Re: How do I switch to Sawfish??

[Michael Meeks <michael ximian com>]

Hi Ali,

On Mon, 2002-09-02 at 06:24, Ali Akcaagac wrote:
> GnomeVFSURI
>
> then i don't get out much information.

	Ultimately one of the big programming skills - after patience and a
commitment to getting it right - is being able to help yourself and read
headers.

	I'm hoping to have time to write a book that will help people help
themself, and program with Gnome 2.X in the medium term.

>  it opens and you need to unref
> things but there is no where mentioned what unrefing means in detail.

	So - drill down; read the code:

	gnome-vfs/libgnomevfs/gnome-vfs-uri.c:

	It even has a doc section that explains it:

/**
 * gnome_vfs_uri_unref:
 * @uri: A GnomeVFSURI.
 * 
 * Decrement @uri's reference count.  If the reference count reaches
zero,
 * @uri is destroyed.
 **/
void
gnome_vfs_uri_unref (GnomeVFSURI *uri)


> having to read a lot of api and outdated stuff wich also contains
> 'FIXME: need to write chapter' doesn't help either. instead wasting the
> time writing useless stuff like HIG or GEP

	As James says - they're both extremely important.

>   it would have been more
> important writing serious programming manuals with examples, with
> detailed explainations why it was done, how one should use it and what
> the purpose of things are.

	As are manuals with examples; _But_ there is enough example code out
there, that uses gnome-vfs-uris to sink a battleship. The trick  is to
have confidance and to read it, and learn. If you learn how to learn,
you'll be twice as good as the next guy that wants to be spoon-fed small
example fragments he can type in from some paper manual.

> and please belive me i read everything on d.g.o. if there wasnt these
> nice documentations from michael meeks about bonobo and howto do some
> basic things with it then i would probably be hopeless lost today.

	I must say, the bonobo documentation is among the worst out there ;-)
I'm pretty ashamed by the level of coverage of libbonobo[ui] etc.

> this should be a constructive criticism without any flame intentions.

	Taken as such; but here's how to fix it:

	a) Learn to drill down into the code as far as you can go in 
	   order to understand. At some level the code will turn into
	   something trivial to comprehend.

	b) Write up the results of your findings so others can be 
	   helped.

	Regards,

		Michael.

-- 
 mmeeks gnu org  <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot