Just some tips on things Cocoa beginners may not pick up. When giving advice, look for signs that they may have misunderstood such basic issues, and pick them up on it to be sure. Above all, be patient: no matter how many places you write something, there is always a path of learning which manages to miss them all. (See HowToWriteHelpfulAnswers.)
This page is intended for non-newbies who want to give advice; as such, it should identify areas newbies have problems with, and how to spot when a newbie is missing something really basic, not explain things in newbie-comprehensible terms.
Newbies occasionally confuse classes with objects. Questions like “how do I access one class’s variables from another class” may be a clue to this. Check that they know that a class is merely a template, and there are many copies of its variables, one for each object. This may help them reread their manuals with a much clearer understanding.
Are you or do you know a Help Vampire? Taken from mmalc’s list FAQ post on the cocoa-dev mailing list ( http://www.lists.apple.com/ ).
Perhaps we could have a community topic, linking to here, CocoaStub, HowToWriteHelpfulAnswers, and anything else helpful to the maintenance of this site?