How did the first book for developers "Inside Macintosh"

One of the main differences between the projects Lisa and Macintosh were related to third-party developers. Lisa team created an integrated system in a set of seven office applications and were not going to engage on the part of programmers. The first Mac was positioned differently. Macintosh was inspired by the success of Apple II, whose sales have increased tenfold after the release of his first editor spreadsheet Visicalc from Software Arts tiny company. The team of Steve Jobs wanted to give users the opportunity to work with a variety of software, so the presence of a first-class support for third-party developers considered a prerequisite from the beginning.

But to say it is always easier said than done. Lisa division position was quite reasonable. They put first the consistency and appearance of the stability of their work. Not knowing a large number of third-party developers, Mac team faced the first difficulties. Each had to be informed of the approach to programming, to build interfaces. Coordination of independent programmers was harder than it seemed at first glance.

in 1982 the concept of the appearance of the program for Macintosh has not yet been definitively established and even Apple employees do not have common agreements on this subject. This situation called for the establishment of standards, official documentation of recommendations to identify and resolve contentious issues. The same information is necessarily needed to inform and to independent programmers.

The upcoming meeting with the first largest third-party developer - Microsoft, encouraged the team to speed up the process of systematization of all documents. In late January, Apple had to give its competitors the first prototypes of the Mac operating system with documented recommendations. Discussion of the differences between the Apple and Microsoft, regarding the approach to programming for the first Mac, took a week.

Lisa user interface was the starting point for the Macintosh. Of that system tried to cut out all unnecessary and much easier. In the end, after the formation of the final vision systems, it has been written guidance on the design of the user interface for the Macintosh. If necessary, this guide to make adjustments and additions.

In April 1982 the first version of the document specifically for third party developers was written. It contained information on the toolbar with the source code of some windows, buttons, menus, and scroll bars. Since most of the independent programmers at that time had never designed a custom interface, it was necessary to fully convey to them the advice, the pros and cons of using different approaches.

But it was only a small part of what must be documented. Due to the strong employment of all employees was necessary to hire a technical writer. The first expert hired was a young girl. It hired Chris Espinoza - Owner smart documentation to QuickDraw. Programmer from Apple spent a whole day with her, examining the details Window Manager program. He was a little worried, because she did not ask absolutely no questions, but promised to provide a first draft in a few days.

Those documents page for Window Manager almost led to cardiac arrest, Andy Herzfeld - leading Macintosh programmer. Every line of code was completely painted, it contained developer commentary to the title of the program. From a technical writer obviously we did not expect this. Chris was able to reassure Andy and asked him to give the girl a chance.

The next day they had a threesome. This time she asked a lot of questions, but the programmers thought that even after all of the answers she still does not understand what is required of her. In spite of all the comments from Apple employees, it looked fun and cheerful. As a result, a second draft was even worse than the first, given the amount of effort spent on the explanation of all the nuances. The girl, whose name is not remembered, was dismissed and in its place came Caroline Rose.

Next week, Caroline met with Andy and started literally bombarded him with questions. She did not hesitate to ask a few questions on the same subject, and did not stop until he was beginning to understand every nuance. Sometimes, Andy could not even find a suitable answer for her.

Pretty soon Macintosh team took the distribution of documentation for third-party developers in parts, where each section was consecrated in a separate booklet. It was decided to create one large book entitled «Macintosh from within." New documentation has reached thousands of pages and was divided into three volumes.

Steve Jobs insisted on the production of high-quality directories with the best paper and printing, but independent developers are very impatient. The first edition of «Macintosh inside" were only a thick book in the soft cover, because of what they soon called telephone books. They were printed in large numbers and were distributed free of charge. It is this decision allowed the first Mac to become a popular platform and attract many new programmers, who began to develop their applications in accordance with Apple's instructions.

via Folklore.org