Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 14:47 N From: BOONE%RECHT.RUG.AC.BE@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU Subject: [*] New Inside Macintosh Books Report Greetings, Recently i asked about the new Inside Macintosh books on the digest. I got many replies from many helpful people. Many thanks to them! I compiled all replies in a report, it might be helpful for other people too ! Enjoy ! Dimitri Boone Belgium / Europe boone@recht.rug.ac.be BTW : Could someone tell me the correct path and filename for obi-wan 4.0. I have no direct ftp-possibilities and have to retrieve all files by ftpmail. I have succesfully downloaded the obiwan database but the obi-wan application seemed to be moved or renamed. Thanks in advance!! In Info-Mac Digest 11:7, Dimitri Boone asks what Inside Mac books he should buy... You might want to consider Symantec's new online version of Inside Mac. I haven't seen it, but did receive a brochure on it in the mail. It has all of Inside Mac vols 1-6, and has cross-referencing, hypertext capabilities, etc. It's also cheaper: ăUS$80 I think. And it saves trees! If you're set on hard copies, you may want to check the prices at the US mailorder houses like MacWarehouse, MacConnection, etc. They're cheaper than bookstores, though I don't know how feasible or cost effective it would be for you since you are in Belgium. - John John jfw@neuro.duke.edu Duke University Medical Center Whitehead jfw@well.sf.ca.us Durham, North Carolina ********************* You definitely want the new set, which is being published now. Your guess is right: the new set merges all the information scattered over the original six books, tech notes, and other sources, while deleting obsolete material. The only reason you might want to look at one of the original six is if you need information about something and the new book that covers it hasn't been published yet. All of the new ones should be out by the spring. Also, you probably won't need to get all of the new ones, at least at first. Get the Overview and use that as a guide to pick the ones you need. Have fun. Hal Perkins hal@cs.cornell.edu Cornell CS ******************** From: kkirksey@world.std.com (Ken B Kirksey) Subject: Inside Mac Dimitri, I'd suggest getting the New Inside Macintosh volumes and a copy of the Think Reference 2.0. They should have the complete set of new IM out by the end of the year, and the Think Reference will fill the info that's in the volumes they haven't published yet. It would really be a waste of money to buy the old IM at this point. Ken ******************** From: hpj@cxa.daresbury.ac.uk Subject: Inside Mac Books. The new series of inside Mac book rearranges the information held in the first 6 books. The problems with the first series are that volume one still contains relavent information ( for example Quickdraw) but also out of date info (file manager). The problem with the new series is that I don't think they have all been published yet. If you are writting a simple application then you can get away with Vol 1, and 4 of the first series. Another option is to buy the relavant issues of the new series and also get a Database such as Think Reference or even Obiwan from info-mac, which contains all of the toolbox calls but none of the background info. Hope this helps. Peter Hardman. P.S I have volumes 1-6+ x-ref and find them okay. Especially since Vol 6 describes the order of relavance of the info in each volume. _______________________________________________________________________ Peter Hardman hpj@cxa.dl.ac.uk | phardman@sunserver.ssci.liv.ac.uk Network Manager Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Surface Science and Chemistry Department Manchester University Oxford Road Manchester M13 9PL. _______________________________________________________________________ ******************** From: Eckehard Scharein Subject: Inside Mac Hi ! I formerly used the old IM (1-5) and was quite satisfied since I used mostly im 1; I didn't need the technical information. But I just got im 6 and things are a lot different. Along with Sys 7 many pieces of the system software have changed and you have to consult either the new volume or the older or both. There is a complicated graphic statinf for which manager you should consult which volume in which order; up to 4 volumes per topic. So I would opt for the new ones since you can leave out the ones you don`t need (like the ones on QuickTime and the like). I think there are 10 necessary new volumes and 5 optional ones. Hope this helps Greetings Ulf ******************** From: grant@itd.nrl.navy.mil (William Grant) Subject: Question about Inside Macintosh books (Q) get the new ones. The old ones are a mess to figure out which parts you need. (This subject is covered in chapter 1 vol1, changes in chapter 4 vol3, chapter 5 vol4, chapter 8vol5, and system 7 changes in chapter 11 vol6.) you get the idea. ====================================================================== Disclaimer: Whatever you say, say nothing, when you talk about you-know-what, For if you-know-who should hear you, you know what you'll get. Leprechaun Liam Grant@itd.nrl.navy.mil Code 5541, NRL, Wash. DC 20375-5337, (202)767-0552 W (301)937-2567 H ******************* From: walrath@faw.uni-ulm.de (Wayne K. Walrath) Subject: Info-Mac Digest V11 #7 Dimitri, I am also a beginning Mac programmer. You will, sooner or later, need the information from the IM books. I need to keep this short right now, so let me tell you what I have been doing, and we could talk more later if you want. I have avoided buying the old IM series, and am looking at picking up books which are most important to me from the new series (I already bought the Files issue and will pick up Memory soon). I recommend that you get a subscription to APDA's quarterly journal called "d e v e l o p". Each issue has a wonderful journal full of info which is a joy to read. More importantly is that each issue comes with a CDROM full of source code and other goodies. You get a full set of the Tech Notes (explaining difficult topics or alerting you to errors, bugs, et. al.) Also on each CD are electronic versions of the old IM series, and as far as I know, all of the currently available new ones. (I don't yet have access to a CDROM drive so I haven't looked through any of my CDs yet, but I have seen several references to these items being there). I do have the old IM (called SpInside Mac) in electronic version, as well as a couple of the newest ones. So for the topics I am really interested in and use a lot, I plan to buy the books. For the other stuff, I just use the electronic versions. I think it will be a good compromise. One other thing I suggest you buy is the Think Reference 2.0 from Symantec. I am using the old version which only covers IM I-V, and I love it. It is a hyperlink database of all the essential Toolbox information. It is really worth it. Everytime I program, Think Reference is running in the background. However, there is a new shareware product out claiming to do essentially what this does: it's called ObiWan and is available at Sumex. Check it out first. I haven't had the time yet (make sure you get the database located in the cp directory ). write if you have any questions. wayne walrath@faw.uni-ulm.de by the way, I forgot to mention that a subsc. to develop is only about $30-40/yr-- it's worth its cost! You can call APDA at (800) 282-2732 or (716) 871-6555. Ask them to send you an APDA tools catalog--it's free. ******************** From: ed@titipu.resun.com (Edward Reid) Subject: Inside Macintosh The old IM series will not be updated, so is not a good buy. The only problem with the new series is that it is not finished. I think the target for completion is the end of 1993, but I'm not sure. If you have access to a CD drive, and don't mind reading on the screen, an attractive alternative is to get a copy of the developer CD. You can get it cheaply by subscribing to _develop_, or even by just buying the most recent back issue of _develop_ (US$10 plus shipping). The CD contains the old IM as two Hypercard stacks, and the new volumes as they are released, in a new DocViewer format, with the beta DocViewer program, which is a great improvement over the hypercard stacks. The CD also contains all the Technical Notes, and (I think) the Human Interface Guidelines, and other good stuff. And now that Apple is charging for system software, it's the cheapest way to keep up with that. 7.1 is on the latest CD. Even if you can only borrow a CD drive, it's worth thinking about if you have some space on your hard disk. The old IM requires about 37MB if you include everything, but that includes pictures, which are not essential, so you can actually get away with loading the 4.5MB stack for volumes 1-5 and/or the similarly-sized stack for volume 6. The new IM (so far) requires about 18MB, in 4 volumes ranging from 3MB to 8MB which can loaded one at a time. The Tech Notes require about 11MB. The DocViewer needs about 700K of disk space. Edward Reid (8*}> eel: ed@titipu.resun.com or nosc.mil!titipu.resun.com!ed snail: PO Box 378/Greensboro FL 32330 ******************** From: GERHARD@ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Apple's programming books Hello: The series 'by subject' replaces the IM series. Get the new ones. They contain up-to-date info that the IM series tends tolack (except the last volume) They are also better written, IMHO. Peter Gerhardstein (gerhard@ccit.arizona.edu) ******************** From: brg@dgate.org (Brian Gaeke) The information on the front of the Inside Mac volumes ("This one tal ks about the Mac 512k" etc.) is misleading. You really do need all 6 of them. The new Inside Macs (NIM) are not due to be finished until the middle of '94, and I have decided that I am going to wait. You can't do hardly any programming using the currently available NIMs, so I would say go for IM I-VI right now, and you can get the NIMs later. Either way, you can't learn to program the mac without a _solid_ base in C o r Pascal programming, so if you haven't that, then learn a language fir st. Otherwise, dive right in! :) Brian Gaeke -- brg@dgate.org = Internet brgaeke@miavx3 = BITNET ********************