Programming Coffee

Several months ago I started working on a widget for my employer. It was pre Tiger release, and there might have been 20-30 widgets available online, and no real way (other than trial and error, and Apple’s Dashboard Documentation. How did I learn? I ripped into several of the widgets provided by Apple (I had a pre-release copy), and started learning by example. Fortunately for me, I do a lot of XHTML/CSS development, so a lot of this came quite easy.

The other day, I ran across a Dashboard Development Guide eBook. I’ve only read one other eBook before (and it was treacherous), so I decided to give this one a try under one condition… I could print it out. Hey, I stare at a screen all day long, is it wrong for me to want to do my reading on paper? Yeah, I know… my apologies to the trees, or cotton plants that were killed in order to enhance my learning experience. Anwyays, I’m almost halfway done with the eBook, and even though I haven’t really learned anything new, I do see the value of this eBook (I think it sells for $15). This eBook and accompanying tools, could have saved me hours of learning on my own. I’ll write up a full review once I’ve finished reading it.