- From: Sacha <sacha@clip.dia.fi.upm.es>
- Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 19:25:55 +0200
- To: www-lib@w3.org
> Sacha wrote: > > /* before I added this next line it wouldn't write */ > > HTRequest_setOutputFormat(request, WWW_SOURCE); > > Of course it wouldn't write, because you have to set the output format > according to the libwww interface you'll use. *** WARNING *** I am about to rant. Do not take this too seriously! rant { Ok. It is clear that I haven't really understood what on earth is going on. I think the real problem is that I haven't really grasped most of what comes in the documentation, because it lacks a really good from-the-top intro for clueless-people-with-no-knowledge-of-anything. When I started using the lib I tried to read the documentation to figure out how to get going, but I found that basically it said "Play with the examples", then went off into the deep end describing bits of the architecture, then left me to pore through the code trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I don't know if I'm the only one who feels this way, and I admit I have a tendency to get straight into coding if I feel the documentation isn't taking me anywhere, and so my problems are usually (at least!) half my fault. And Henrik is very patient thank god, otherwise I would be probably be coding from scratch right now and knee-deep in protocol documentation. Also just about everyone on the mailing list has been very helpful, which I appreciate a lot given that people don't always have time to answer my stupid questions. But I don't mean to bitch too much, because with a bit of experimentation and a close look at the example applications (BTW is mailto: part of standard HTML? Why doesn't Arena display it properly?) I have been getting along ok. Constructive suggestions I would offer are either an FAQ - searching through the message list where messages have misleading titles is a pain - or an intro that really starts from absolute zero, like maybe a step by step construction of a program which eventually shows off all the things the lib can do. Another thing I think would help is a quick intro to how the pseudo-C++ works and how it relates to C++. An example of a problem I had: In some code I needed pointers to streams of different types. In C++ I would use pointers to the base class (HTStreamClass) and then call the various public methods (free, abort, put_string etc) of that class. But when I tried to declare an HTStreamClass* I got a "pointer to incomplete type" error. After a good old trial-and-error session, and a good wade through the various C FAQs I figured out that you have to use an HTSream*, then access the HTStreamClass methods via the isa pointer. I am not even sure if this is safe since the struct HTStream is different for each stream. But I guess there's no-one around with the time to do all this... } // end rant Anyway cheers and feel free to abuse and upbraid me at will. Sacha. -- "ABORIGINIES, n. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize." -----> from `The Devil's Dictionary' by Ambrose Bierce
Received on Wednesday, 22 May 1996 13:29:12 UTC