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Apple Launches Reference Library

Posted by pudge on from the woo-hoo dept.

andy55 writes "If you thought Apple's online dev resources were already the best out there, they just got better. Apple has announced the launch of their new ADC Reference Library. Named features are: powerful search options, added navigation, 'Getting Started; docs on key technologies, and a more consistent organization. Impressively, the first search I ran in their search engine on a painful Mach-O dev issue I've been fighting for the last week turned up the key obscure tech info I needed!" Meanwhile, skrysakj writes "Apple has launched a new Reference Library. I always thought their help/references for Developers was spotty (either non-existent or dead on) so this should be a welcome change."

4 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. Paranoid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Even though I have no prior reason for distrusting Apple, I get the feeling that eventually this information will be accessible to developers paying a premium rather than those of us who signed up for the free account.

    Anyone know if the ADC is going to replace the current /Developer/Documentation that comes with OSX? 6 years ago I used to sit and while away the hours reading man pages and HOWTOs in Linux, and since I bought a PowerBook I find I'm doing the same kind of thing with their docs which I have locally installed. The ADC (that's Apple Developer Connection, not the monitor connector ;) looks awesome, but a local, offline copy would be even better.

    I guess I could always buy a printer...

    1. Re:Paranoid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      after looking at the way the directory is set up, maybe you could try wget

  2. good for beginners by bodrell · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Apple has done everything in their power to make developing software for OS X as easy as possible. There's the tutorial for the "Currency Exchanger" program, to get started with Project Builder, and there is always to option to throw together a shell script if the whole build process is too scary.

    I don't know shit about programming, but I'm learning. And having a bash shell, with actually useful commands, is really helpful to that goal. So many people don't understand the appeal of a command line, or think that you have to pick a nice GUI or a nice CLI, but that's bullshit. Someone actually asked why I would care about the GUI if I spend so much time with the command line. It seems obvious to me--I can carry on everyday operations with apps familiar to me, but can craft more and more complex helper apps/scripts in my free time. Much simpler than rebooting into Linux when I feel like experimenting, then getting frustrated that I can't burn a CD because the procedure is too complex and having to reboot into a more idiot-proof OS. I welcome any enhancement that makes development easier for the ignorant (like me), and avoids rebooting.

    Oh, and I don't want to hear anyone try to compare Windows' cmd.exe with a bash shell. I do use the Windows command line, but it's a total cripple compared to any UNIX shell. Sure there's Cygwin and Mingwin (or something like that), but they aren't very integrated.

    --
    Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
  3. Things I miss. by BibelBiber · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Some of the things I miss from ADC is that documentation updates that seem to be on a regular basis are not downloadable. I don't have access to the net all the time I develop so it would be nice to have it completely offline. As well a search function would be nice. I have it aliased in my apache so a simple php search would be convenient.