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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 booksthey are first and foremost about doing something.
Each of these headings represents a single lab. A lab is just what it
sounds likesteps 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.Some labs have some things not to do (ever played around with potassium
in high school chemistry?), helping you avoid common pitfalls.
Some labs give you a good reason for caring about the topic in the first
place; we call this the "Why do I care?" section, for obvious reasons. For
those times when code samples don't clearly communicate what's going
on, you'll find a "What just happened" section. It's in these sections that
you'll find concepts and theorybut even then, they are tightly focused
on the task at hand, not explanation for the sake of page count. Finally,
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 thingon 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 flowgetting 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 you are indeed learning from a master.And most of all, rememberthese books are...All Lab, No Lecture
Brett McLaughlin, Series Creator
