Editor's Note

Louella Pizzuti

Now that you're holding the first issue of develop, Apple's quarterly technical journal, you may want to know how and why it got to you. As a company, Apple tries to support third-party developers as much as possible: in addition to the tools and system software our engineers write to make your lives easier, we've got an entire department (the Apple Developer Group) of more than 300 people whose jobs consist of trying to help you be successful. We do that by lobbying for software and hardware changes that will make your development job easier and more productive, and by publishing marketing and technical information. Enter develop.

This journal is intended to lead you into other reference materials like Inside Macintosh and theApple IIGS Reference Manual ; it doesn't try to replace or reword these books, it complements them and helps you figure out which sections you may need to study more carefully. Each article includes the author's photo and a biography. This should help you understand the minds behind the madness (as well as help you spot these folks at trade shows).

I like to think of develop as very heavily commented sample code. The text that surrounds the code explains and clarifies what the code does and why. We want you to understand and to use the code freely, so we've included a CD that contains the entire journal as well as applications built from the code in the articles. This should make it easier for you to find what you're looking for, and for you to copy the code you'd like to use. Each quarter we'll include the past issues and code, so if you've got one develop CD, you've got them all (as long as it's the most recent one).

Because we want the code to demonstrate what the text explains, you won't see the latest breaking news here. What you will see is code that solves real problems in ways that we'll strive to keep compatible in the future. All of the questions and answers (and many of the articles) come from the Apple Developer Technical Support group, so you know they're more than just theoretical exercises. They're questions or problems that real people have struggled with; hopefully publishing them here will help you solve your own problems before you lose too much sleep.

Just as the programming problems you face are many and varied, so too are the articles in this issue. Our color suite includes Bruce Leak talking about the changes he made to 32-Bit QuickDraw, Dave van Brink discussing the new and improved Palette Manager, and Guillermo Ortiz saving you time (and compatibility headaches) by explaining the new offscreen calls. Our other articles run the gamut from Dave Radcliffe's compilation of compatibility strategies, to Eric Soldan describing his new 8-bit development system, to Mark Baumwell explaining exactly how to build and debug a declaration ROM, and finally to Scott "Zz" Zimmerman giving the scoop on how to mix PostScript and QuickDraw for a happy tomorrow.

If you're a Certified developer, Partner or Associate, you'll be getting develop every quarter as a part of your developer package. If you are not in one of the above programs, you can subscribe to develop using the envelope and order form in the back of the journal.

If you like develop, I'd love to hear about it, and if you don't like it, I'd like to change it. So let me know what you think. What you like, what you hate, and what you'd like to see more of. I'll listen and respond, and together we can make develop evolve into the journal we've all been waiting for.

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Louella Pizzuti
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Louella Pizzuti
Editor