On Thu, 2004-02-12 at 16:24, Ryan Andersen wrote: > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Actually, it doesn't. I mean, I read both of those, and it explained very > little. It presumes you already know about how drawing stuff works in > general...and I don't. I've not done much in the area of graphics before, > so it is all new. I have scoured the reference manual, but still don't > understand how it all comes together. The Companion doesn't offer much > information at all. > > > > Ryan > > - Eron > > In general, I would have to agree with Ryan on this issue. I believe most > of Palm's/PalmSource's reference manuals for developers are pretty good as > far as references go... I get them about a B-.
I too broke teeth with the High Density APIs for a while, until it just clicked one day, and I realized that the machine must be in Standard density most of the time, and only in high density when you're doing graphics commands, after which you *must* switch it back. Do that, and high density commands are fairly easy. > <ranting on> > However there are quite a few points in the reference manuals where they > assume you know what they are talking about or assume you know that they are > referencing something in another document, but do not tell you where exactly > to refer. I constantly find myself saying, "wow, this is great, so now > where do I find the info on X or Y," and it time to go fishing through all > the manuals again. They do this in the conduit SDK also (however I think > that the conduit SDK is better and would give it an "A"). Okay, that's mostly fair. The docs have been (usually) great, except for a few notable exceptions. > Another one: how should we use DmGetRecord, DmResizeRecord and > DmReleaseRecord? It is not very clear that you should not call > DmResizeRecord, then DmReleaseRecord, or is it the other way around? Why not > just give us an example of how to use it? There are some examples in the various SDK's. But, if you feel the world needs better examples, then please make one, and put it up on the Palm Dev FAQ (http://www.flippinbits.com/palmdevfaq). > I believe that the palm developer community, while full of great programmers > and super nice people, generally hold back information for fear of ??... > (oh I have to assume again) competition? (that's a whole other discussion). What? I've never met a more helpful bunch of folks in general than the Palm Community. There's the occasional flake, but the vast majority are good folks who are just really busy. > I am left with a general feeling of "hey, I figured that out on my own, so > you have to figure it out for yourself also, now leave me alone." And the > problem with this is now I kinda feel the same way when someone asks me for > help... "hell, I had to go digging for it, so why should I tell you?" The only way to combat this is to get involved, and in a slightly more lasting way than to send a note in the mailing list. The PalmDevFAQ wiki is available (http://www.flippinbits.com/palmdevfaq) for anyone who wants to take the time to register and add content to it. I'd *love* to see people starting to add example code, new questions, etc. The bottom line, though, is that most of the folks who've figured it out already are extremely busy folks. Be thankful for the replies you do get, and be willing to go the extra mile to dig out information. > The palm developer community does not like to share information (unless you > bug the crap out of them). I believe the root of this stems from Palm > themselves. And I believe this "non-sharing" attitude is partly to blame for > all the damn OS versions and SDKs we have to support. "Bugging the crap out of them"? I sure hope people don't start thinking of this as viable way to go. If the signal to noise ratio gets too bad, nobody who knows what they're doing will be hanging out on this mailing list. Think about it. Let's say you're an ace-guru programmer, but you've got 3 months worth of work to do in 2 months, and you see yet another person on the mailing list asking a question you've seen (and seen answered) lots of times. It's clear they either haven't looked in the archives, looked in the FAQ, or read the docs. Are you going to take the time to answer? > Part of the solution?: > Newer/Updated and better code examples with good step-buy-step documentation > (and well commented code with spell checking) would be great. But most of > palm examples have not changed in years. The best sample code I have seen > yet is the CollapseSample! Great code comments, clean and neatly format > code, easy to read and follow, plus it actually delivers more than you > expect from a palm example! They show you how to support plamOne DIA SDK and > the Sony SilkScreen stuff. More of these kind of samples would be great. I think the best part of the solution is for more people to start contributing to the dev FAQ, and more people suggesting that others go look at it. I'd be very surprised if the folks at PalmSource, bless them, took much stock in most of the various rantings on the mailing list. They've now got 2 versions of the operating systems to support, in addition to a whole new tool chain that they didn't have before. If you think we need more examples, then write some and upload them to the FAQ: (http://www.flippinbits.com/palmdevfaq) -Ken -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
