Re: Documentation

[David Ayers]

Alexander Malmberg wrote:

> What I'm looking for is detailed specifications of exactly how different
> classes are supposed to work, including how they're supposed to work
> with other classes, what all the different options really mean
> everywhere, in what order things are supposed to be done, and things
> like that (or statements that something is implementation-/un-defined).
> Since GNUstep seems to be neither exactly OpenStep nor Cocoa, I guess
> you could call this the GNUstep specification.
I very much agree! I also believe the OPENSTEP spec is very 
"underdefined" and that the Apple docs and release notes aren't all that 
bad, yet they don't suffice. For example the text system, which is 
supposed to support subclassing of NSCell's and NSText classes 
extensively isn't defined well enough to actually create clean classes 
that make use of setUpFieldEditorAttributes:, as the state of the field 
editor comes into play for it standard attribute setting methods, which 
trigger notifications and the like.

> So I guess what I want is a complete and sufficiently detailed GNUstep
> specification (from a developer pov; implementation notes wouldn't
> belong there). I realize that it'd take time to completely write such a
> thing, and it wouldn't be fully static, but I think it'd be very useful
> for many things (developing for GNUstep; making sure GNUstep does what
> it's supposed to; making sure the design fits together), maybe even
> critical. If persons who know how things are 'supposed' to work (eg. to
> match unspecified OpenStep behavior) could help verify things, I could
> help write it.
>  
I would volunteer to supply some input. I would have an OPENSTEP 
Enterprise 4.2 to verify and test certain aspects and offer 
documentation. (I would appreciate some samples to get an idea of detail 
and tone though.)

I'm totally aware of the fact that anything Apple didn't document, may 
change anytime, but experience also shows, anything they did document 
can change anytime, so I don't think this is an argument.

Cheers,
Dave