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Apple Developer Profile Changing?
rocketjam writes "According to InternetNews.com, Apple Computer is seeing large numbers of UNIX, Java and Open Source developers moving to its Mac OS X platform. Apple Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations Ron Okamoto mentions that, in the three years since the introduction of OS X, 'people who have experience in those areas are showing a great interest in our OS. We're seeing a lot of first timers. It's really impressive.' The company said it has recently surpassed the 300,000 member threshold of registered developers. Apparently, the increase in enterprise code writers has prompted Apple to add more sessions focusing on enterprise and IT to its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference."
Does this not make perfect sense? I mean... how large can the learning curve be for Unix developers moving to MacOS X?
While I can't speak for anyone else, this certainly makes sense to me.
I've been a Windows user / Linux tinkerer ever since I first started using computers, but when I go to college (MIT!) this fall it'll be with a new Powerbook. Aside from the great hardware design, OS X is the perfect blend of usability and power for my purposes.
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Apple has a good product, its that simple. Its not a product I personally use, but it has its good points, and people are noticing it. And OSX really adds to the whole appeal.
Some people have no problem paying for quality products
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
The only thing I can't understand is why iTunes and QuickTime seem so inferior on Windows. If that's a byproduct of crossplatform programming, I don't know that I'd be that eager to switch (no matter how nice the development environment is, it's the final product that counts.) But other than that, I think they're on to something.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
300,000 registered developers (and a number of unregistered developers for their own use) for a platform that has under 5 % of market share is a pretty good number.
I can't at least imagine windows having a similar relationship of developers/users.
are free. Apple Developer Site
Unlike another company that I won't mention who charges up the ass for theirs.
OS X has all the power of Linux coupled with a better UI and greater availability of commercial applications.
I know lots of people (including myself) who are looking to replace their aging PC systems with Apples. Since we'd be buying completely new hardware anyway, the platform difference isn't a good reason not to buy a Mac.
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I'm writing my first MacOS app now after decades with UNIX and X windows. I have to say I'm impressed with the Interface Builder and with the use of Objective-C as the main Cocoa language.
But on the other hand, I think their class library leaves a lot to be desired. When I'm coding in Java and I'm working with, say, a collection class, I usually think "gee it would be nice if a method to do blah existed". And when I look it up, it's almost always there. The Java designers seem to think the way I do. But in Cocoa, it seems like the methods are rarely what I expect and I have to spent a lot of time figuring out how they want me to do it. Things that I feel should take me 5 minutes to code can actually take hours. It can be rather frustrating. Has anyone had similar experiences?
That said, a lot of the core of this system was developed with the NeXT machine a long time ago. So I guess I have to cut them some slack there. Still, would be nice to have things modernized a bit. Just my experience...
Devon
It strikes me that Darwin could be much bigger than it is...
Darwin comes with all the OS underpinnings of Mac OS X, right? Sure, no GUI, but what about the significant features - CUPS, CIFS, AFP, webDAV - aren't they there? If your company is looking at Linux but is facing those integration problems, isn't this an ideal solution? OS X on the desktop, Darwin on the servers that don't need a GUI.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
"I used Macs for years but I didn't write a line of code for them (except java) until Mac OS X came out."
Well, OSX proved to be the first time that Apple truly embraced the developer community by packaging professional grade tools with the OS.
-m
#
# Modus Ponens
#
Becoming a registered developer is the easiest way to download the development tools (standard gnu stuff that is missing from OS X). I am a registered developer, but I don't want to develop on OS X. I just want gcc when I'm there to fool around with.
Will someone explain to me how this is a troll?
I am being very serious. Apple has created a viable platform for developing enterprise applications. They have the XServe now and they are starting to attract a large crowd of developers. This article is proof however that they have no clue that they are sitting on a gold mine.
We're seeing a lot of first timers. It's really impressive
I mean seriously. Apple didn't even think they would attract this many people.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
well, part of the key thing is that apple allows you to register as a developer for free, and they give away all their tools and docs, unlike microsoft who charges you a few grand for the privilege of developing windows software.
Does this not make perfect sense? I mean... how large can the learning curve be for Unix developers moving to MacOS X?
The core of OS X is Darwin, which is based on FreeBSD, but the upper layers of the OS are based on Apple's own APIs (such as Cocoa, Carbon, etc) and NeXT framework. So, depending on what the Unix developers are planning to write (lower level stuff will undoubtedly be very similar, but higher level stuff will probably be quite different, unless they use X11 on OS X, which is also possible), the degree of difficulty in adapting will vary.
However, Unix developers, usually being quite descerning, will probably find OS X to be an extremely well designed and put together development platform. It's great to see support for this OS increasing, Apple certainly deserves it.
The trend of Unix and enterprise programmers moving to or "showing great interest" in MacOS X is something that could be a "tide that lifts all boats." Given that MacOS X is built on BSD and therefore a secure and nearly-bulletproof operating system), an upsurge in high quality, secure, robust enterprise calibre apps on the MacOS X platform will be great for business at large.
.NET, then maybe the threat of MacOS X will bring a truly secure and robust Windows platform...
And rest assured that Microsoft will do something to respond to the competitive threat. If the threat of Java gave us
This tries to imply that they are leaving those environments and changing over to the OSX environment. Bad Spinmeistering by an Apple Rep. Its more like "Now that you have a BSD substrate I can add OSX to the list of ports I support for my apps".
The developers are no more "moving to" OSX than they are "moving to" FreeBSD when they port an app there. He should have said something more like
(Personal feelings: I wish they would port OSX to Athlon64 or Intel architecture and more open/non-proprietary hardware components.)
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
I too am in the boat, however, I thought the same as well (about wxWidgets), until I started programming with Cocoa and Objective-C. Once I got the hang of the syntax and using Interface Builder w/ Project Builder / XCode, I find it a pain to develop any other way. Sure I don't have crossplatform as much (gnustep?) but, I guess it is once you go NeXT you never go back.
Jisho - A Japanese English German Russian French Dictionary for the rest of us.
IANAD (..not a developer) but the hardware discount doesn't kick-in at the free sign-up level --- you have to be a paid member. Even then, it's still worth it if you're planning a major hardware purchase.
I remember when our midschool first got some Macintoshs. I was really excited. They were so much more advanced than computers I had used before. I imediatly jumped on them and started exploring and learning as much as I could about the system. And then a week later I was done. There was nothing more I could explore (shame we didn't have HyperCard). It was a black box, and the privilege of getting inside that black box cost hundreds of dollars in compilers and documentation.
So I got bored, played through some of games, and went back to my Apple IIe at home because it had a basic interpretor, hex editor and assembler and there were still things for me to explore. Latter went on to learn more free development QBasic, Java, C and Perl, which was all in DOS and then Linux. It wasn't until this last year that I used a Mac again.
The original Mac was a great machine for people who just wanted to get stuff done - draw pictures and type report. But I didn't want to that, I wanted to create. I wonder how many potential developers were lost to it like I was. I also wonder what effect good or bad that had on the quality and consistency of the programs. The Mac was always praised for how closely the applications stuck to a consistant guideline, and wonder how much of that was due to the fact that the developers had to be part of an exclusive club to participate.
I "switched" last summer because of the combination of Unix power + Apple User Experience.
There's simply no fussing around. The environment fades into the background letting me concentrate on getting work done. XCode is a wonderful, comprehensive IDE and lets me develop OS X or Java apps (which I like) with the same set of great features.
My only beef with this arrangement is that a 1ghz G4 PB is no longer a speed demon. I'd really like to get a G5 PB... c'mon Steve, show us the love.
-- All views expressed in this post are mine and do not
-- reflect those of my employer or their clients
Sorry but there is NO cross platform toolkit that is going to look native across those plaftforms. Using native elements doesn't make it native, it just makes it less foreign looking. The functionality and GUI design elements for those OS's are so far from each other that simply changing window dressing isn't going to make the functionality of an app apear native.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The G5 is not the equivalent of a ThinkCentre, when you think "General Business Workstation" think iMac. If you want an IBM machine that compares to the G5, look at the IntelliStation A Pro, which costs $2600 dollars. Comparing Apples to Oranges (no pun intended)
-G
"Immolation is the sincerest form of flattery."
Don't you think this is due to the fact that you know for a long time how to find the right package/class/method in java, whereas in Objective you have to learn a new way of organizing the "collection class" (frameworks) ?
:)
I mean, I have been told that the frameworks available with OS X are really complete, so i'm wondering if it's you or not
Note that I am neither a Java programmer neither an Objective-C developper.
However, Apple has pretty much always had a superior OS and hardware to the competition (i.e. Windows), yet that didn't bring them the gold mine and platform dominance that by many measures it should have. I think they've lost some of that old arrogance and are being more realistic. This is a good thing.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
OS X has all the power of Linux coupled with
Microsoft Office.
That single advantage is worth a lot to UNIX geeks forced to communicate frequently with management droids but don't want to give up on having root access on a UNIX box - by comparison, cygwin on win32 just doesn't feel as deep, nor does OpenOffice.org on Linux quite reach the heights it needs to.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Now quality counts.
Steven Jobs did 2 years ago what in 5 years from now the rest of the IT corporations will notice as the way to go. Aside from the price/raw performance ratio current Macs kick any other computer up and down the street in terms of conceptual consequence.
Windows/x86 just plain sucks and Linux and Co. are a geeky weedy mess that begs serious user initiative, including all the ups and downs, a large portion of them due to general overall x86 suckage.
Macs on the other hand work. You turn them on and they work. It started with the IMac, with which you didn't even have to calibrate the screen. And was emphasized with those fully digital cinema TFT displays.
BTW: On my workstations I'm all Linux since the last 2.5 years. But I'm going to get myself a 12" IBook next week. Best and cheapest subnote available.
No, there is no use denying it: Macs rock, and with a Windows plattform growing crappier on a daily basis (Nazi registration, crappy rich media integration, viruses and all) they're going to be the next plattform for getting the job done hassle free.
Yes, it's true: Steve Jobs, the visonary, did the only right thing: taking a reference grade quality Unix and adding a kick-ass GUI. I'm glad it's paying of for him. And since I've heard my wife using the Konqueror ask 'which button shall I click with?' more than twenty times I've even quit the silly 'only one mouse button' jokes.
I tell you what: If this company does everything right, between a future economy class workhorse plattform (Linux) and a sleek hightec enduser appliance (Mac), there won't be much room for Microsuck Windows. Mark my word!
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
i dont like the fact that if you want to buy a computer running it you have to buy from apple. i would mutch rather have the ability to build myself a "mac" from of the shelf parts. alltho i fear this would more or less make apple's stability claims look like so mutch air...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
yeah - "netcraft confirmes..."
Please understand: a mac theme is not equal to really using a mac. I always liked to play around with my system, I liked having os/2 for my bbs and I liked linux 1.2.8, too. And I'm sure I'm able to force any linux to do exactly as I want to. But I have to tell you this: I really grew tired of doing so. Why do I have to tinker with my settings to make all things work? Why do I have to live with either fancy, or fast, or easy desktop environments? I made the choice for osx 3 years ago and I don't regret a single day. They have some pretty smart people working at apple and if you start to admit their leadership in development you'll be happy to shell out the next 130 bucks for an even better product.
Those of us that followed Apple in the mid-90s are all too familiar with the onslaught of negative publicity that the company received that ultimately predicted the company's imminent death. Of course, the claims were grossly over stated. Apple was a very healthy company at the time as it is now. Unfortunately, the publicity had such a negative affect, that these predictions almost resulted in a self fulfilled prophecy.
At the time, Apple was still a relatively new player in most people's minds. The fact that many computer companies were in fact dying didn't help the stigma Apple received. When one misleading report was coupled with misconceptions about Apple and the marketplace, more reporters inevitably latched onto it and turned the situation into something far bigger than what it actually was.
While I wouldn't classify most of that negative publicity a mass instance of "FUD" (fear uncertainty and doubt), as most instances of FUD are uniquely intentional. These were a combination of some fear uncertainty and doubt mixed with mass-confusion. Thankfully, after a lot of education, such proclamations of death are not taken seriously, no matter what the author's intent.
However, there is a new round of Apple FUD that is not unlike the first and has been propagating throughout the same news scene as before. The new FUD is just as disturbing and equally pervasive as its predecessor but relatively undetected thus far. The new FUD plays on the public's misunderstanding about "market share" and "install base." Most individuals mistakenly use these terms interchangeably without fully understanding their meaning.
Market share is a term that describes the gross number of product sold in a given time period.
Install base is a term used to describe the gross number of products sold that are in use at any given time.
The problem with using these terms interchangeably, -- at least when it comes to computers and computing platforms -- amounts to the same problem that occurred during the 90's era news reports. People are far less inclined to consider an alternative platform if there is concern that it may not be around in the future. In the case of Apple however, these claims are totally unfounded.
Here's an example to put things into perspective: Lets say two people comprise 100% of all computer users on the planet. Each of these individuals bought a new computer for themselves at the same time; one a Macintosh and the other a Windows PC. Market share and installed base dynamics would indicate 50/50 percentages.
But if after two years time, the Windows user decides to replace his computer, "market share" dynamics will show that Windows occupies 50% more of the market than that of Macintosh users... even though there are still only two individuals using a computer.
Because "market share" only gauges sales of a platform as opposed to the total number of products in use, the results are skewed -- assuming we are solely trying to determine the total number of people using that particular product and not gauging sales. Of course, if we utilize the "Install base" dynamic, the ratio of computer users in our example is still 50/50.
When a research company reports that Apple's market share has declined and is at 2%, they may very well be correct, but this is not an indicator that Mac users are defecting to Windows, nor does it in any way suggest that the total number of Mac users is at that number. Instead, it indicates that the number of Macs sold during that time period didn't grow as fast as Windows did. The market share statistic doesn't indicate the fact that the vast majority of Windows users are simply replacing their old systems or that Mac users don't typically upgrade their computers as often.
Mac users tend to get more life out of their machine than their Windows-using counterparts. Because Mac users don't replace their computers as frequently, that translates to decreased "market share" even though install base grew... though not
Also, there's something to be said for simplicity in APIs... Java's tendency ( especially in Swing ) to have two different API which do similar things "except", and convenience methods which duplicate functionality elsewhere, have caused myself and other Java developers some considerable trouble and add to slowness and general code bloat.
Part of the reason for the "missing" API is that it isn't generally needed, as the "missing" functionality is often available in C. IHMO, Objective-C's greatest feature and worst problem is that it's a superset of C... so nobody spent the time needed to put together a true Objective-C XML parsing-API until relatively recently, because you could get the job done just fine using C calls. As you seem to almost say, there's usually a good way to do what you want in Objective-C, often using tricks of the dynamic runtime, which you wouldn't think of in something strongly-typed like Java.
Myself, I'm surprised ( and happy ) to be *back* writing Objective-C after years of writing C and Java apps following my first-ever post-college gig at NeXT...
By the way, Cocoa Bindings is maybe the coolest thing I've seen programming-wise in years. Check it out. I'm sure it's copied from elsewhere ( I think I saw something similar mentioned in Python or something? ) but it's still cool as hell.
While what you are saying holds some truth, it's really very far from explaining the total situation. For the "developer" status to be of any use, a registered developer has to *own* a Mac first. So this rapid growth in the number of registered developers also shows a trend in people buying Macs as well. Some companies or organizations may do this to "port" their app, but I doubt a lot of OSS developers are shelling out their hard-earned cash just to "port" their app.
As a "switcher", I can say it's like Linux/Unix without the hassle, and with commercial apps available. It is my preferred platform, though I had only cursory experience with Macs before OS X. I develop open source apps then do my homework in Microsoft Office (because I have to), and it all just works. =) And I'm not the only one, there are many, many others out there like this. (Apple laptops, which were hardly seen 3-4 years ago, are becoming common sights at conferences by all accounts.) So I don't think there is very much 'spin' to this. Apple IS getting developer mindshare, and like the article says, probably a considerable amount too.
I havent switched over to Mac (been using linux since '96), but I did help my sister, whos going into college this year, buy a Mac. She doesnt know a thing about computers, but having played around with my friends Mac I do feel confident that someone like her with very little computer experience will enjoy a Mac. I very much like the fact that I helped her by a *nix system that she is very happy with. :)
"I have great faith in fools: Self confidence my friends call it." ~Edgar Allan Poe
There's only one problem with this, but its a big problem:
The low-end computer market is no fun.
I don't think Apple wants to be there, and I don't really blame them. You've got tiny little margins. You need to strip out quality parts for 3rd-rate crap that doesn't last as long. And most importantly, you won't make a hell of a lot of money at it unless you are the only game in town... like Dell.
Think about it. Dell has successfully bludgeoned the other once-promising clone makers into fine powder; Gateway is closing its stores, IBM got out of PCs entirely, Compaq is a smudge under HP's ass... am I missing anyone?
The users who are willing to shop around and build (or commission) a custom PC using the cheapest parts are not a large market, nor are they a market that's willing to spend a lot of money.
Just like Palm computers, its a cutthroat business and doesn't really leave you time to innovate or do new, interesting things (like 23" displays for instance). Especially when you are Apple, and you manage (pay for) both the platform and OS development.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Why is this important? Some of us really, really like Apple's hardware -- my iBook G4 was worth the money just because it is silent even under heavy loads, goes to sleep (and wakes) like a charm, and has a pretty impressive battery life compared to most x86 laptops. But OS X comes with a certain closed-system, choice-is-bad philosophy that just drives me nuts. Also, some of the programs included even in 10.3.3 are downright primitive -- Mail doesn't even have TLS in Panther -- and there is no cleanly integrated office package outside of MS Office.
This is where Linux (or dual-boot) comes in: Virtual screens, Kmail, OpenOffice 1.1 without having to boot a second window system, and if you still want to run OS X applications, well, you just do it from Linux with Mac-on-Linux. Hey, have your cake and eat it, too!
I can see lots of people moving to iBooks and PowerBooks and G5s -- heck, in that sense, I'm a switcher -- but keep in mind that just because there is a glowing Apple on the cover, it doesn't mean that there isn't a penguin on the inside. Mac OS X is good if you can stomach its closed-world, Steve-knows-best philosophy, but a lot of people will want the best of both worlds.
If you already know C, and have some experience with OO ( like in Java, for example ), you already know most of what you'll need for Objective-C. As a language, there's not a lot to learn, it'll be learning new design patterns ( like Distributed Objects for threading and Key-Value-Coding for binding and serialization ) that'll take time to learn.
If you don't already know C, you should learn it anyway, IMHO.
Objective-C does reference counting, not garbage collection. That said, it really is a pretty simple set of rules to follow for memory management, it's just annoying for folks who've become lazy under true GC, and of course a terrible source of seg faults and memory leaks.
Creating your own Cocoa control is easy as pie, though most often you start with a custom view object... data types are almost all exactly C data types.
Cocoa does indeed have 'neat ideas', always has...
Apple *does* have ads targeting consumers. You can hardly miss the iPod adverts splattered all across cities and television these days. These adverts are clearly targeting consumers and it's paying off - the net result is the iPod is the market leader in portable digital music players.
The thinking goes like this: Joe Bloggs sees iPod advert and notices all his friends have iPods. Joe buys iPod. Joe likes iPod. Joe's Dell is a bit long in the tooth, so he decides to stop by the newly opened local Apple Retail Store. Apple people demonstrate the benefits of owning a Mac to Joe and he leaves with a shiny new machine.
The same thinking applies to the iTunes Music Store (and also just the iTunes software as a free MP3 jukebox for Windows), in that it will fuel iPod purchases which will in turn fuel Mac purchases.
You said that customers will walk into one of the major retail stores and probably not see Macs. As a result of having a small market share, it's been the case that the retail stores just can't be bothered to give Macs any resources in terms of pushing them onto consumers. The obvious solution is to make them more obvious on the high street, and after years of trying to do that with the store-within-a-stores and all that kerfuffle they finally gave up and are doing it themselves, and it seems to be working.
Personally, I think for a long time advertising wouldn't have solved the problem. Now there's so much else going on, a really well targeted ad campaign for consumer desktops (perhaps shortly after they release a G5-based consumer machine?) would really hit hard.
Having said all that, the management have repeatedly proven that they move in strange and wondrous ways, so who knows what'll happen.
I'm kinda in the same boat. I have a pair of Macs and a couple of Linux boxes to work on at home and work... but I only write PHP and flash.... I just needed to compile other people's code and use 'make' and 'gcc'. So I'm happy to be a member, and I'm glad to have all the tools I got (Rendezvous can be sooo useful when trying to manage an ad-hoc network,) but a developer, I don't know.
.\.\att Clare
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Care to quantify your remarks here? Extremely poor I/O?
I find Mac OS X Server to be every bit as good as stable commercial Linux offerings on roughly equivalent hardware in real world situations. As far as the scheduler is concerned, I've seen far worse starvation issues with 2.4.x kernels than on Mac OS X. I/O throughput on Fibre Channel is also better (not to mention Mac OS X Server supports probing more then 1 LUN and sparse LUNs out of the box).
Now, there are some performance issues - like the time it takes to fork a process and other things that show up in synthetic benchmarks. But for real world performance? I haven't seen anything that demonstrates that RHEL3 or equivalent is substantially superior from a client's view across the network.
Now, if they ported OS X to i386 arch, they'd have 10 fold the developers and 100 fold the customers...
Next did exact that but it didn't actually work. Same with Be and OS/2. It's hard enough to compete for attention against Windows on desktop x86, it's even harder to actually make money doing it. There's a huge difference between potential and actual customers.
Not to mention the integration with the hardware is what makes many of the attractive features of Mac OS X possible in the first place.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Intelligent, rational prose? I'm sorry, but you come off as a paranoid lunatic. I'm not saying you are a paranoid lunatic, but that's the impression I get when I read your post.
Also, when you bitch about the moderation you receive, you're likely to get modded down even more. It's how the system works. Deal with it, or don't even bother posting.
Karma: Contrapositive
I just started my mac os x programming. I wrote a lengthy objective-c tutorial to get familiar with the language, and I'm going to write similar tutorials for AppKit and AppleScript. (I like to write tutorials as part of my learning. Helps me and others at the same time I think).
You wrote a lengthy objective-c tutorial? You've got nerve I'll give you that. The thing reads like a crib sheet to Stephen Kochan's Programming in Objective-C. At least credit the guy when you lift example code from him. Shesh.
First of all, buying an Apple PowerBook does not rule out Linux. Secondly, for someone that is lambasting Apple's small marketshare, it is interesting to me that you do seem to try to keep up with Apple news - even if your interpretation is oddly twisted.
3 x the clock speed of 1.5GHz is 4.5GHz. You really think that even the Pentium 4 will hit 4.5GHz before or at the same time a PowerBook hits 1.5GHz? You think that IBM would ship something like that in a ThinkPad? You should be knowledgable enough to know that clockspeed != performance, and performance != productivity. Are you buying productivity or are you buying clockspeed? Laptops/notebooks are often purchased for productivity (with pure performance as a secondary concern), and small things like wake from sleep in 2 seconds, easy switching across multiple networks and network configurations (including remembering many Wifi names and passwords), firewire target disk mode are conveniences that are definitely worth money. Further, battery life at full speed or equivalent speed tilts the value equation closer to the PowerBook. What model of Dell or IBM would you put up against a 15" or 17" PowerBook?
Microsoft actions are very different from Apple's actions - you haven't been paying attention at Microsoft's first and second anti-trust investigations/suits. The issue isn't being proprietary - that's an issue for the customer to weigh, and most customers these days don't even think twice about issues of proprietary vs. open standard or single source, or all that.
I've purchased commercial Linux (which is mighty expensive), I've purchased Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Digital, Apple, etc. products. The only way to slow Linux's maturity is to convince developers to not develop on Linux. Buying an Apple product does not do that any more than buying a x86 product that comes bundled with Microsoft Windows, even if your intention is to wipe it and put Linux on it. Just try buying a new laptop, or even better, a Tablet PC w/o Windows of any flavor.