RTFM

“RTFM!” (Read the effing manual) - that was the polite version.

That’s what I was told when I first started programming.  Not every time (obviously), but on that odd occasion where the question was a repeatedly asked one (by me) or that time the more senior programmer didn't eat his oats in the morning.

To this day I still hear this from the more seasoned developers around me.  But I must say that this phrase (I believe) is in steep decline.  Could it be said that my generation of developers may be the last to utter this immortal programming phrase.  You see (or should I say hear) more and more “RTFM” is being replaced by “Just Google it.”

Today I was working with CA Plex 6.1’s Model API.  I was trying to automate a common task that I perform in my model and ultimately cut down on some keystrokes, mistakes and most importantly, ensure ‘THAT I’ conform to the standards ‘THAT I’ have decided and (hopefully) along the way help the other developers in the team J.

I was working from some excellent examples from CA regarding the Model API and thought I’d try a small example using C# WinForms and Visual Studio 2008.  All I wanted to do was create a new entity with appropriate naming standards, fields and keys all with correct inheritance from our patterns etc.  So breaking the problem domain down into small manageable chunks (isn’t that now known as an agile sprint), I decided to get the Entity Prefix (I like these), Entity Name and Entity Inheritance easily created.  The rest will come as the AddIn matures and I implement all the ideas and wizardry in the roadmap. 

As I have said I am creating this pioneering utility using the Model API (Version 3.0) in Plex 6.1 and I will deploy the final program as an AddIn. I have also used this as an excuse to brush up a little on Visual Studio and C# as we are going to be heavily reliant on this IDE once Plex 7.0 comes out and we are all doing DotNet stuff galore. 

I will blog a little more in the future about how I did this (It is only basic and I am still learning) but I have to say that the Model API 3.0 is quite powerful, just ask George Jeffcock about his Stella Tools. 

Here is a sneak peek at the current screen. 

As you can see it is about as simple as one can get, but, without much knowledge of C# I quickly became stuck, stranded, frustrated, challenged and peeeeeeed off.    Anyhow, forget asking Jeeves or posting on some technical forum.  For older scholars picking up the manual or downloading that e-book PDF you had been considering is also a waste of time and effort. 

If you want to code nowadays, it appears you just “Google it”. 

I am not sure whether this is like

1.       4GL of C# coding

2.       Cheat sheet

3.       Or simply just good common sense to utilise a million experts rather than one book

.......BUT.......

I got the answers I needed pretty quickly and was able to continue with pilot project in earnest.

I have a great mental roadmap for the utility and only time will tell how it matures.  But for all us elder statesman of the Plex community, I'll borrow terminology from one of Ramon Chen’s key marketing phrases from the early days of Obsydian.

“Stop coding, start Googling.”

Thanks for reading. 

Lee.