QuickTime for Java: A Developer's Notebook

Organization

Developer’s Notebooks try to communicate different information than most books, and as a result, are organized differently. They do indeed have chapters, but that’s about as far as the similarity between a notebook and a traditional programming book goes. First, you’ll find that all the headings in each chapter are organized around a specific task. You’ll note that we said task, not concept. That’s one of the important things to get about these books—they are first and foremost about doing something. Each of these headings represents a single lab. A lab is just what it sounds like—steps to accomplish a specific goal. In fact, that’s the first heading you’ll see under each lab: “How do I do that?” This is the central question of each lab, and you’ll find lots of down-and-dirty code and detail in these sections. Many labs offer alternatives and address common questions about different approaches to similar problems. These are the “What about . . . " sections, which will help give each task some context within the programming big picture.

And one last thing—on many pages, you’ll find notes scrawled in the margins of the page. These aren’t for decoration; they contain tips, tricks, insights from the developers of a product, and sometimes even a little humor, just to keep you going. These notes represent part of the overall communication flow—getting you as close to reading the mind of the developer-author as we can. Hopefully they’ll get you that much closer to feeling like ...