Beginning Mac OS® X Programming

2.3. Developer Documentation and Examples

Mac OS X includes a lot of documentation for people interested in writing Mac OS X programs. You have already seen some examples of this documentation, such as the online help that comes with most of the system's developer tools. Documentation also exists for frameworks like Carbon and Cocoa; this includes API reference, conceptual or high-level documentation, and even examples that illustrate how these frameworks should be used.

Much of Mac OS X's developer documentation resides in the /Developer/ADC Reference Library folder. Here you will find an API reference, high-level documentation, release notes, and other documentation resources. This folder is further subdivided by library or technology. For example, you will find a Carbon subdirectory containing Carbon-specific documentation in /Developer/ADC Reference Library. And these technology-specific subdirectories are often further subdivided by topic.

If you know what you're looking for, you might choose to just dive right into these directories. But if you're new to this material and want a bit more information, you can open the index.html file in your favorite web browser, as shown in Figure 2-14. This provides a little more context for each of the directories in /Developer/ADC Reference Library and may help you track down the information you need if you're not exactly sure where to find it.

Figure 2.14. Figure 2-14

Mac OS X also includes examples of how to use many of the frameworks ...