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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."
iThink it is.
This may make up for the number of long time Apple devlopers that left after buying 9600 PowerMacs when we where told they would be the devlopment platform of choice for Apples next gen OS.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
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 Developer Profile Changing?"
What, like - no more single, fat, balding, Mountain Dew drinkers?*
Oh wait, that's not just Apple Developers...
*I'm a developer, too. Yes, it's self-deprecating humor. Thanks, I know.
"Apple to add more sessions focusing on enterprise and IT"
I hope it comes in PINK!
hi
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
I can see why. I used Macs for years but I didn't write a line of code for them (except java) until Mac OS X came out.
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
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.
I'm a long time software developer who codes predominantly for Windows and UNIX, but because Macs have embraced the UNIX architecture I would now like to start coding for OS X. I personally feel that Mac OS has a much brighter future than Windows (still not sure about Linux desktop).
It would not be a stretch to say that I'm willing to ditch Windows in favour of Linux and Mac OS.
So far, I have found wxWidgets which is a C++ toolset that allows the creation of cross-platform GUIs (Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOS) that uses native GUI elements on each platform (unlike GTK+ or Qt which end up looking non-native). To me this seems like the best way for a programmer to get into cross-platform, including Mac, programming. You don't sacrifice Windows compatibility.
I think alot of people are starting to make the move over to somehting that is more usable that strikes a very safe balance between a easy to use desktop and unix. It also shows the level of effort that apple has gone to make development and skill even easier.
With all these Unix & Open Source developers flocking our way, I can only hope that one of them might develop a decent ftp client for OS X :). Granted, there are some decent payware clients (like Transit), but is an ftp client really worth $25? On the free side, RBrowser Lite comes close, except that it can't change permissions on the remote host :-/.
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
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
It makes a lot of sense.
Apple has made it easier to program for OS X. The integration of Interface Builder and XCode certainly makes it easier than programming in Mac OS 'Classic'. You don't have to mess with Carbon or resource forks either. And since it's built on Unix, Unix developers don't have to do much work to get it to work under X.
TheMadRedHatter
while(1)
{
}
Ah, the story of life.
Considering there is a hardware discount for developers, many of that number aren't necessarily active coders, but simply signed up as developers for the discount.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
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.
And others blindly buy total crap cause everyone else uses it...
And then there are the Linux desktop folks...no idea what to say about them....
-
Mac on the desktop, Linux in the server room and Windows in the dupster...ahh Utopia.
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
True, if by "take their head out of their ass" you are referring to substantially lowering their prices. The Xserve is priced fairly competitively, but a G5 starts at $1800 and you can get a IBM ThinkCentre S50 for around $900. When ACME Corporation has to purchase 1000 new pc's, which do you think they will choose?
Darwin is free, and doesn't require new hardware, either. However, the robust, consistent GUI is a big draw for people developing interfaces.
And Darwin will integrate nicely between your old, busted and your completely new hardware. (j/k)
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
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.
Fugu is a fantastic open source SFTP client.
Personally, I think Transmit was worth the $25.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
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
I'm not talking about work stations, Im talking about servers. And try finding a windows server anywhere for under 2500. One with an OS that is.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
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.
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'm a registered developer on OSX, yet I don't develop on OSX.. You need to be a registered developer just to download GCC. Just because I wanted to compile an app on OSX doesn't mean I'm an OSX developer.
You need to be a registered developer to download the source for Darwin Streaming Server (so even if you run it on Linux you're still considered an "OSX developer")
So that 300,000 number is grossly inflated.
Yeah, I bought the 190, which suffered from many of the same problems - not the burning batteries of the first release, though.
The power connector was crap I snapped and re-soldered mine three times, and have seen another 190 and two 5300's with the same problem.
Apple did offer a trade-in on all 190 and 5300 models - get a PowerBook G3 (Pismo) for $1900. It was a good trade, for my $900 190, and I still use my Pismo.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
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
Too bad I happen to be using a windows box to read and post right now, otherwise your comment might have had merit.
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
And all of a sudden, visual studio was like BEEP BEEP BEEP, and my source code was, like GONE. The PC totally ate my source code!
And it was GOOD source code, too.
I had to retype my source code from scratch, like, REALLY FAST, and my boss thought it was really lousy and so my job got, like, outsourced to like, India.
But my dad got me a new iBook G4 with Xcode, now I never get outsourced!
My name is Ellen Feiss, and I'm a software developer.
http://www.apple.com/switch
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
Care to give some examples? I haven't done any Java development (yeah, I know, I'm a bit late on that bandwagon : ). Was wondering what sort of things you miss? Having come from C++ the delegation and bindings stuff are the things I like about Cocoa/Objective-C. I quite like the Collection classes in cocoa BTW, NSArray (or EDSortedArray if you want a sorted version), NSDictionary and NSSet. They are quite basic though I guess.
I was the same way, until I learned my way around the api, a great resource, if you don't already know about it is the Cocoa Mailing lists. http://cocoa.mamasam.com/ is a nice archive. I do agree it would be nice it some parts of it were more modernized (e.g. a nice Quicktime API) but im not sure when/if that will ever happen.
Jisho - A Japanese English German Russian French Dictionary for the rest of us.
unlike microsoft who charges you a few grand for the privilege of developing windows software.
.net comes with csc (the C# compiler) for free. Add SharpDevelop and you have a very high class IDE for free.
Actually,
But you're obviously talking about Visual Studio, which, if MS started giving away for free, people would start screaming antitrust.
The thing is--with Mac software--you don't need multiple mouse buttons any more than you need multiple letter keys.
Why don't we see anyone shouting for multiple X, C, V, or Z keys because it's too hard to cut, copy, paste and undo the way things are now?
Cocoa kicks ass to develop with. Most people who use it can't imagine having not used it before. It's up there with .NET as far as positive developer reaction, but I think Cocoa is probably even more elegant
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."
Same for me (alright, not the MIT, but still the best I could manage and afford), except I bought the Powerbook to run Gentoo GNU/Linux on it. It runs smoothly, and probably more even than on most of the x86 laptops out there. The hardware is great too.
...
I was actually amazed to see how polished and clean Mac OS X was. As my experience of proprietary desktop OSes was mainly windows, I was suddenly wondering why so many people wouldn't use Mac OS X instead of that old, buggy ms crap. Yes, games, maybe
I will keep Mac OS X just in case, but GNU/Linux on Apple laptops is definitely a bliss.
theefer
I wrote an article on this a while back. Someone else in this thread asked why would anyone lock themselves into a proprietary development platform when Linux is available. Well, it ain't necessarily so proprietary.
Beyond the obvious allure, i.e., OS X is the only easy to use desktop Unix that natively supports the major productivity applications (i.e., Microsoft Office). That combination is just not available. Yea, OpenOffice is nice, but for those that *need* 100% compatibility, it's not ready for prime time. Just like linux for the desktop.
Anyway, ever since NeXT opened the developer spec for OPENSTEP, GNUstep has been doing a great job of recreating a compile compatible version. What this means is that Cocoa really isn't as proprietary as you might think because it sticks to the OPENSTEP spec. The result is apps developed for GNUstep can be compiled for OS X's cocoa with relatively little fuss or muss. In essence GNUstep is someone Mac compatible.
Personally, I wish people would dump GNOME and KDE and adopt GNUstep with display ghostscript, a unified class structure, a great GUI, and Linux underpinnings; it is OS X for Linux. Ok, it's more like NeXTSTEP for Linux. Anyway, if anyone takes it mainstream it could mean big problems for Apple.
Simply because MacOS is suddenly more like Unix doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to attract developers. Having the right set of tools available for developers to use will make MUCH MORE of a difference. Consider a product like RealBasic (http://www.realbasic.com/) that opens up the world of Apple (and now Linux) development to the MILLIONS of VB developers who until now could only program on Windows because that was the only option in their chosen language.
When I read "Developer Profile Changing", my first thought is "Shit, I hope they don't want me to start wearing a suit to work!"
Trolling is a art,
OS X has all the power of Linux coupled with a better UI and greater availability of commercial applications.
Depends on your definition of power. OS X is nice but XNU is a piece of crap. XNU's poor scheduler and extremely poor IO means I would never use OS X as a server. The kernel just can't make full use of the hardware.
I'm in that boat. I got a WWDC scholarship to go to Apple's developer conference, and my application was basically "UNIX UNIX UNIX". I think they see this as a major new market: We can't get all the Windows users to switch, why not take a stab at the already-busy niche market? If you took a look in the OS 9 days just about everything popular that was a hobby OS is a close UNIX or direct UNIX deritivative. BeOS, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. If all these hobbiests are willing to do it for free and fun, why not take advantage of that and make it even better?
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). It's a great language and environment based on what i know so far. Much much nicer than C++ coding.
- tristan
Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
Join Tor today!
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.
I think that this says something about how usable OS X really is. If such a large percentage of the users are developers than maybe it is only usable by developers and other tech savy people?
Admitadly I am not an Apple person. I've dropped by the Apply store and tried messing around with the computers in the store but not much else. But I found the systems not much better than the popular linux distributions.
I've been a software developer for about 7 years nows. Ranging from embedded work, windows, to linux/unix. More recently I've been a java developer and oracle dba. About a year ago I purchased a dual G4 powermac. I installed oracle and jbuilder8 on it within a couple of days and was developing software as easily as on any other system. I have been very happy with my purchases(though I wish I had a G5).
Though I must admit, that I recently needed to purchase a laptop for doing some work on the road and chose not to go with a powerbook. Most notably because I felt the current offerings would not offer me the power I could get with the equivalent intel based system(where's the G5 powerbook???). Sad to admit, but possibly a more important factor to not choosing a powerbook was the single button touch pad. I use a two button w/scroll usb mouse on my powermac and I couldn't imagine using a single button touchpad on a powerbook. Yeah, yeah, I could use an external mouse, but on a plane its not so easy to do, so you must use the touchpad. I didn't want to suffer with that single button, ugh!
mp3's are only for those with bad memories
a G5 starts at $1800 and you can get a IBM ThinkCentre S50 for around $900.
If the G5 is so overpriced, why then does the cheapest, most powerful supercomputer consist of G5s? The third most powerful supercomputer in the world is an array of G5s that was much cheaper than many of the supercomputers slower than it.
The fact is, the IBM ThinkCentre S50 is not comparable to the G5. A good, fast Mac that businesses should be looking at is the iMac.
People are verifiably moving to OS X.
:P
You: "Uh, no they're not, they're moving to OSS. I have no other reason for this statement other than I said so."
Meanwhile, what we're talking about is Cocoa and the Apple Developer Tools.
"The only thing I can't understand is why iTunes and QuickTime seem so inferior on Windows."
Not trolling, I'm geniunely curious - what makes iTunes on Windows inferior? A few weeks ago I installed iTunes on my XP box. Runs great. Copied 5GB of tunes from my iBook, made my playlists, etc. Does everything I do with it on my iBook, no crashes.
I've got a 2.4GHz P4 - is it a performance problem on older hardware?
I do think you are bang-on here. Macs are the luxury items of computing. It's not the most open, or the cheapest.. but damned if it's not the most enjoyable system I've ever had. And like a nice luxury car, I know I paid for that enjoyment with cash.
As it is, nothing in the open source world comes across as cleanly and nice as OSX... therefore, OSX has value to me.
As for being "Elitist".. that's a bit smug. It's quality stuff, for a price. If an equal experience were available to me for free, I wouldn't be paying money to Apple. As long as Apple keeps ahead of the game... why on earth should they not keep prices up? They are an awfully successful company for an underdog with a small marketshare compared to their competitor.
That said.. like many things... luxury is not always more expensive. A poor man buys clothing that only lasts, say, 6 months, because it's all he can afford. The rich man buying clothing for 2x the price ends up with material and quality that lasts 4x as long, or more.... more than equal to the price in the long run.
The useful life of a mac for the average mac users tends to be much longer than the useful life of a PC... less reformats, less urge to buy the latest mac, etc. IT's not for everyone, certainly not for an overclocking tweaker kid...
I'm A Unix guy by trade.. and a while back I got into osX. This little 800Mhz G3 iBook is still suiting me just fine.. I really can't find a good reason to drop a few grand on a newer mac. I can afford it, the money is set aside for it, but there is no real benefit to my computing experience to buying a new mac at this point, even though mine is quite dated.
The open source world sets a good baseline for value.. making it harder and harder to sell garbage as real product.... but highly usable and elegant computing takes a level of control over a project that most open projects do not yet have.
What we need is an inspired usability freak with the attitude of Theo de Raadt to produce an apple clone.
Too many cooks make linux less usable.
I don't need two or three balls either, but I like them all the same. So, thx but I'll pass...
but because some courses dive into assembly to understand machine architecture (there is a distinct x86 bias for obvious reasons)
I guess things have changed in the 10 years or so it's been since I was in college. In the courses that dealt with assembly, we all used MIPS assembly, and most of us used SPIM, the MIPS emulator, for our projects.
You can download the .NET framework SDK, with compiler for free from microsoft. And msdn.microsoft.com provides a great set of documentation. Plus microsoft provides open developer communities such as gotdotnet.net
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.
How can Apple do this? There are two problems, as I see it. First is advertising. They haven't had ads targeting you basic consumer since the iMac days (since most Joe Sixpacks aren't going to buy a G5, and they didn't advertise the LCD iMac long). If someone who doesn't have a computer wants one, what do they think of? They think "I can buy one at Best Buy, Circuit City, Radio Shack, or from Dell, or Compaq." Unless the happen to walk into a store like Microcenter or CompUSA and see the Mac section, they probably won't give buying a Mac any real thought.
The other problem is prices. Now, before you go calling me a troll, hear me out. I agree that a Mac is most of the time a better value than a PC. But when people see ads on TV for $500 Dells and they found out that Macs start at $700 or so, you're in trouble. If they could lower the price of the lowest one (say to $600) that would help. They should also ADVERTISE their lowest model and it's price (the eMac). Point out in the ads that it comes with iTunes, movie editing software, photo editing software, video conferenceing software, DVD burning software, and such. Compare the price of that $500 Dell once you include the monitor, that software above, and such. Maybe include a nice office suite (Open Office or anything else) so it will be a "complete computer" with anything most people would need. This will sell some real computers. Advertise how they are practically immune to viruses and hackers (compared to Windows) so you don't have to worry when you're on the internet. Show the cool features like expose (eye candy is always good). Show that Macs can play games too.
And get them back into schools. That plus the above should really help apple out. Schools will love the Unix core (secure, easy to centereally manage), low virus problems, etc. Macs can read and write disks/etc from students with PCs or Macs so no one will run into that "but I have a Mac and so my disk won't work here" problem.
I love Macs, but they aren't going to grow (at any noticeable rate) in market share without some advertising. Grassroots is nice, but it's only keeping Apple sustained. They've got some of the best computers on the market (along with, IMHO, the best OS). Tell the world!
As for the business market, if the boss has a Mac at home (even if he got it for his kids, or he's seen the one at a friend's house) and he's had little trouble with it (compared to his PC) then he's going to be much more likely to entertian the idea of getting Macs. Businesses will like Macs too for many of the reasons stated above in the "school" paragraph.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I agree to a degree (seriously, I did not intend that to rhyme).
For example; NSString has methods for getting a UTF8String, getCString, fileSystemRepresentation, etc, but there is no method for "pascalString" or "initWithPascalString".
That's why you use a cool Objective-C feature called categories. They let you add methods to any existing class (without subclassing anything). I've written a good number of convenience-methods for NSMutableString & NSFileManager.
Categories are also pretty handy for beefing up interface-object classes.
No, that's when they start making it a default install...
:)
"But your honor, we can't remove Visual Studio. Large parts of Windows are now compiled on the fly..."
Sure, Apple gets away with things that Microsoft can't. But, if Microsoft released a brand new operating system (really, not just "Oh, look, this one's blue.") and bundled - not default installed - a devkit with it, the inevitable lawsuits would go much more quickly.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
There's a mission statement for the Open Source movement in there somewhere. Very nice.
The guitars sound good, now give me about 10db more on the cow bell.
However, Apple has pretty much always had a superior OS [..]
C'mon! By "pretty much" you mean "except for every release of MacOS and the original OS X?". If so, yes, I guess they've "always" had a superior OS.
That slow-as-molass cooperative-multitasking non-MMU OS where "multitasking" was more like "select a program to run up front", that was kicked up and down the street by AmigaOS, is just a figment of my imagination I guess.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Wow, the mac lovers are out in force today.
An reasoned opinion is not flamebait, no matter how much it may disparage your favorite toy.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Oh yes because pre OSX lots of developers were making software for the mac, WTF, your spouting absolute garbage there.
However everything after the first line does make sense and is very real.
I've thought about this. And I've thought maybe Java coming from Sun and me working with Sun made us have a similar way of thinking. But I don't think so. It's an interesting questions, though... whether there is a "naturally" correct interface to a class or whether it depends on the "culture" of the programmer...
Devon
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."
What makes you think Office for the Mac is 100% compatible with Office for Windows? Even things like different kinds of font antialiasing can be enough to break compatibility in some scenarios, let alone things like Win32 specific VBScripts (that use WSH etc). Actually, it is of course possible to use the Real Thing(tm) on Linux courtesy of CrossOver, if you need it.
Anyway, ever since NeXT opened the developer spec for OPENSTEP, GNUstep has been doing a great job of recreating a compile compatible version.
Not really - GNUstep can't read the OS X UI files for one, it's not complete, and the GNUstep team are explicitly not interested in 100% compatibility (for instance, replicating wierd/buggy semantics of Apples APIs). And of course you have the whole deal of having to redo all the artwork, nobody using the GNUstep widgets and so on ....
I think that the "Mercedes or BMW of IT" label is thrown around a little bit too fast with Apple. Steve Jobs has even spread it around some, I can remember an interview where the interviewer asked him about Apple's marketshare, commenting on how small it was, and he replied by naming some luxury auto brands that had a market share smaller than Apple's.
Now, if you're a home user, yes, its harder to rationalize spending the money for a decent Apple computer, but even then, there are exceptions, like how an eMac is now $749 for univeristy students with the discount.
However, for business users, its been noted many times that computers are just a 'means to an end'. For years, many companies would buy engineers, etc. a new $10,000 Sun box because the added productivity easily covered the cost of the computer.
I _know_ that my productivity's improved greatly since switching to OS X from Windows. The environment just seems more friendly, it seems snappier to get done what I need to do.
So I think, even for the average desktop, where lots of Office stuff is used, web-surfing, etc., chances are, the improved productivity (combined with lower TCO (maybe) because of fewer viruses, greater reliability, etc.), makes the ~$1,200 investment for an iMac worthwile for many businesses.
The developer tools, including the compiler, come with the OS, on the "Xcode Tools" CD.
Now they do, but for 3 years there was no "Xcode Tools" cd.
Your point regarding GNUstep not being 100% compatible is well taken. But it is a far way along. And in some instances a developer is able to keep a single codebase and compile to the two different platforms (GNUstep and Cocoa), NIB files withstanding for now. It's likely this kind of compatibility become more the case as GNUstep continues to evolve, simply because the GNUstep team has been narrowing that gap steadily for some time.
As for your Mac Office not being 100% compatible. Well, if you're going to be pedantic about it, Office for windows is not 100% compatible with itself. First it's not compatible as between different versions (e.g., 97 vs. XP). Also, even with the same versions, because of system/font variances et. al., it will also have issues. All that being said, in my experience, which is not statistically relevant, the variances between the Mac version of Office and Windows version is not significantly greater than the variances between Windows versions. The variances in compatibility between OpenOffice and MS Office are far greater, again, in my experience.
As always, YMMV.
I feel sorry for those who "Switched" from Linux to OSX. You have made a big mistake.
;-) but really, it doesn't matter all that much.
Well, I think that they're spending too much on mostly aesthetics when it comes to hardware...but how much does it really hurt? Both Linux and OS X run on laptops, and you can use whatever.
I don't like OS X much compared to Linux (and I think that a lot of OS X hype is just that -- hype from really vocal people) but it's not as if this is Windows/Mac OS we're talking about, where switching to the Mac or to Windows entails changing platforms. You can happily use OS X and if you feel like switching to Linux, do so, and if back to OS X...go for it. Remember that Apple paid a good chunk of their engineers to work on PowerPC Linux. A lot of bug fixes are done by people using software that runs on all platforms -- look at, say, Aleph One coded to SDL and OpenGL, or some guy using grep. It's kinda like FreeBSD and Linux. Sure, we'd like to bring our less enlightened brethren into the Linux fold
Plus, Apple puts out those oddball PowerPC machines, and having people using machines with different integer sizes and byte ordering is a good way to find common software portability bugs. Think of it as having a bigger pool of beta testers.
I *do* think it is a little sad that OS X has a proprietary set of GUI APIs, so a lot of OS X GUI software can't be used (and developed on!) by Linux folks, but such is life.
May we never see th
I knew someone would ask that. Unfortunately, now that I've worked around everything, I don't really have any simple examples off the top of my head.
One problem that frustrated me recently, though, was the modal window concept. When you're in a modal window, you're running in a special event loop and things like timers, network events, etc, aren't delivered. This just seems like such a kludge to me. I can't handle my networking events because a non-physical abstraction like a window is blocking it? Weird. Sure, there are work-arounds like threads but the underlying model is not what I'd expect. I'd expect something like... you have to call a method that puts the app into modal mode so that only appropriate mouse events are delivered. Then you return to the the normal event loop so all events can be handled as usual. When you're done another method is called to end modal mode.
Of course, that's a big example. There were many small ones, too.
Devon
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
Well the fact its Apple hardware only is one hell of a massive reason alone. Without the side issue of the major projects like Apache, X, MySQL, Postgres, virtually every other targetting Linux. Yes Linux is a Monolithic Kernel, as apposed to a Micro Kernel, but is that really so massively important (I do love the idea of micro kernels, and I think it would be great) to remove the head of steam that Linux has built up.
ATM your seeing Linux ported to everything under the sun, not because its the best but for the simple reason that people know it, I'd be very surprised if NetBSD didn't Linux on portability.
I'm gonna blow the 5 mod points I allready spent in this thread.
Dude, you're totally off. Metrowerks DID drop Mac Codewarrior. sure, they still have the product, but it took'em ages to upgrade it to decent OSX compatibility. Powerplant is nowhere. There's no decent resource editor. The docs are completely outdated as are the header files.
No, they didn't drop it, they just left it hanging where it was. Remember that Metrowerks is now owned by Motorola, who have a rather tacky relationship with Cupertino after the G4 debacle.
they did not choose Windows as new platform, but rather went for the embedded PowerPC market.
lookup your facts before spewing nonsense
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
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
Mac OS X combines Microsoft Office and other Windows apps with the Unix way and with the best UI around, running on best general purpose CPU (now that Alpha is gone) and on one of the nicest platforms aesthetically. It is quite a tempting proposition.
http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/Fra mework.cfm?page=XPostFacto3.html
Mac OS X for the rest of us with aging machines. Even 9600s are supported, thanks to Darwin being open enough. 10.3 will run on system's apple would rather shove under the table. But that doesn't mean they're useless. Just totally, absolutely, unconditionally UNSUPPORTED. that doesn't mean anything to a wheat hacksaw like you tho.
But you already knew that.
Lycestra
Cocoa on the other hand seems to be more Observer pattern based -- you can link controls directly to each other with some kind of Controller object. And it also seems that you can define objects that express the "connections" that objects can have. I have looked at the docs and tried to make sense of it, but I guess I need to try it some time to really get the concept.
On the other hand, Cocoa is based on Objective C, and I guess I am kinda of lazy about learning yet another language (is Java Cocoa as good?). Is Cocoa reference counted (like ActiveX)? Does this mean Cocoa is not keeping up with the GC'd Java and .NET Joneses? Or does Cocoa work just fine without GC the way it is?
Can you create your own Cocoa controls (easily) (as with create your own ActiveX control -- not so easy, but not as difficult as you think these days with VS ATL, Delphi, and other tools, pretty easy with .NET)? If there is such a thing as a Cocoa control that you can develop yourself, drag and drop in a form, use with a scripting language, or place in a Web browser, does it have funky data types like with ActiveX (BSTR, VARIANT, SAFEARRAY), or can you pass arrays and object references at will like your can with Java or .NET?
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.
I'm stating the obvious, and this comment is probably redundant, but /. has gotten so damned crammed-up that I feel obliged to register this thouhght, ***just to be sure***:
I think you're seeing migration because it runs on Nontel processors and OSX actually has a marginally decent UI.
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
I'm currently a CS undergrad. When we first learned assembly it was in MIPS using spim. In our Systems class we had to learn x86 for decompiling and reverse engineering, but you could always run objdump on any x86 machine and read the file where ever. Of course in compilers we used sparc assembly. I never have had the oppurtunity to use PowerPC assmebly in classes, but luckily it is a RISC lang so not to difficult to parse.
What's my point.... Anyway we don't have and x86 bias here.
I love numbers like that.
I'm a registered Apple developer. I don't have a Mac, have no immediate plans to buy a Mac and am definitely not going to be doing any Mac-specific programming anytime soon.
But I had to register to download Rendezvous source. Which doesn't bother me, just don't call me an Apple Developer!
Bryan
They had a superior OS back in 1984, if only by default.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I'm posting from my PC too - it has the bigger monitor. And until there are Insanely Great flight-sims on the Mac, my fastest machine and videocard will be running Windows. At least it's an AMD CPU. And has Cygwin installed...
I feel kinda bad about it, but I have an addiction to feed.
Seriously, try the IL-2 demo if you have a PC handy.
Hmmm. WINE. A thought...
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
By far my favorite FTP client has been FileZilla, but as a Mac user I've always been disappointed that I couldn't use it on my Mac. However, FileZilla 3 will be written in wxWidgets, and I'll even help package it for OS X if that is what it takes to get FileZilla on my Mac! =)
My assembly class was Mot (HC11), and in Comp Org we are doing MIPS with SPIM. But I do have to deal with bugs in SPIM between the X11 & Windows verion. Only x86 based class I've had to deal with was a 3D programming that was based on DirectX, so I just did my work in the lab.
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.
Wrong. The developer tools, including the compiler, come with the OS, on the "Xcode Tools" CD.
My PowerBook only came with a restore CD.
Yeah the quality is there, the power isn't. I had one, the 15" 1.25Ghz model, had it 2 months before i sold it for a 1Ghz eMac, hardly any difference other than the huge price difference (and weight, 2.5kgs to 30kgs). I even paid developer price for the damn PowerBook (10% cheaper than edu price). However, once the G5 hits the PB, i'm buying the 12" one, the G4 is fucking dead already.
Jonathanjk.com
IBM has a 1.4 SDK/JRE available for PPC Linux. Installed the RPM on my Debian Powerbook via Alien and it runs great, although no Mozilla plugin. I had a link to an article about how to get Java to work in Mozilla but the site has been down for awhile.
Not really - GNUstep can't read the OS X UI files for one, it's not complete,
Actually, this might change in the near future: I've read on the gnustep discussion list that someone is working on making OS X NIB files work on GNUstep. (iirc)
and the GNUstep team are explicitly not interested in 100% compatibility (for instance, replicating wierd/buggy semantics of Apples APIs).
There are a lot of people in the GNUstep community who are interested in near-100% compatibility. Most of the time, new features from OS X are added to GNUstep.
WRT the few times of not adopting buggy behaviour, you can always use #IFDEF _GNUSTEP_...
-- I love the smell of Blue Screens in the morning.
But there was a "Developer CD" that came with retail versions of OS X.0 and X.2. It didn't come with preloaded versions however.
.RE: Flight sims on the Mac. Have you tried X-Plane? http://www.x-plane.com/
Three years is a long time! A lot has happened in Linuxland since then. You will like what you will see with KDE 3.2 and Gnome 2.6! No tinkering necessary with Modern distributions such as Mandrake 10. It may be $129 now, but what if apple raises it to $299, $999, $5000! How much are you willing to pay? With Linux you have the choice, you either pay for a distribution or you can have the free one. You see linux as the linux of three years ago, I see Linux as the linux of today! When you update your view you will see that I am correct.
I have a fetish for traffic cones
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.
When you're in a modal window, you're running in a special event loop and things like timers, network events, etc, aren't delivered.
Timers still fire if you add them to the appropriate run loop mode (NSModalPanelRunLoopMode in the case of modal windows). I agree that this is inelegant and the default should be to continue processing events.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I'm not a developer. Originally picked developer pkg off install CD for 10.3.0; then found gcc after upgraded to 10.3.3 ...
When I can buy a reasonably new tech motherboard for 100 bucks, a decent cpu for two thirds that, stick'em all in a box of MY choosing with any other peripherals I want (ie tv tuner card, etc) then we can talk.
Honestly, I hope IBM is able to pull off that "open platform" push they were talking about last week. No matter what Apple says in their stupid shrinkwrap license, if IBM can start selling competetively priced system components that will allow folks to run OSX on machines put together by mom and pop computer stores, I'd be all over that.
To answer your questions, Cocoa Java is pretty good, not as good as Cocoa w/ ObjC, but still damn good. Cocoa is refrence counted and can also be "GC'ed" (via autoreleasing). Comming from Java, I actually prefer the refrence counting over GC but that is just me. You can create your own cocoa 'controls' (called Views in Cocoa speak), and they damn pretty damn easy just need to implement the drawRect: method. As for the web browser stuff, not that I know of, and funky datatypes, nope, just stuff like, NSImage, NSString (remember Cocoa came from NeXTSTEP), and yes, you can pass object references.
Jisho - A Japanese English German Russian French Dictionary for the rest of us.
Java has everything plus the kitchen sink in it. Cocoa is not quite so "full featured". But as others have said, it's simple to add functionality to any class using Categories.
hehehe, I agree with fozzmeister (the other reply, not the AC I'm replying to). "Hackers" did not code for MacOS 9. haha, that must be a joke, I keep laughing as I type this. OS 9 had VERY limited software. You think OS X has limited software, you should've seen 9. With X, we can run most unix apps. In 9, we were totally at the mercy of the few software developers that would port to it because it was a massive effort. Now porting to MacOS X from unix requires few, if any, changes.
;-)
There were no hackers on OS 9. It didn't have a command line as you point out, and it couldn't connect to machines that used a command line. It could barely talk to anything outside http, ftp, and a few other legacy protocols. No hacker wasted their time on it.
I'm debating whether to post this because I don't want to start a flamewar with an AC. If someone replies to this, reply with your nick or I won't respond. No sense in conversing with a coward.
attempting to be insightful as I refute him and not be modded flamebait...
Just hire an extra guy and call him the Lieutenant Compiler.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Exactly. I bought a new Mac recently at a retail outlet. No Developer CD. I called the Apple tech support number, and they put it in the mail to me. I'm hoping it's there when I get home tonight. I've got a tracking number, just in case.
Bad enough that I didn't get a basic office suite like everybody else ("Our Pro users didn't use AppleWorks anyway, so we only include it on the Consumer models." Grrr.) but to not get the Developer tools on a Pro machine was outrageous! Especially since that without X11.app, I can't run OpenOffice either. (No way I'm paying for MS Office X.) I'm trying the Abiword preview right now, but it's not the same.
Constitutionally Correct
In a former life I used to develop under NeXTstep and then OPENSTEP. I freely grant that I do not have great and deep experience in GNUstep development. I have some understand of what is going on simply because it remains so similar to OPENSTEP and OS X development. Also, I still play around developing little things here and there under OS X just as a hobby.
All that being said, for that mumbo jumbo article, yes, I compiled several of the GNUstep applications (that are linked in the article) without incident under OSX.
Scarily enough, MS Office running on Crossover works as well or better than MS Office v.X on OS X. I still prefer OS X, but Crossover works *really* well.
Look in /Applications/Installers (from memory). Can't remember if it was the eMac or iMac or such, but there was a dev tools CD image in there along with AOL or some such. You very well might have it on your system and not even know it.
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
if you can live with java and swing, it's not that difficult to write applications that for the most part feel like native Mac OS X applications and still run without modifications on other platform.
some guy wrote an article (pdf) how to basically do it. apple's MRJ toolkit is a pain, but fortunately there also is MRJ Adapter.
sure, you have to learn the structure of application bundles and how to write in an Info.plist. still, you can stay away from xcode and cocoa without much trouble.
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.
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.
...at least apps that use it appear to be - Audacity for example is dog slow. Using native widgets in OS X whether Carbon or Cocoa is a cinch. provided you keep your GUI and "engine" code well factored making cross-platform applications shouldn't be too hard.
Did they get the no- Flash plug in on Linux PPC thing fixed yet?
I love Mac OS X, it has great international language support. You can use multiple languages at the same time, set your favorite order and easily translate cocoa apps.
I hate Mac OS X, the developer has to actively support multiple languages if you want your translation to survive a minor update. Even though all the ingredients are there to support automated updating with strings files, much like pot files on KDE, these are not automatically generated or even kept inside the application bundle, forcing users to become one of the 300.000 developers just to change some strings.
I wish Mac OS X would create decent strings files as a default automatic proces during development. And read these text / strings files at execution just like it reads changed picture and Interfacebuilder files. Allowing any user to just translate this text file for there mother with a simple text editor and then send it to the developer who has to do nothing but distribute it and get free access to larger markets. The translator would not have to be kept in the loop, another user from the same language can spot a untranslated string in an updated application and add the single translation, then send the strings file to the developer.
Already you can decide if you think a translation is bad and just turn it off in the info window and use the language of the developer. Come on Apple take that extra step and give powerusers easy access to the text of an application. Discover the world market.
You forgot that since Apple's OS X is closed source, it may have backdoors built in by the NSA. It MAY. I'm not saying it DOES, I'm saying I can't prove it doesn't. And after reading earlier today about the NSA monitoring every email that goes through an American server on its journey (which is pretty much all of them), I'm more worried about the inherent safety of my systems. All the firewalls in the world won't protect you if the paranoid theories about MS' NSAKey.dll are correct, or if the same NSA that approached MS to trojan their systems approached Apple (and why wouldn't they?). It is of the UTMOST IMPORTANCE security-wise, to be able to trust your operating system 100%. I have an Apple, I'll agree that the PowerBooks NEED an update (I'm still hanging onto my TiBook, years after I wanted to upgrade), and I love the mind-numbing ease of use of OSX, but if you ask me whether I can guarantee that there are no backdoors built into it, I have to respond 'no.' If IBM really is making Linux ThinkPads based on the G5 this year, I WILL be dropping OS X completely for that platform.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
The nice thing about MIT is that most of their computing system is unix based. There are some windows machines and some macs in the administrative offices etc. but practically as a rule (except for the microsoft funded teal-laboratories) everything runs on athena (which is a customized solaris/linux). This means that running a unix-variant can actually be an advantage.
From experience I can say that at least for the first two years it really doesn't matter what kind of a computer you have (as long as it does web browsing and word processing) and even after that you're likely to not have to worry about it. Matlab and maple might be nice to have but everything is available in the public clusters that are practically everywhere.
Also, mit definitely does not emphasize microsoft tools. Your programming classes are either on scheme or java and those run on just about everything. I have neighbours who are running everything from linux to mac to solaris to windows to no computers and are doing just fine. What's more, as much as possible is done with open tools. You're likely to be using gnu tools a lot of time. As a matter of fact openoffice is the standard office environment, netscape the web-browser and the use of emacs/latex is much liked, and you're likely to be running all this on a linux box(or solaris).
In general, people pretty much get to use the tools they are comfortable with and there are as little restrictions imposed by the school as possible.
And majors vary too.. There is a lot more than just technology. I came to mit thinking about majoring in cs now doing mathematics (with some cs) and thinking of concentrating in economics and finance... So far it hasn't really matter what kind of a computer I have had (well, business school tends to have ms-bias, which is understandable).
sooooooooo..... sign up for the free developer account and download them.
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.
They do ship a "Developer's" or "Xcode" CD with the retail boxed version of the OS. But if you have a preloaded version of OS X, or if you would rather be using the latest tools (patches come out all the time), you gotta sign up as a developer and download it from the Apple Developer's web site.
So yes, I would concur that 300,000 number is grossly inflated. Including me, I know at least 3 "Apple Developers" who only signed up so that they could get gcc and get fink to work. And I know precisely 0 other "Apple Developers". Doing a little math, (0/3)*300,000 = 0 real Apple developers.
You can always run Bochs. It's free, and if you are messing around with the machine, it's probably better than real x86 hardware. When real x86 hardware crashes, you have to have messy debuggers or a two machine setup... when a virtual machine "crashes", you can probably step back through and see what happened.
w00t! Thank you very much! I will have development tools! Hmm, no X11 installer though - just X11SDK.
(Ten minutes later...)
I can't find that any of these apps were installed, except gcc. Doesn't the installer put them in /Applications?
Constitutionally Correct
Well there's a lot of the darwin stuff you have to register as a developer to get access to. I'm by no means a developer, but I do like to pull darwin kernels/compilers/tools from Apple CVS and install them every now'n'then to see get a feel for upcoming stuff. I'm VERY down with Apple's modifications to GCC, they really have it tweaked to all hell for the PowerPC.
I'm actually trying now to see if I can pull Apple's tweaked GCC-3.3 to build my next Gentoo/PPC system, that would be a feat.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Well, actually it's the serial port...
I've been doing Java for nearly five years, mostly under Windows but a bit under Linux as well. With all the recent changes in the Mac world, I've been seriously thinking to break the bank and get myself a PowerBook to alternate with my Toshiba laptop (I know, chances are the Toshiba would soon end up on Ebay :))
The thing is, I'm not really too interested in doing anything else. I am perfectly happy using Eclipse to develop Java-based server side (Web) apps. I could learn Cocoa et al for curiosity, of course, but I don't feel a compelling need. I just think the fact that all my tools run under Mac OS and the OS is supposed to let you be highly productive and it's highly useable, plus maybe less virus-prone, etc., makes it very attractive over the alternatives. Anyone care to comment on this?
The revolution will not be televised.
Mac OS X ships with all remote access services turned off. You have to run something to open a hole, just like Mac OS = 9. There have been security vulnerabilities in server software for Mac OS = 9 - just like any other operating system.
The whole command line thing is a red herring. Mac OS 9 has no security model at all, so a buffer overflow style of attack can attack _any_ code in the system, including "kernel" routines.
I signed up as a developer over a year ago (unpaid) just to get the email...and I think so I could download something...forget what. Never actually developed anything, but if I ever think of something I want and can't find....
I'm sure there are a fair number of people like me on that list, unless that's the paid developer number...guess I should RTFA.
Oh, I am a programmer in real life, just not for OSX.
Apple has never sold a computer that didn't include a complete, installable operating system CD or CD set. You also got one or more restore CD's.
Well, then perhaps they forgot to put them in the box. Mine only came with the restore CD (and an iLife CD). Should I be calling Apple about my missing CDs?
I have no problem paying for quality products, which is why I purchase Linux distributions.
I will pay _more_ for Free Software.
Personally I expect only a Mac user would be likely to notice the difference.
I try to tell non-IT clients who need/want to present an image of quality through their own product/service offerings that switching their inhouse computing to Mac is a good starting point for promoting a quality mindset internally. But that doesn't help those who have bought the lie that cheaper means more profit.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Talk about completely missing the point!
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Every time I see the "I can build it myself for cheaper" post it makes me laugh.
Sure you can, but only because your time is worth nothing.
For me, my time valuable to me on a personal level and in dollars and cents.
So I just can't see spending thousands of dollars worth of my time to save a few hundred.
So you go scrounging for a motherboard and I'll finish this post and then go spend some time with my son.
Bye
Hmmp. Nice work, Mod. I highly doubt there's a single point in there that can be disputed. It's written in intelligent, rational prose, and is definitely NOT a troll. But yet again, I am struck down by angry, bitter little MacMods who spend their days and nights denying reality and trying to cause others to deny it as well. What a pathetic life you must lead.
And it just occurred to me -- the more I'm modded down for *telling the truth* (ie. censored by Apple Zealots), the more I consider that ThinkPad....
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
As for the business market, if the boss has a Mac at home (even if he got it for his kids, or he's seen the one at a friend's house) and he's had little trouble with it (compared to his PC) then he's going to be much more likely to entertian the idea of getting Macs.
On the other hand, if those of us who make vendor evaluations have truly bad experiences with our home Apple hardware, we will be less likely to consider the Xserve line for our next big project. I've been tempted by Xserve-RAID, but my recent experiences with Apple Support regarding my 15" powerbook have made it so it will be a LONG time before I can recommend Apple to anyone. The OS is truly nifty and the hardware sexy when it works, but after dealing with Summer in Apple Support for a couple weeks, I would warn anyone to stay far, far away from the current generation of Apple hardware based on the shifty, disingenuous nature of their hardware support alone.
They can make inroads in the schools and the home market where the boss gets experience, but they truly have no notion of the future value of an Apple customer once they have them in the fold, so to speak. What's the use of gaining a convert if you blow it on lousy tech help?
I hope your son turns out brighter than you.
BTW I also rebuild laptops. I do it because it's fun. Glad you spend time with your kid... maybe he'll introduce you to the concept of hobbies.
and in the case of Eric, direct fascists: Eric moderates the Cocoa-dev mailing list, and anyone he doesn't like gets the boot. [...] The worst of it is that all of this is taking place with the implicit nod of Cupertino: for example, Cocoa-dev is run by Apple themselves.
:)
I think you've got your lists mixed up. Erik doesn't moderate cocoa-dev. He did moderate cocoa-pro, but that list was decomissioned when I took over Cocoa Dev Central from him. He's been a friend of me for a while, so he can't be too bad.
I trade emails with Scott Anguish occasionally and have met Aaron once. Neither strike me as rude. Aaron was extremely friendly, in fact. Scott A. has always gone out of his way to help people on the lists I've been on.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Yes is true.. we are changing our profile.. but we still code for Unix or linux!
But the point here is that we are getting more away from Micro$oft... With the out intension to go back
Pd: I'm a EX-windows programmer, ACTUAL linux coder and newbie programming on OS X, which I consider VERY GOOD compared to other previews versions and even other OS's
- - - - - .
If a computer is a tool, you want it to get work done with minimum downtime.
Buying quality equipment is often cost effective to this end.
If a computer is a hobby, well, the point of a hobby is to waste time.
Clearly the computer is not my hobby.
If the computer was my hobby, buying junk to play with sounds like a good plan.
One of is "bright" enough to know the differance between work and a hobby.
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
Apple is still recovering (nicely) from the handiwork of Gil Ameleo, who almost single handedly killed the company. Now, lets say that you were the big boss of a company with a rabid, but declining fan base, with an outdated, underpowered, and overpriced product (a la Apple in the late 90's). How would you cash in on your gold mine? Would you bet the entire company treasury on a single round of massive R&D on hardware, software and advertising simultaneously? If so, how would you sustain the effort?
The kind of changes taking place at Apple are nothing short of revolutionary... Unix that anyone can use, and that hardcore bearded developers drool over. Hardware that easily matches the competition... NO! Shut up with your "overpriced" ranting... Go ahead and buy that dual opteron setup for $400 dollars cheaper... when you start having to replace components in 3 years, ask a mac user how long he has been using his machine trouble-free.
Man, I could write a book about what x-grid, x-code, and stellar hardware mean for the average enterprise.
When you learn that the latest upgrade of Powermacs has been held up due to massive purchases by the U.S. government and little companies like Google, you might begin to get the picture that Apple played its losing hand like a Vegas pro, and continues to do so.
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
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.
Microsoft does give away a fairly complete set of tools including compilers and debuggers, and docs. It's just the premuim IDE (Visual Studio) that they charge for, and that runs about $800, not "a few grand."
Just to pick nits - I don't think the antialiasing thing is true. That is a function of the drawing layer in whatever respective OS you are using. Word/Office can't really mess with that other than calling it. (Bad fonts are bad fonts however and will mess up lots of things, but thats neither here nor there.) I've certainly never seen that problem, and I've moved literally hundreds of Word and Excel files through my Mac and back to Windows, with nary an issue. PowerPoint, on the other hand....
VBScripts aren't just incompatible, they won't work at all - I don't think there is any kind of VB engine in the Mac version. Which is fine by me.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
For many of us, Free is better. Do what you want to do, but I'll keep my freedom.
Even price isn't a major stumbling block these days; myself and one of the Mac guys compared the laptops we'd bought about a year previously; the Mac was equal or better in every respect, looked prettier, and only cost about 100GBP more (which IMHO, is pretty good VFM considering Apple's customer service, and how well the OS and the hardware work together compared with PC hardware and either Windows or Linux).
Unfortunately, there are a couple of showstoppers for me. These are:
Availability of Free source code for the entire OS stack (i.e. not just Darwin). Sorry, but even though I don't use the source code for some OS components at all at the moment, I've become hooked on havinng it available - a security blanket if you like.
Availability of Mac hardware from multiple vendors. I'm not keen on being tied to a single hardware vendor. Of course, if this was the case, chances are we'd begin to see the same hardware/OS incompatibilities the PC world is plagued with. :(
Rapidly diminishing: availability of some applications only as x86 binaries (e.g. closed multimedia CoDecs). The status of OpenOffice.org/MacOS X was a showstopper when I was buying my laptop, but this is no longer a problem.
--
How can your comment be flamebait? Sometimes those mods have a hard-on for mac users or are mac users with hard-ons!
Jonathanjk.com
Troll my arse, why? Oh because its anti Apple!
When you do get the discount, it basically pays for the $500 developer subscription IF you actually use it. It's also nice to have Apple mail the latest version of OS X to you, and have access to download pre-release versions too.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
There's an error in your tutorial. In the "Dynamic Types" section, the main.m has misleading comments. The three [sq isKindOfClass: ...] checks all return YES, but the code comments claim that they are true, false, and false.
Thanks for the overview; I enjoyed it. I don't understand how the autorelease pools work, though. You create and destroy the pool like this:
But you never explicitly say that the objects you create belong to the pool. My question is, how does pool know that it owns str2? Or, how does str2 know that it belongs to pool and not to some other autorelease pool that might exist?This isn't exactly on-topic, but I thought I'd chime in here with my biggest gripe about Apple laptops: they're too heavy.
The lightest Apple laptop I could find is the Powerbook G4 with a 12: screen, which weighs 4.6 lbs. The latest in the IBM Thinkpad X series (X40), in contrast, only weighs 2.6 lbs, 43% less!
I'm probably buying a new laptop later this year, and I was strongly considering making it my first Mac, but I don't want a laptop that heavy.
Whats impressive is that the linux community still doesn't get it. You think Linux is user friendly. ITS NOT. Its nowhere near user friendly. its getting better for sure, but it is not a viable desktop option for the average user. it just isn't polished enough to comptete with windows. If you guys would stop adding little bells and whistles to the kernel and put some real effort nto a unified polished desktop, there would be something to talk about here.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
This is exactly what I look at and see as them not getting it. Here they are targeting the end user. Microsoft won in the 80's by targeting the business user. Apple lost because they were anti-corporate (1984 ad) in a decade of Gordon Gecko and Michael Milken. Sure they had the superior product, but they made themselves out to be hippies and tried to sell their product to yuppies.
Now they are back with a superior product (software and hardware) a rock solid enterprise platform, and a real opportunity. What are they doing? marketing iTunes and the iPod.
Come on!
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Judging from your post, cubic, you seem to take everything on trust. That's bad.
You TRUST the moderators are always wise and good. I don't. I've seen enough bad mods to justify that belief. I'm sure you have as well. And yet you insult me for standing up for what I think is right. When I see a bad mod, I complain instead of letting the bad mod stand. If you don't complain over injustice, it will never be changed.
You TRUST that Apple and Microsoft haven't put a backdoor in their software. I don't. Why should I? IBM put a backdoor in their software AT THE REQUEST OF THE NSA. Yeah, that IBM. Big Blue. At the time a powerful monopoly unequalled in the world. Lotus being the most popular Office Suite at the time. And they caved. Think about it. You think it's IMPOSSIBLE that little 2% marketshare Apple would cave under that pressure? Even when the NSA "request" becomes a "demand"? My post didn't even say that MS and Apple definitely backdoored their software; I said they I can't prove they didn't. The *possibility* is there. For you to deny even the possibility shows that the problem is not mine, it's yours. You're not thinking rationally -- you're denying reality. The reality is that it is *certainly* possible, and judging from the current political climate in the USA, it may even be probable.
And why am I paranoid? I'm thinking of my own well-being. How is self-preservation a bad thing? If I'm paranoid, you're a naive trusting kid who hasn't got a clue as to how the world really works. If you actually *trust* the multinationals not to put code in their OSes like this, when every second app out there now is "spyware", you're a fool. To blindly reject even the possibility out of love and trust for a corporation is insane. If you haven't noticed that Apple isn't "thinking different" anymore, take a closer look. They've joined corporate America in a big way. Watch ThinkSecret, MacSurfer and other Mac news sites and study their business practices. It's not a bunch of hippies trying to "change the world" anymore.
I am perfectly willing to join you in saying "it's not even possible for OS X to be backdoored" THE SECOND YOU SHOW ME SOME PROOF. Until then, it IS a possibility, and no amount of well-designed MP3 software or hip ad campaigns can change that.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
by fostering them off on developers.
I think the term you're looking for here is "fobbing them off" rather than "fostering them off".
'Your brain is God.' -- Dr. Timothy Leary
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.
> You think Linux is user friendly.
Hold on there, buckaroo. I didn't say it was user-friendly or easy, I just said "There already is a UNIX that anyone can use." Anyone can use it, it doesn't mean they don't have to learn to do it.
I agree with you. I've been using computers for a good 10 years (granted, 10 years is not that much time), and UNIX was one of the first OSes I used, but there are still things in Linux I scream about because they Just don't Work (!tm).
An insightful comment. Er, or something.
.net and csc are still *sort* *of* competing with other technologies, or at least MS thinks they are. So look, they're free!
See, right now Visual Studio doesn't have any real competitors, its market share being over 80% last I looked. However,
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
So, to summarize, you'd rather use 100% crappy free stuff than decent proprietary stuff.
Keep on smokin' whatever is you're smokin' then!
In order to keep developing the (not yet very profitable) enterprise side of their business, Apple needs to keep making money. If Apple were to downplay iTunes and the iPod because enterprise buyers might percieve Apple as not being dedicated to the enterprise market, the result would be this:
1. Windows based MP3 players would rapidly overtake the iPod.
2. Apple would fall back into mediocre or even declining financial status.
3. Stock prices would plummet.
4. Buyer confidence would fall due to falling stock prices and speculation that Apple is (once again) "about to go belly-up".
This is how business works... succeed in one market, maintain that success at all costs, and then move into other markets as resources allow.
It's all good and fine to speculate on what they 'should' do, just keep an eye on what they 'CAN' do!
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
Good point
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
I think what I was trying to say was "The linux community" rather than "you", I just think there is a misconeption and a disconnect between linux users and the general computing masses, and that linux users have a misguided opinion that linux is ready as a viable desktop option. Im saying its not!
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Yes. The OS X image is two CDs, plus a developer tools CD. If your machine has a DVD drive, you might get one DVD instead, but it should have a full OS install, applications restore, and the developer tools. Plus, when you get the machine, the developer tools should be on the hard drive in a disk image you can double-click to install.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
In Cocoa, to support localization all you need to do is wrap each natural language string from your program in a single function call.
A supplied tool will then extract the necessary information into strings files, which are stored in the application bundle. Any user can edit the strings file and send the result to the developer to incorporate.
Similarly, the nib file containing the UI elements can be localized by any user who has a copy of interface builder, and sent back to the developer, who can just drop it into the project.
I know this because someone was kind enough to localize one of my programs into Japanese.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Well, talk about *humor*
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.
Cocoa bindings are similar to the EOInterface layer of NeXT's Enterprise Objects Framework, but they are written with the experience of ten years of EO experience taken into account.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You're putting words in my mouth. I simply told you why I thought you were being modded down, and that it doesn't do much good to complain about it. Now, on to what you've shifted the discussion to.
I don't trust the moderators individually. A lot of them make bad decisions, this is true. That's true in ANY situation where you have a large number of people making decisions. However, as a group, I've found that they do a pretty good job. I did not insult you. I offered a suggestion, and you *attacked* me in response. You called me names and attacked my intelligence based on a 2 line post.
I *never said* most of the things you accuse me of saying or thinking. I never even commented on the substance of your comment, simply on your choice of presentation. I never said that it's impossible for OS X to have an NSA backdoor. It's improbable, and I believe that it doesn't have a backdoor, but I admit that it's entirely possible. You wanna know one reason why I don't think there's a backdoor? Because eventually that backdoor would be discovered, and that would be a PR disaster for Apple, and probably for the NSA as well, if they even care. If you'd like to hear more of my reasons, read my last paragraph.
I DON'T blindly trust big corporations, as you seem to imply based on... what? I judge the evidence, decide what I think is likely the situation, and act on that. We obviously have different standards and views, and you seem to think that mine deserve to be attacked. I don't have a Mac or any Apple products, and I don't have any "love" for Apple. I run Linux on Intel.
The IBM example you gave is very interesting. They had two choices in exporting Lotus Notes: Use 40 bit encryption (Legal for export), or make a deal with the NSA to use 64 bit encryption with 24 bits of the key known by the NSA. They made the second choice for marketing decisions. I'm not a cryptanalyst, so I'm just guessing here, but both options seem to offer similar encryption, no? It's no more of a "backdoor" than any software that follows US export restrictions on cryptography.
Okay, now for the reasons why I don't think OS X has a backdoor. These reasons aren't proof - the only possible complete proof is to look at the source code. However, they make the probability small enough to be acceptable for me.
1) Nobody's ever reported OS X "phoning home" to the NSA or any other gov. agency.
2) Apple's market share is ~2%, according to your post. I don't think that the NSA would take the risk of forcing Apple to include a backdoor for that kind of potential return.
3) A backdoor is theoretically useable by 3rd parties in addition to the NSA. Given the NSA's mission to make American computers *more* secure, a backdoor in OS X would be counterproductive.
Again, these are my reasons, and they may not mean anything to you or anyone else. If you disagree, that's nice. If you require absolute protection from NSA backdoors, use an open source OS. I recommend Linux.
Karma: Contrapositive
Okay, I admit, I'm a butthead. Your 40 line post is a hella lot better than your 2 line post. I had two hours sleep due to massive caffeine intake. My bad.
I'm seriously considering your recommendation of Linux. Already use it, but not enough. It's getting to the point where I think I can make a go of it.
A few days ago there was an article in which Doc Searls mentions that Dan Frye, one of "IBM's leading Linux honchos", said that IBM will be offering both a Linux desktop and a Linux laptop this year. I've heard rumors that IBM wanted to use the G5 or a variant in their own gear, and this would be a perfect situation... if this happens it will be my next laptop.
By the way, did you see the article Cisco Products Have Backdoors? Jesus. You're right, I might as well not worry about backdoors, because I'll never catch them all. Between software, hardware, and the NSA monitoring all my emails anyway, there really IS no privacy. Bummer.
But anyways, sorry I'm a jerk on Slashdot.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
It's okay, the jerk-effect seems to happen to a lot of people. Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
Karma: Contrapositive
Availability of Mac hardware from multiple vendors
On one hand, I completely understand the idea of not being tied down to one vendor. On the other, what good is multiple vendors if none of them offer the OS I want? It's a pretty easy decision for me.
Best Regards,
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Oh WAH you fucking baby. Want a bottle?
Hey look! Apple Support posts to Slashdot!
I think I changed. I started out programming in HyperTalk and AppleSoft Basic. Then I started doing Mac Toolbox programming in Pascal and C++.
.com boom I started with Java and JavaScript and moved to perl on *nix. Now I do C++ on *nix (and others). I've still been developing for Macs all the way through. So I'm an "old school" Mac programmer who is now a *nix programmer who loves OS X.
During the
OS X is the one thing that kept me from making my Linux machine my primary computer.
I don't know if I'm indicative of other Mac programmers; but could it be that rather than just more *nix developers moving to Apple, some Apple developers are changing into *nix developers too?
I'm not guaranteed a fat pipe in the future. If I move and have to reinstall, I want a CD, not a 10-hour ordeal.
Constitutionally Correct
Well, actually it should probably have been rated 'flamebait' but that's a mere detail.
The reason why, you ask? Because you make an inflamatory statement without any arguments as to why you have your opinion formed this way. Such posts don't fuel discussion, they fuel divisionism, flaming and anger.
I've therefore metamodded the mod as fair.
Karma? What's that again?