Jon Titus, Senior Reviews Editor over at the DEV-monkey site, is one of the most knowledgeable editors (and engineers) around on development kits and tools.
But even experts can always use more help, as he points out in a recent blog post about the dev kit phenom he calls "Getting thrown over the cliff." Better yet, he offers vendors ideas on how to improve the usefulness of their kits.
"Often when I complete work with a development kit, I feel as though its vendor has led me to a dead end where I face an abyss. Most instructions lack a final warning, such as, "Good Luck. You're now on your own. Few of even the best dev kits explain what to do next with software tools or hardware. Maybe they assume after you work through a simple code-and-load example, you're an "expert." But because developers may have bought a dev kit to learn about new tools and hardware, manufacturers should assume buyers and users are NOT experts. Even the smartest engineers need some help now and then."
Judging by the responses from readers, they clearly agree.
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