixes,
and everyone else sooner-or-later if you give your fixes back to the
person who wrote the buggy version in the first place.