Book

[Brad Hutchins]

Ok the big question is when is the Alpha book going to be realized?  

Or is this part of an NDA even though it is open sourced?  

Even an approximate date would be cool.

Brad

[Chewychompy]

Apologies for asking, I couldn't find an answer in the group.

What level will the book be aimed at?

I know the Cocoa books are recommended and I wondered if the book will
be re-treading old ground or just aimed specifically at Cappuccino's
differences and intricacies.

CC

[JC]

I personally would LOOOOOVE the book to be formatted in a way such
that it outlines specific areas you could skip if you are already
familiar with those areas because of previous Cocoa development
experience. I really hate redundancy in the learning process. :)

[Ross Boucher]

Right now the book is aimed at people who are not familiar with
Cappuccino OR Cocoa. It does include some specific parts targeted at
people with Cocoa experience, but that isn't the main focus of the book.

[M. Robert Spryn]

Any time estimate on that?

[Brad Hutchins]

I know this is open source.

But if there is a printed book, well that would obviously be sold.
What might be a way to make the book less expensive (and to keep the redundancy down) might be to split the printed book into three volumes.

VOLUME 1
Part1 would be an introduction to Java Script (regular Java script minus all the libraries...Dojo, MooTools, Jquery), but will include a tutorial to make your own library to get around the basic browser incompatibilities.  So as other tutorials are introduced you import this one library all the time so your Java script apps you are doing in the tutorials will work in all browses.

Part 2 is an introduction to Objective-C and cocoa.


VOLUME 2
Introduction to Objective-J and Cappucino.


VOLUME 3
Part 1
Advanced Objective-J and Cappucino (including using the tools to get your app to be pre compiled).

Part 2
Introduction to Atlas


Any how just tossing that out

[Ross Boucher]

I think an introduction to JavaScript and the DOM and browser incompatibilities is far beyond our own set of goals. After all, Cappuccino is all about *ignoring* most of those problems from the start.

I think there are already good introductions to JavaScript out there. I highly recommend Simon Willison's "A re-introduction to JavaScript"

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/A_re-introduction_to_JavaScript

As for Atlas, I believe we will include it in the book, which is part of why our schedule is unclear at this point.

[Chris Corbyn]

Likewise, I don't think delving into Objective-C and Cocoa is
necessary. It should be mentioned that this is what it's based on,
but the majority of web developers will most likely not be familiar
with Cocoa, nor will they want to learn Objective-C. Objective-C
requires knowledge of C, just like Objective-J requires knowledge of
ECMAScript so trying to explain it might just scare people away.

I actually think this is something that's confusing JavaScript
developers who have no familiarity with Cocoa but are interested in
learning Cappuccino. Obviously it's early days at the moment, but a
lot of the material around Cappuccino is targeted towards Cocoa
developers, who naturally will be able to translate their Cocoa
knowledge to Cappuccino. Without having a grasp on Cocoa it's quite
difficult to see the big picture of how a Cappuccino application comes
together. There needs to be plenty of help for people coming from
other dev environments.

Watching the Atlas demonstration at FOWA made me want to get back into
playing with Cocoa/Interface Builder. I'm really looking forward to
having a play with Atlas!

Hey Francisco, if you're reading, you were interviewed by Simon Mackie
(Carsonified) at FOWA. He's an ex-workmate of mine from SitePoint.
Great presentation :)

http://events.carsonified.com/fowa/2008/london/videos/francisco-tolmasky-2

[peter renshaw]

On Mon, 2009-03-09 at 19:41 -0700, Brad Hutchins wrote:

> I know this is open source.But if there is a printed book, well that

> would obviously be sold. What might be a way to make the book less
> expensive (and to keep the redundancy down) might be to split the

> printed book into three volumes. Part 2 is an introduction to
> Objective-C and cocoa.

There are many paths to write books and an approach to writing books
that has worked is the approach Mark Lutz has taken. Firstly the basic
documentation is already online. What makes python easier to use is how
a tutorial with most of the language features was the first thing you
could read online. [0] Once you had the basics from the tute you could
find applications online but to really learn the basics in more detail
you would buy "Learning Python" and progress to "Programming Python".
[1]

What I like to see is the continuation of both tutorials and global
module index online [2] but making both available learning Cappuchino
the framework and the Objective-J the language in a beginners book. Then
another more detailed book which goes into great detail the framework
and language. This insight is invaluable to building applications.

Which comes first depends on the audience. For me I'd rather get the
detailed "nitty gritty" on the Framework so I can build applications and
exploit the framework to its fullest. The first book details the
language, how to use it demonstrating basic the framework. The second
book goes into great technical detail and becomes a both a learning
guide and reference.

Regs PR

References
[0] http://docs.python.org/tutorial/

[1] Lutz, Mark, Oreilly,
Learning Python: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596513986
Programming Python: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596009250

[2] http://docs.python.org/modindex.html

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