Re: Why has the Metrowerks sign been taken down?

> I'd say the issue of building "robust, correct code" is a
> software engineering problem,
>
Do you think you can engineer software well without knowing
how the APIs and technologies you're using work and
interact, both within your own software and with the system
as a whole?

> not an Apple documentation problem.
>
I'd say you're just refusing to see what's clearly there
out in the open. Read on.

> For example, if you build software where UI language
> strings are constants in code, then you don't understand
> i18n, regardless of the target platform.
>
I never said or even suggested that not having access to good
documentation is the *only* source of problems in software or even the
#1 source. I only said it was a significant source, as in more than a
tiny percentage.

> Or if you do not properly take threading into account
> and then are unable to fully utilize multiple processors,
> you don't understand parallelization, regardless of the
> target platform.
>
Okay, let's consider this from another angle. I was just
recently converting some operations in my application from
cooperative threads to MPTasks, which are preemptive. I
understand the issues, but I also understand that in order
to ensure I only call thread-safe APIs from a preemptive
thread I have know which APIs are thread safe, and that's a
documentation issue. It really is a documentation issue
because there simply is no documentation describing the
thread safety of each toolbox API. It's addressed for some
APIs in the headers, but not for all. I had to post
questions to the carbon-dev list and get responses from
Apple engineers to get some of the answers I needed. That
shouldn't be necessary, and in practice too many people
just substitute assumptions for accurate information when
they don't know where to find the accurate information and
the boss is wanting this code done when he comes back from
lunch. I'm not going to argue that making assumptions is
good software engineering, but in the real world it's a lot
more likely when real answers aren't readily available.

> So on an so forth.
>
Yes, and so forth. There are lots of ways you can implement
something incorrectly, but still have it appear to work
when you don't understand the big picture. This touches on
another common source of problems in software, the belief
that you can produce robust software by writing lots of bad
code and then clean up the bugs later. This misguided
notion leads people to think it's okay to make assumptions,
because if the assumption is wrong, they'll find out in
testing. The flaw in this logic should be obvious, but it's
an approach that's far too common.

In any case, the fact that there lots of ways to screw up
your code doesn't invalidate what I said.

> Apple isn't a university, they are an OS, software and
> hardware vendor.
>
I never suggested otherwise. GM isn't a university either,
but they publish service manuals in a timely manner, and
those manuals don't teach you how to use your tools.

> I agree, publishing an API with no documentation is one
> thing; a problem Apple should fix.
>
Well gee, isn't that what I've been saying?

> And it can't hurt Apple to publish more examples,
> tutorials and further documentation. Sure, I'm all for
> it. But Apple's business is not holding a course in
> software engineering, and not teaching people with few
> engineering skills how to build complex software.
>
Thank goodness that isn't what I asked for. Now if I just
had a clue why you went off in this direction...

Larry

.

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