Category Archives: Culture of Programming

Zombie File Found

In users/library there is a folder with the name of my application that contains appname.storedata I have no idea why it’s there, and why it and *only* it is there, but that was the file that created the problem. However, … Continue reading

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How to make people give up programming

In which Apple breaks Core Data and leaves me with an invisible, undeletable data store that is messing up development and which cost me several hours of my life. Which I want back. Continue reading

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Xcode 4 samples

I found Apple’s samples, but not in a place I would have looked for them. Continue reading

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Sticky landing

Moving to Xcode 4 Continue reading

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Procedural vs. Gestalt: A declaration of intent

A firm comittment to providing an alternative conceptual approach to programming without comitting the mistake of assuming that what’s easy for me is ‘easy’. Continue reading

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The Book Not Reviewed

Marcus S. Zarra, Core Data I’m not reviewing it for three reasons: a), right now I can’t follow the examples very far because they are OS X.5 based, b), many of the items the book talks about are beyond the … Continue reading

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NSTextView and Core Data: why do we even ask?

Last year, when I first discovered CoreData, I experimented a little, but failed at binding an NSTextView to Core Data. Set Core Data Value[1827] *** NSRunLoop ignoring exception ‘Cannot create NSData from object newTag of class NSCFString’ that raised during … Continue reading

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Resources: A Friendlier Approach

Very brief review of http://andymatuschak.org/articles/2007/09/09/getting-started-with-cocoa-a-friendlier-approach/ which makes tremendous sense to me. Continue reading

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Cocoa Font Attribute Handling

In which the principles of handling font attributes remain oblique. Continue reading

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Tutorials: UR doing it right

Review of an article about using multiple nibs which is extremely well thought out. Continue reading

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Eschew Obfuscation

A brief brush with Obfuscated C Continue reading

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Resource: Defensive Programming

Review of an article about the philosophy of error handling (http://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/friday-qa-2009-10-09-defensive-programming.html) Continue reading

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Platform Independence: a critical view

An encounter with ported software. Continue reading

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The peril of hidden assumptions

About the problem with hidden assumptions (‘everybody does things in this way’ ‘everybody knows which operating system I’m talking about’) and ways of avoiding them Continue reading

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One aspect in which Cocoa is definitely not welcoming

Cocoa and cultural insensitivity. Continue reading

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A different view on learning to program

While looking around for articles on how to learn programming from a more abstract point of view, I came across the following article: Teach yourself programming in ten years. Go and read it, it’s thought-provoking. It’s nine years old, and … Continue reading

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Programming books as learning resource

With two exceptions – I’ve reviewed PHP Programming Solutions and shall review Cocoa Design Patterns later – the books I’ve seen on Cocoa/Objective C (and a number of other languages/topics) follow the same pattern. Introduction Taster Project Projects of Increasing … Continue reading

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Why accessibility matters

So there’s no easy way to learn how to program. [1] Why should you care? Particularly, why should you care if you’re one of the people for whom the process works? Personally, I feel that fairness and making things accessible … Continue reading

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Should programming be difficult?

When I’ve complained about the difficulties in learning how to program, one of the sentiments I heard repeatedly was ‘Programming is insanely difficult’ or words to that effect. Don’t expect to find it easy. I’m having difficulties accepting that. There … Continue reading

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