Re: [Java-gnome-developer] Thank you - Great work

[Andrew C. <an...@op...>]

On Wed, 2008-11-12 at 20:00 +0100, Ben Bucksch wrote:
> I just want to thank you for this great API to GTK.

Now that's just the sort of thing that really makes your day. People in
the #java-gnome IRC channel were very happy this morning.

> It feels entirely natural in Java, is very comfortable and very 
> approachable.

That doesn't happen by accident. It is the result of the hard work of
all the people who have bought into this project's goals [and who have
put up with the resultant demanding requirements set by the project's
maintainer :)]. It is to all who have contributed that credit is due.

> The [bindings] also *work* as expected (as least so far, I am still new).

Patience. I'm sure you'll find something to break. :)

> Also, the documentation is good. The API documentation for each class 
> has a nice prose introduction text, which is very helpful and saves most 
> "tutorials". I also appreciate that it points out just the right level 
> of footangles to be aware of.

All I can say to that is that the writing there is the result of
experience - and usually, that experience has come as people like me
have attempted to figure out just what, exactly, a given something in an
underlying library actually does.

That usually occurs as we're trying to _use_ something, and adding
coverage that we hope will expose the thing that will do the trick.
Along the way you quite often realize that the thing you're looking at
doesn't actually do what you thought it did, or isn't for what you
thought it was for. There's a lot of wisdom to be had there.

Another source of knowledge are the questions and answers in places like
gtk-list and gtk-app-devel-list; I for one see stuff there all the time
that I didn't know about; I try to keep such messages around so that
when if a day comes that I need to use something, I can benefit from the
explanations there. It's stuff that is *not* in the underlying (GTK or
whatever) API documentation, but is still very critical to using the
library well.

++

So hey. As you experiment and learn, I encourage you to note places
where a question you had in your mind *wasn't* answered as you were
browsing the completion spaces or reading the JavaDoc popups in your
IDE. If you think of something that needs improving based on *your*
experiences, then by all means.

Such contributions are as valuable as code. They *are* code.

AfC
Sydney