From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 32639 invoked by alias); 28 May 2004 17:27:04 -0000 Mailing-List: contact xconq7-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: xconq7-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 32628 invoked from network); 28 May 2004 17:27:03 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail-out4.apple.com) (17.254.13.23) by sourceware.org with SMTP; 28 May 2004 17:27:03 -0000 Received: from mailgate1.apple.com (a17-128-100-225.apple.com [17.128.100.225]) by mail-out4.apple.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i4SHRSu9019102 for ; Fri, 28 May 2004 10:27:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from relay2.apple.com (relay2.apple.com) by mailgate1.apple.com (Content Technologies SMTPRS 4.3.6) with ESMTP id ; Fri, 28 May 2004 10:27:02 -0700 Received: from apple.com ([17.219.198.67]) by relay2.apple.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i4SHQeLj025036; Fri, 28 May 2004 10:26:44 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <40B7764B.6050900@apple.com> Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 17:27:00 -0000 From: Stan Shebs User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Eric McDonald CC: mskala@ansuz.sooke.bc.ca, Tom Schaub , xconq7@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: does the tutorial lie? References: <1085709882.1485.553.camel@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <1085709882.1485.553.camel@localhost.localdomain> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SW-Source: 2004/txt/msg00433.txt.bz2 Eric McDonald wrote: >On Thu, 2004-05-27 at 18:48, mskala@ansuz.sooke.bc.ca wrote: > >>I have not specifically tried the case you're talking about, but a couple >>thoughts: First of all, the tutorial probably *does* lie. So does most of >>the rest of the documentation. I've written things that the documentation >>said would work, and had them not work, quite often. You have to solve >>these things by experiment, and preferably report it so the documentation >>and/or code can be fixed. >> > >I'm not going to sit here and get defensive about the manuals since I >didn't write them, and have certainly been frustrated by them a number >times as well. > >However, I am not sure that it is fitting to describe the manuals as >"lying". I doubt that Stan wrote them with an intent to deceive. > My secret plot has been uncovered! People are supposed to get discouraged and go play "Halo". Long arm of MS and all that... :-) But seriously, people shouldn't be touching the sources without at the same time checking that the manuals reflect reality. Better to have the bugs and caveats documented than have the manual pretend that some feature is fully functional. The tutorial has a bit of a problem in that it doesn't consist of a single game module that could be in the library and getting tested. Perhaps a series of "checkpoints" of partial tutorial games for which testing could be automated? Stan