The big lie I always hear about Applescript is that: "Applescript doesn't need lots of documentation, it's self-documenting, english-like, and always current"
While it's true that the little 3rd party documentation out there has major problems (this book, an overly simplistic Jesse Feiler book, an out-of-date Danny Goodman book, and a Mac OS 9 focused O'Reilly reference), I disagree that AppleScript doesn't need documenting.
Foremost, it needs some strong documentation on how application writers should be writing their AppleEvent suites and AppleScript dictionaries. This is by far the most non-standard, conflicting, and outright stupid place to ignore.
Apple has made some half-hearted efforts to write some "standard dictionaries" for suites of software, but if you think css and html are under-specified you haven't looked at these "standards". There's no impetus for you to build the entire "standard" suite into your software. I'm not sure that anyone (including Apple) ever wrote software that actually implemented things like the database suite.
One problem with not standardizing on open, well specified suites is that you can lose all of your script savyness when a key application is discontinued or decides to overhaul their script interface. Those who wrote MacWrite Pro scripts had their work obsolesced overnight when MacWrite was discontinued. Quark scripters are undergoing some pains right now trying to adapt to the new Quark interfaces.
Of course, because AppleScript exposes your data model for all of your competitors, you'll make things like exporting data out of your proprietary file format a trivial operation if you stuck with standard suites or even if you exposed all of your functionality via AppleScript. So making fully AppleScriptable applications is not something that the big guys want to do with their data engines.
Beyond standardization though, AppleScript needs a central repository of script dictionaries and plugins. Right now one's Mac will pick out all of the AppleScript dictionaries on your mac, but what you're trying to automate might be 1,000 times easier in GraphicConverter rather than Photoshop, but if you don't have GraphicConverter on your mac you'll be beating your head against a wall trying to force an app to do something it's not good at. The best one can do today is watch over other people's shoulders via web sites, bbs's, email lists, and by downloading scripts others have written. This whole "steal from someone who's done it successfully" attitude is what makes AppleScript centric web sites seem to spiral into oblivion. Everyone's simply reposting what they've stolen off of other sites, the owne's get frustrated maintaining something that doesn't stand apart from the crowd, and it becomes out of date without constant updates.
I'm not ignorant when it comes to programming, but I find Python and Perl to be syntactically more forgiving and easier to grasp than AppleScript. I find Cocoa to be more standard and more consistently constructed. I find shell scripting to be more accessible and a better "glue" to bind different tasks together.
I must admit that I still do write the occasional AppleScript and if you rely heavily on a program that supports it well then it can be a decent tool. But it's long fallen from favor as my first choice of scripting.
It's not at all news that Apple is on the decline in education. They've been in that position since 1995 when Win95 made the big splash all over mass media and it became cool to get Windows even if (and maybe especially if) you didn't know computers particularly well. The news is that Apple has kept as much marketshare in schools as they have considering it took 3 years to get a response together (after Steve Jobs return) and 6 years to make the hardware (iMacs, eMacs & iBooks) and software (OS X & Powerschool).
Apple may have learned a few things about their market. Maybe their's a lesson or two for Linux proponents to see as well.
Price is the top consideration. If you're not in the 15%-20% price ballpark, you won't be considered no matter how many arguments of ease of use / less maintenance / more durable / you can make. Apple has back room sales pitches that are well developed for large markets. While Linux has an unbeatable hardware and software price point, they don't have anyone who can make a persuasive, simple, and aggressive sale.
Ease of use is very important. A labful of systems should be maintainable by a person with little interest in running a lab. Apple and Windows help are available in computer section of your bookstore, in online help (not man pages), and easily found among like-minded groups of people to ask for free advice. I've even heard of Apple offering special training to secure large contracts; it's pretty cheap for them to do so. In the case of Linux, training and support are often where the money is made so making self-supporting communities will make people uncomfortable.
Be able to offer a killer app. Apple has PowerSchool software for managing schools. It's the mass market equivalent of grade book / roster management / school admin software that schools used to pay to develop in the past. They will sell it to a school for many thousands of dollars, but because it's software that's already developed they can offer a huge discount as a deal clincher. And once you get a school district's data, they will have a hard time moving off your platform later on.
"Extinguishing someone else's candle doesn't make your own shine brighter"
If Unix takes over the desktop, Macs & Linux machines will both greatly increase in market share but from opposite customer markets. Linux from the soldering, compiling, experimenting & tinkering crowds. Mac OS from the simple, hands-off, no-fuss & no-muss crowd. When that day comes Linux will rule in terms of numbers of computers, but Macs may rule in terms of profit margins. That's a symbiotic relationship that will make a lot of people happy.
But to get there, the key is reducing the reliance on Windows. If you're corporate department is considering a large purchase of desktop machines and you're a Linux geek, make the argument for Mac OS X today. If you're a Mac geek whose department is replacing PC's with newer models, convince the PHB's to recycle the older hardware with Linux and turn them into file servers, print servers, backup stations, and simple desktop machines.
If the world moves toward Unix and away from Microsoft, it will help both Mac OS X and Linux.
With all this whining about the price of "point" release, Apple should take a page from the Sun playbook and call Panther "Mac OS X 3.0" not "Mac OS X 10.3"
I'm suprised that no one has sprung the "Apple///" argument as evidence why Apple won't market anything big as version 3.
Of course we know the real reason the Apple 3 stunk and that was because it was a product that was both phyiscally and logically unstable ("To reseat the chips, hold the machine 2-3 inches above your desk and drop it." WTF?)
I think Apple has gotten over this superstition in its marketing department. Of course, lets hope that the decimal points aren't indicative of price jumps (rightmost = free/$20, middle = $100, leftmost = $1000/you must buy a new machine)
At the O'Reilly Mac OS X conference I met John Glenys (head of Apple UI development, but I've probably butchered the spelling of his last name).
I can't recall if it was him or his assistant that described the distinction between the use of Metal and what he called Blue Courderoy for native Aqua apps. Data heavy apps that look like you've pulled out a piece of paper to write and display information fit more naturally in the default "Blue Courderoy". Things that appear to be devices or tools that focus on functionality rather than data tend to look better as "Metal" apps.
I think that was fairly clear and even suggests why people might find one interface awkward (if they use the app with different expectations than the designer).
The activity viewer is a nice GUI improvement over the Process Viewer in the Jaguar Utilities folder (which is just a simple GUI for ps). This will make a nice helper for telephone tech support people trying to get grandma's computer problem licked. Note that the title bar of this window isn't "metal" or "blue courderoy" as we know them today. Looking at other screen shots this appears to either be a tip off that these are fake or an indication of a subtle interface theme evolution.
Expose' looks like a neat feature but probably more complex than most people will want to deal with. I'm also curious how the corner activation behavior will work with multiple screens.
The one panel Finder window looks like a very cool user interface improvement to tackle problems of novice users ("I have to dig so deep to get to my home folder" and "why can't I have a simple desktop like OS 9") The new highlighting method (blue rounded rectangle around the filename) looks like a nice eye candy improvement.
System Preferences has gotten rid of ColorSync, My Account, and Login Items. Combined Desktop and Screen Savers. Combined mouse & keyboard. Added a Print & Fax icon. Added icons for Security and Expose'. Hopefully this indicates a trend of trying to integrate tools from the Utilities folder into the System Preferences.
While all of these are nice changes (and I will be first in line to buy my copy), I don't think these changes alone are compelling justifications of a large upgrade price for an experienced user. I hope Apple will backport any security and bug fix updates for Panther back to Jaguar for those users who don't find the upgrade makes sense.
Interestingly, Apple's relationship with Smalltalk didn't end with the well known adoption of the mouse, windows, and so forth.
Squeak is a modern Smalltalk-like environment created by a research team at Apple. Disney took up the mantle when Apple decided they didn't want to develop it further. And now the project is on its own. But it's an interesting footnote to the relation of Apple and Smalltalk that not many people know about.
it'd be great to see a global user interface macro recording feature
No, no. We had that in System 6. Nobody used it. There's zero reason to put this in.
Think of the Mac stragglers who are still running 6.0.4 and waiting for this feature in order to upgrade! Both of them.:-)
In all seriousness, global recordability never worked in System 6 because it wasn't global. There were tons of holes and special cases that just weren't recordable or played back differently because of timing problems and so forth. Using Macro Maker on the Chooser or the Control Panel was insanely unreliable.
In OS X, they've put a lot of work into making this GUI architecture. If you have it, flaunt it. Having macro maker return as a menu-lette icon would be useful to many. Having AppleScript recordability work at the GUI level if an app doesn't implement it in its own dictionary would be a great recordability fallback.
Comparing what a HIToolbox based macro utility under OS X can do to the old System 6 MacroMaker is like comparing a Harley-Davidson to a Big Wheel.
In a past slashdot thread, I predicted that people would be sorely disappointed because Apple would wait to demo new iApps, unveil new prices and cases for new hardware, and keep GUI changes under wraps until they can make a bigger splash to a more consumer audience. Things may be different this year because of their falling out with the MacWorld Expo organizers and so much consumer attention has been focused on WWDC by the Mac fan sites. I won't try to predict what consumer focused changes will appear at wwdc. In the past the biggest announcements were those designed to affect developers in the biggest way, if that holds true, this is what I'd like to hear about:
I'd be happy if we saw official Apple support for Cocoa bridges other developers have created such as Camel Bones (Cocoa/Perl) and PyObjC (Cocoa/Python) as officially supported as the Java/Objective-C bridge.
It might be interesting to see the addition of an optional garbage collector added to Objective-C for newbies to use but engineered in such a way to make it optional for those Objective-C veterans who want to make their work execute more efficiently. Memory management headaches are the biggest difference between the simplicity of Cocoa and other more "popular" languages like Visual Basic (and heck, even Apple's old Hypercard).
Apple went a long way in Jaguar toward re-engineering the bowels of the user interface architecture (HIToolbox) to unify Cocoa and Carbon. I'm sure Panther will see this effort finished, but it'd be great to see a global user interface macro recording feature added now that there's one robust, well-thought and well implemented API underneath.
What would be bigger news to me than any sort of user interface bauble (like the fabled "piles") would be an announcement by Apple that it was completely updating the Mac OS X online help system. They've done a great job of trying to make it easy to get to, but it's very slow and very awkward to use. Any improvements in this area would be very welcome for users and developers.
While new Macs, new iApps, and new user interface trinkets could debut here or at any other Apple event, this is the only time of year Apple really focuses on making geeky, developer relevant announcements. I hope this WWDC doesn't disappoint in that regard.
The July 2003 MacWorld magazine (in print, but not sure I can find the relevant article online) prints a short interview with Roz Ho, General Manager of the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft.
Two questions they ask: Q1: Apple released its Keynote presentation software and a beta of the Safari Web browser. What has been the reaction to Apple's foray into areas that have been your strongholds? A1: We've heard positive things from Mac users who have tried Keynote and Safari. We believe customer research is key to developing quality products and we continue to listed to our customers on Apple's products and ours.
Q2: But from the outside looking in, the assumption might be that it would strain the relationship. Has that been the case? A2: No. Our relationship with Apple continues to be solid, and our commitment to Mac customers is as strong as ever.
Now, in light of the new news and articles coming out. What can we assume about Roz Ho?
1. Nice but ignorant. Not high enough up on any ladder in Microsoft to know what she's talking about.
2. A liar who clearly was talking out of one side of her mouth for this group despite knowing things about the troubled relationship and product jeopardy.
3. Partially truthful. She used many hot marketing phrases for promoting a sense of trust in her responses, but she didn't actually say anything that would ensure a future where MS for Mac products were developed in the future.
4. Completely truthful. Translations: We like Apple doing the R&D for us so that we can steal the good bits from their products to integrate into the next versions of ours. With horrible history of abandoning file format compatability, bug riden cross compilers, onerous upgrade prices, and constant threats of product discontinuation, our commitment to Mac customers is as strong as ever.
I'm completely at a loss as to which way I should interpret her statements and therefore be able to interpret future statements.
I'd like to remind you that the PPC970 is binary compatible with PowerPC. It will run all existing 32-bit PowerPC applications without the need to port them.
Shhh! If Steve finds out a CPU change isn't something developers need to know about, that'll kill any chance of a WWDC announcement:-)
I think that at this point it's quite obvious _something_ is in production, but that doesn't mean the time frame you can by an updated Mac is close at hand though.
Major changes that effect developers will be announced at WWDC. It's likely that whatever new directions in CPUs, APIs, or Market segments will be announced there because developers will have to react to the news. That doesn't mean anything will be available for sale or even that we'll get the whole picture of what cases, prices, user interface changes, or iApps will be released. Not only don't developers need to know this stuff, but traditionally they've been a very conservative, non-spontaneous, purchasing crowd where such surprises would be wasted.
People keep talking about having the whole Mac product line refreshed at WWDC and nonsense like that. My guess is far more conservative. We may get a timetable to expect new PowerMacs, but we probably aren't even going to see the new machines in final plastics.
During the transition from 68000 to PowerPC, Apple bent over backwards to give developers access to emulators, test labs, and even loaned machines to big developers. But they didn't start commercially selling anything until eight or nine months after the WWDC announcements.
I don't think Apple will wait quite that long to introduce new chips if such plans are really on the horizon, but I think there will be some non-trivial lag from WWDC to new consumer-marketed debut of new hardware.
Sounds like you are going to the extream in saving money
Yes, some friends have said that my saving patterns are excessive. All I can say is I don't personally feel comfortable enough to do without a regular paycheck yet. But I'm not just doing this to get more money, it's also to learn to be more self-sufficient and in control of my finances. If someone had just given me all the money I have saved now last year, I would have burned through it rapidly with my old habits. I do still lust for new things, but I think my demons are much more under control.
Have you considered giving up your car. While taking transit will take extra time, you can spend that time productively reading or working on a palmtop or laptop. You can rent a car for the times when you need one or join a car sharing club.
I live in a city with poor mass transit, but I have started using it. That's mainly how I get my gas costs so low. Unfortunately, there are still many, many places transit doesn't go.
But thanks for the link about the car sharing club. I hadn't even heard of this before. I'll have to see what sort of things like this are set up in my area.
I've had problems with my job working for a large company that's well known locally. I was seriously thinking of jumping ship, writing a scathing manifesto of the problems in my position and with my supervisors, and then looking for employ elsewhere. But since I don't have a job lined up to go into, I needed to get my finances in order to make such a leap.
I'm not good at saving and since my ex got the house in our breakup I don't have equity in much of anything that doesn't rapidly depreciate (car/computers).
I take at least 10% of my post-tax net pay and consider that off-limits. It goes immediately into long term retirement savings. This is above and beyond my 401K contributions. If I'm out of work I won't be contributing to long term savings so this is to fill that hole, but I found I had to take this out of my pocket first or I just couldn't learn to save it.
I cut my monthly expenses (rent, internet access, etc) from 40% to 30% of my net pay. No cable. One phone line. Do without heat or AC except in emergencies. The 10% saved went into paying off my credit cards and now goes into unplanned expenses. This also helps me become less dependent on those nice but unnecessary comforts so I won't miss them when I must cut to the bone.
I've started really being a tightwad about daily and spontaneous expenditures. This was where my biggest waste was. I now allocate only 10% of my net pay to food, gas, and these day to day consumables. If I have money left from this, I allow myself use it on computer books, dining out, and other spur of the moment luxuries. It makes it a very powerful incentive to save, but it was the hardest to get used to.
25% of my net goes to unplanned expenses. Car repair. Unplanned doctor visits. Rent and insurance price hikes. Stuff like that. This isn't to be used spontaneously, but it's not realistic for me to consider it "savings". Things will and have come up that have wiped out this pot of money and then some. But once or twice the pot has grown to more than $2K at which point I funnel the excess into savings.
The final 25% goes one of three places: 1. A kitty to pay expenses for eight months. 2. A pre-planned large purchase. 3. Long term savings.
The eight month expense kitty is a must have even if I wasn't considering quitting. I might get fired or laid off tomorrow so this is the biggest need. The pre-planned large purchase is for something I need like a new car downpayment, a necessary computer upgrade, a training class, or a big birthday present for my dad's birthday. I keep it to one goal at a time and I know how much I need to save beforehand. It helps keep from getting carried away because I have $X burning a hole in my pocket. Finally, if I have a full kitty and no preplanned item to buy on the horizon, I put the money into long term savings and don't think about it again.
It has taken me over a year to get disciplined enough to follow this method. There have been some suprises that have wiped out my plans. It's been really eye-opening to do this while I have regular income coming in. It's certainly not going to happen when I don't.
Finally, a couple of other things I've found are good to check out: 1. IRS filings. I paid someone to look over my returns for the past three years which I had self-filed. Good thing I did. 2. Credit rating and fico score. I was suprised that mine wasn't quite as pristine as I expected it to be (and VERY suprised at who had requested it) 3. Medical and dental health. Make sure that your in good shape because these expenses and health insurance will be much more expensive if not part of a company plan.
It's been more than a year to get in financial shape, but having not found a better job in the meantime I'm glad that I've been setting this money aside. Come my next paycheck I should have enough financial cushion to say goodbye if I want to.
One thing I decided to do though: Don't burn my bridges. I'm not going to write a goodbye manifesto to embarass
To keep all of the vampires and blood drive workers* from getting too anxious, the plasma this article refers to is not a component of blood (medical jargon). This other plasma (physics jargon) is matter that has been charged with so much energy it begins exhibiting characteristics of a liquid rather than a gas.
*After seeing some of the workers running our corporate guilt-a-thon, I suspect this may be redundant.
Cool way to make profit. (1) Create successful company. (2) Leave company. (3) Create new company kinda like old company. (4) Sell new company to old comapny. (5) Repeat. Based on this scenario, I'd expect the next company to be named "Cash Cow". Or perhaps "Other Handspring".
No idea about handhelds, but for desktop OS's I think "NeXT would be a good name.:-)
I'm not sure if it's worth $20, but it's worth something....
$20 would help pay my monthly internet access charges. So if I only have to watch for an hour each month, I'll take the money. Of course their checks need to come regularly and on-time.
I don't think you and the original poster are talking about the same court case. The "big case" I believe he's referring to was initiated after Windows 3 was released and lasting for 5 years (1988-1993).
The court declared victory for MicroSoft.
An excerpt from an About.com article:
6/1/93: Microsoft announces that Judge Vaughn R. Walker of the U.S. District Court of Northern California ruled today in Microsoft's favor in the Apple vs. Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard copyright suit. The judge granted Microsoft's and Hewlett-Packard's motions to dismiss the last remaining copyright infringement claims against Microsoft Windows 2.03 and 3.0, as well as, the HP NewWave. -From the Microsoft Timeline
I pointed out in another response to this thread that the expert testimony Microsoft used was from Steve Jobs (CEO of NeXT).
I believe that there was another attempt at a "look and feel" lawsuit much later (after Windows 95 came out) but that may have been settled out of court, but that was a case of trade dress anyway and had little of the same legal significance as the first Apple / Microsoft suit.
Microsoft won their lawsuit because of expert testimony from NeXT CEO Steven Jobs about the original terms of the licensing he made with MicroSoft when he was Apple CEO.
Outside observers concur that this was the key testimony that completely undermined Apple's case, but no one is quite certain what MicroSoft put into the black box (aka NeXT) to get Steve to produce this output.
With the Apple / MicroSoft public declaration of patent cross-licensing back in 1997, the legal ramifications of this case are moot. But whatever back alley deals were made might still have some significance.
Sticking with the PPC 970 gives Apple an easy way to maintain backward compatability for its current market of folk unable to break their addiction to legacy, non-native Mac software.
Moving to an AMD or Intel chip gives Apple an easy way to attract the business users looking for cutting edge innovation like 64-bit compatability and a Unix based OS.
My guess is that because they'll have two well defined audiences, that won't overlap it would be right up Apple's alley to do both. Here's our line of computers for the "Classic" mac crowd unable to leave Quark 4 and PixelPaint. But here's our line of cutting-edge, Classic-free boxes that you can order with your choice of AMD or Intel chip inside.
The wilder rumors of a "Classic" like environment on AMD or Intel processors may have a bit of truth, but they're anxious to ditch the Mac legacy crap so if anything it'd be a Classic environment designed to boot your copy of Windows, OS/2, or other legacy 80x86 OS. I still don't believe them, but once you dump the Mac legacy stuff, moving to a different processor is much simpler.
Going on what the developer perceives of the situation, it's completely understandable.
He was working as a new Apple employee after a year of contract work and was an eager supporter of the platform making many sacrifices to take the job. Additionally, he developed the Cocoa/AbiWord software as a hobby on top of his paid work. He says that Apple terminated him during his probationary period with the reason of "incompetence" and he feels that this is documentably untrue and unfair.
Personally, I think AbiWord is cool and I think Apple makes some cool stuff. But whether this story is true or fair is irrelevent. This is his perception of the way he has been treated and I feel he's absolutely right for terminating this hobby if this is what he perceives.
It's disappointing. I sympathize with the guy in his current situation. And I hope that someone takes over AbiWord development (it is pretty cool stuff). It's too bad that this had to happen in this way.
I'm epileptic. I work in front of a CRT monitor in a room with fluorescent lighting. Our "big company" has advisors who set policies on ergonomics. Their conclusion is that my situation does not justify addressing (e.g. with an LCD monitor or using non-fluorescent lighting). I've had two seizures while working there so I'm now seeking outside opinions and trying to get this addressed.
I can't conciously "perceive" the flicker on my CRT, but something in my mind clearly can. Unless they're testing this with real trials with real epileptic people, I'm not sure I'd trust the "experts" opinions. At least in my company, it seems that the ergonomic experts are there to provide rules that will get them out of legal hot water later ("Oh, you didn't keep your chair adjusted to the standard? Well we won't pay for your carpal tunnel problems."). I'm sure they'll do enough testing to make them safe from litigation, but will it really be safe? I'm skeptical.
(BTW: for those of you who only knew epileptics in your grade school and think the whole business is kind of funny, I used to think so too. When I was younger I used to enjoy having seizures. "God visits" or "Demon posessions" like the Shakers and Baptists might call them. Now that my job depends on my mental skills though, they are a huge liability. It's like a built in blue screen of death and losing 2 weeks worth of memories. Kernel panics in the brain are very nasty.)
I admit that I found Mac OS X's finder very confusing when I switched to it. Two things that drove me crazy were:
1) Having my documents folder 4-5 levels deep. In OS 9 my documents were only two to three levels deep at most.
2) The whole "group" system of domain organization. Fonts, applications, documents, and settings can be set up to be used just by certain people. This is a fantastic improvement over Mac OS 9 where everyone had universal access to the disk. Sure there are ways to break this security but the organization this provides on a multi-user box was badly needed. Unfortunately, it's a major shift from the way things were done in Mac OS 9 and it's not the easiest thing to learn. I've heard more than a few users ask "Where do I put my fonts? there are four different font folders!" But having different domains is pretty simple once you get the hang of it. Apple tried to implement domains in previous Mac systems with products like At Ease and Simple Finder but had horrible problems because Mac OS was single-user system.
The Simple Finder in Mac OS 9 got a horrible reputation because it used "behind the scenes" trickery to force apps to save, open, and navigate just to the special areas that it was showing the user. It was slow and it often caused an app to break because it expected to be operating on a single-user system with universal disk access.
In Mac OS X, the Simple Finder is much friendlier and more permissive in what it allows you and your apps to do (since Mac OS X is a multiuser system). It does some of the things that John wants his "spatial finder" and even though it uses "behind the scenes" trickery to give a different view to the user. It doesn't have the same problems that older Mac OS's did because the system and applications already know how to deal with multiple users on a controlled access file system.
My mom might think it odd that ls in terminal is different from the folder organization she sees in the Simple Finder, but as long as it doesn't confuse the shell scripts and apps she uses she probably doesn't care.
For the power-users, I think there current Finder is about 70% there. For novice users, I think the Simple Finder is about 90% there.
While I think it might be a cool idea for Apple or a third party to come out with a Less Simple Finder, I think what John is really advocating is the chucking of the user / group system for the simplicity and consistency of the Finder of old.
Personally, I'll gladly trade labels and popup folders and some of that simplicity for the nifty organizational advances of the new finder (and column view:-)
The thing that upsets IT management the most is who writes these code rather than what the code is written in.
At any company there are subject-matter experts who know all of the ins-and-outs of something (the business rules, the production workflow, the style guidelines, etc). These are things that the IT staff does NOT know and is at the mercy of these other departments to provide. If writing even the "simpler" tools in higher level languages was allowed or encouraged, then that could cut out a major portion of the work, control, and power that people depend and fund the IT department to do.
It's not because Perl, Visual Basic, and AppleScript aren't feasible alternatives; it's because in many cases they are.
Slashdot Mirror
The big lie I always hear about Applescript is that: "Applescript doesn't need lots of documentation, it's self-documenting, english-like, and always current"
While it's true that the little 3rd party documentation out there has major problems (this book, an overly simplistic Jesse Feiler book, an out-of-date Danny Goodman book, and a Mac OS 9 focused O'Reilly reference), I disagree that AppleScript doesn't need documenting.
Foremost, it needs some strong documentation on how application writers should be writing their AppleEvent suites and AppleScript dictionaries. This is by far the most non-standard, conflicting, and outright stupid place to ignore.
Apple has made some half-hearted efforts to write some "standard dictionaries" for suites of software, but if you think css and html are under-specified you haven't looked at these "standards". There's no impetus for you to build the entire "standard" suite into your software. I'm not sure that anyone (including Apple) ever wrote software that actually implemented things like the database suite.
One problem with not standardizing on open, well specified suites is that you can lose all of your script savyness when a key application is discontinued or decides to overhaul their script interface. Those who wrote MacWrite Pro scripts had their work obsolesced overnight when MacWrite was discontinued. Quark scripters are undergoing some pains right now trying to adapt to the new Quark interfaces.
Of course, because AppleScript exposes your data model for all of your competitors, you'll make things like exporting data out of your proprietary file format a trivial operation if you stuck with standard suites or even if you exposed all of your functionality via AppleScript. So making fully AppleScriptable applications is not something that the big guys want to do with their data engines.
Beyond standardization though, AppleScript needs a central repository of script dictionaries and plugins. Right now one's Mac will pick out all of the AppleScript dictionaries on your mac, but what you're trying to automate might be 1,000 times easier in GraphicConverter rather than Photoshop, but if you don't have GraphicConverter on your mac you'll be beating your head against a wall trying to force an app to do something it's not good at. The best one can do today is watch over other people's shoulders via web sites, bbs's, email lists, and by downloading scripts others have written. This whole "steal from someone who's done it successfully" attitude is what makes AppleScript centric web sites seem to spiral into oblivion. Everyone's simply reposting what they've stolen off of other sites, the owne's get frustrated maintaining something that doesn't stand apart from the crowd, and it becomes out of date without constant updates.
I'm not ignorant when it comes to programming, but I find Python and Perl to be syntactically more forgiving and easier to grasp than AppleScript. I find Cocoa to be more standard and more consistently constructed. I find shell scripting to be more accessible and a better "glue" to bind different tasks together.
I must admit that I still do write the occasional AppleScript and if you rely heavily on a program that supports it well then it can be a decent tool. But it's long fallen from favor as my first choice of scripting.
It's not at all news that Apple is on the decline in education. They've been in that position since 1995 when Win95 made the big splash all over mass media and it became cool to get Windows even if (and maybe especially if) you didn't know computers particularly well. The news is that Apple has kept as much marketshare in schools as they have considering it took 3 years to get a response together (after Steve Jobs return) and 6 years to make the hardware (iMacs, eMacs & iBooks) and software (OS X & Powerschool).
Apple may have learned a few things about their market. Maybe their's a lesson or two for Linux proponents to see as well.
Price is the top consideration. If you're not in the 15%-20% price ballpark, you won't be considered no matter how many arguments of ease of use / less maintenance / more durable / you can make. Apple has back room sales pitches that are well developed for large markets. While Linux has an unbeatable hardware and software price point, they don't have anyone who can make a persuasive, simple, and aggressive sale.
Ease of use is very important. A labful of systems should be maintainable by a person with little interest in running a lab. Apple and Windows help are available in computer section of your bookstore, in online help (not man pages), and easily found among like-minded groups of people to ask for free advice. I've even heard of Apple offering special training to secure large contracts; it's pretty cheap for them to do so. In the case of Linux, training and support are often where the money is made so making self-supporting communities will make people uncomfortable.
Be able to offer a killer app. Apple has PowerSchool software for managing schools. It's the mass market equivalent of grade book / roster management / school admin software that schools used to pay to develop in the past. They will sell it to a school for many thousands of dollars, but because it's software that's already developed they can offer a huge discount as a deal clincher. And once you get a school district's data, they will have a hard time moving off your platform later on.
Being a Mac user, it should be noted that Altered Cocoa will be better! :-)
"Extinguishing someone else's candle doesn't make your own shine brighter"
If Unix takes over the desktop, Macs & Linux machines will both greatly increase in market share but from opposite customer markets. Linux from the soldering, compiling, experimenting & tinkering crowds. Mac OS from the simple, hands-off, no-fuss & no-muss crowd. When that day comes Linux will rule in terms of numbers of computers, but Macs may rule in terms of profit margins. That's a symbiotic relationship that will make a lot of people happy.
But to get there, the key is reducing the reliance on Windows. If you're corporate department is considering a large purchase of desktop machines and you're a Linux geek, make the argument for Mac OS X today. If you're a Mac geek whose department is replacing PC's with newer models, convince the PHB's to recycle the older hardware with Linux and turn them into file servers, print servers, backup stations, and simple desktop machines.
If the world moves toward Unix and away from Microsoft, it will help both Mac OS X and Linux.
With all this whining about the price of "point" release, Apple should take a page from the Sun playbook and call Panther "Mac OS X 3.0" not "Mac OS X 10.3"
///" argument as evidence why Apple won't market anything big as version 3.
I'm suprised that no one has sprung the "Apple
Of course we know the real reason the Apple 3 stunk and that was because it was a product that was both phyiscally and logically unstable ("To reseat the chips, hold the machine 2-3 inches above your desk and drop it." WTF?)
I think Apple has gotten over this superstition in its marketing department. Of course, lets hope that the decimal points aren't indicative of price jumps (rightmost = free/$20, middle = $100, leftmost = $1000/you must buy a new machine)
At the O'Reilly Mac OS X conference I met John Glenys (head of Apple UI development, but I've probably butchered the spelling of his last name).
I can't recall if it was him or his assistant that described the distinction between the use of Metal and what he called Blue Courderoy for native Aqua apps. Data heavy apps that look like you've pulled out a piece of paper to write and display information fit more naturally in the default "Blue Courderoy". Things that appear to be devices or tools that focus on functionality rather than data tend to look better as "Metal" apps.
I think that was fairly clear and even suggests why people might find one interface awkward (if they use the app with different expectations than the designer).
The activity viewer is a nice GUI improvement over the Process Viewer in the Jaguar Utilities folder (which is just a simple GUI for ps). This will make a nice helper for telephone tech support people trying to get grandma's computer problem licked. Note that the title bar of this window isn't "metal" or "blue courderoy" as we know them today. Looking at other screen shots this appears to either be a tip off that these are fake or an indication of a subtle interface theme evolution.
Expose' looks like a neat feature but probably more complex than most people will want to deal with. I'm also curious how the corner activation behavior will work with multiple screens.
The one panel Finder window looks like a very cool user interface improvement to tackle problems of novice users ("I have to dig so deep to get to my home folder" and "why can't I have a simple desktop like OS 9") The new highlighting method (blue rounded rectangle around the filename) looks like a nice eye candy improvement.
System Preferences has gotten rid of ColorSync, My Account, and Login Items. Combined Desktop and Screen Savers. Combined mouse & keyboard. Added a Print & Fax icon. Added icons for Security and Expose'. Hopefully this indicates a trend of trying to integrate tools from the Utilities folder into the System Preferences.
While all of these are nice changes (and I will be first in line to buy my copy), I don't think these changes alone are compelling justifications of a large upgrade price for an experienced user. I hope Apple will backport any security and bug fix updates for Panther back to Jaguar for those users who don't find the upgrade makes sense.
Interestingly, Apple's relationship with Smalltalk didn't end with the well known adoption of the mouse, windows, and so forth.
Squeak is a modern Smalltalk-like environment created by a research team at Apple. Disney took up the mantle when Apple decided they didn't want to develop it further. And now the project is on its own. But it's an interesting footnote to the relation of Apple and Smalltalk that not many people know about.
Think of the Mac stragglers who are still running 6.0.4 and waiting for this feature in order to upgrade! Both of them.
In all seriousness, global recordability never worked in System 6 because it wasn't global. There were tons of holes and special cases that just weren't recordable or played back differently because of timing problems and so forth. Using Macro Maker on the Chooser or the Control Panel was insanely unreliable.
In OS X, they've put a lot of work into making this GUI architecture. If you have it, flaunt it. Having macro maker return as a menu-lette icon would be useful to many. Having AppleScript recordability work at the GUI level if an app doesn't implement it in its own dictionary would be a great recordability fallback.
Comparing what a HIToolbox based macro utility under OS X can do to the old System 6 MacroMaker is like comparing a Harley-Davidson to a Big Wheel.
In a past slashdot thread, I predicted that people would be sorely disappointed because Apple would wait to demo new iApps, unveil new prices and cases for new hardware, and keep GUI changes under wraps until they can make a bigger splash to a more consumer audience. Things may be different this year because of their falling out with the MacWorld Expo organizers and so much consumer attention has been focused on WWDC by the Mac fan sites. I won't try to predict what consumer focused changes will appear at wwdc. In the past the biggest announcements were those designed to affect developers in the biggest way, if that holds true, this is what I'd like to hear about:
I'd be happy if we saw official Apple support for Cocoa bridges other developers have created such as Camel Bones (Cocoa/Perl) and PyObjC (Cocoa/Python) as officially supported as the Java/Objective-C bridge.
It might be interesting to see the addition of an optional garbage collector added to Objective-C for newbies to use but engineered in such a way to make it optional for those Objective-C veterans who want to make their work execute more efficiently. Memory management headaches are the biggest difference between the simplicity of Cocoa and other more "popular" languages like Visual Basic (and heck, even Apple's old Hypercard).
Apple went a long way in Jaguar toward re-engineering the bowels of the user interface architecture (HIToolbox) to unify Cocoa and Carbon. I'm sure Panther will see this effort finished, but it'd be great to see a global user interface macro recording feature added now that there's one robust, well-thought and well implemented API underneath.
What would be bigger news to me than any sort of user interface bauble (like the fabled "piles") would be an announcement by Apple that it was completely updating the Mac OS X online help system. They've done a great job of trying to make it easy to get to, but it's very slow and very awkward to use. Any improvements in this area would be very welcome for users and developers.
While new Macs, new iApps, and new user interface trinkets could debut here or at any other Apple event, this is the only time of year Apple really focuses on making geeky, developer relevant announcements. I hope this WWDC doesn't disappoint in that regard.
The July 2003 MacWorld magazine (in print, but not sure I can find the relevant article online) prints a short interview with Roz Ho, General Manager of the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft.
Two questions they ask:
Q1: Apple released its Keynote presentation software and a beta of the Safari Web browser. What has been the reaction to Apple's foray into areas that have been your strongholds?
A1: We've heard positive things from Mac users who have tried Keynote and Safari. We believe customer research is key to developing quality products and we continue to listed to our customers on Apple's products and ours.
Q2: But from the outside looking in, the assumption might be that it would strain the relationship. Has that been the case?
A2: No. Our relationship with Apple continues to be solid, and our commitment to Mac customers is as strong as ever.
Now, in light of the new news and articles coming out. What can we assume about Roz Ho?
1. Nice but ignorant. Not high enough up on any ladder in Microsoft to know what she's talking about.
2. A liar who clearly was talking out of one side of her mouth for this group despite knowing things about the troubled relationship and product jeopardy.
3. Partially truthful. She used many hot marketing phrases for promoting a sense of trust in her responses, but she didn't actually say anything that would ensure a future where MS for Mac products were developed in the future.
4. Completely truthful. Translations: We like Apple doing the R&D for us so that we can steal the good bits from their products to integrate into the next versions of ours. With horrible history of abandoning file format compatability, bug riden cross compilers, onerous upgrade prices, and constant threats of product discontinuation, our commitment to Mac customers is as strong as ever.
I'm completely at a loss as to which way I should interpret her statements and therefore be able to interpret future statements.
I'd like to remind you that the PPC970 is binary compatible with PowerPC. It will run all existing 32-bit PowerPC applications without the need to port them.
:-)
Shhh! If Steve finds out a CPU change isn't something developers need to know about, that'll kill any chance of a WWDC announcement
I think that at this point it's quite obvious _something_ is in production, but that doesn't mean the time frame you can by an updated Mac is close at hand though.
Major changes that effect developers will be announced at WWDC. It's likely that whatever new directions in CPUs, APIs, or Market segments will be announced there because developers will have to react to the news. That doesn't mean anything will be available for sale or even that we'll get the whole picture of what cases, prices, user interface changes, or iApps will be released. Not only don't developers need to know this stuff, but traditionally they've been a very conservative, non-spontaneous, purchasing crowd where such surprises would be wasted.
People keep talking about having the whole Mac product line refreshed at WWDC and nonsense like that. My guess is far more conservative. We may get a timetable to expect new PowerMacs, but we probably aren't even going to see the new machines in final plastics.
During the transition from 68000 to PowerPC, Apple bent over backwards to give developers access to emulators, test labs, and even loaned machines to big developers. But they didn't start commercially selling anything until eight or nine months after the WWDC announcements.
I don't think Apple will wait quite that long to introduce new chips if such plans are really on the horizon, but I think there will be some non-trivial lag from WWDC to new consumer-marketed debut of new hardware.
Sounds like you are going to the extream in saving money
Yes, some friends have said that my saving patterns are excessive. All I can say is I don't personally feel comfortable enough to do without a regular paycheck yet. But I'm not just doing this to get more money, it's also to learn to be more self-sufficient and in control of my finances. If someone had just given me all the money I have saved now last year, I would have burned through it rapidly with my old habits. I do still lust for new things, but I think my demons are much more under control.
Have you considered giving up your car. While taking transit will take extra time, you can spend that time productively reading or working on a palmtop or laptop. You can rent a car for the times when you need one or join a car sharing club.
I live in a city with poor mass transit, but I have started using it. That's mainly how I get my gas costs so low. Unfortunately, there are still many, many places transit doesn't go.
But thanks for the link about the car sharing club. I hadn't even heard of this before. I'll have to see what sort of things like this are set up in my area.
I've had problems with my job working for a large company that's well known locally. I was seriously thinking of jumping ship, writing a scathing manifesto of the problems in my position and with my supervisors, and then looking for employ elsewhere. But since I don't have a job lined up to go into, I needed to get my finances in order to make such a leap.
I'm not good at saving and since my ex got the house in our breakup I don't have equity in much of anything that doesn't rapidly depreciate (car/computers).
I take at least 10% of my post-tax net pay and consider that off-limits. It goes immediately into long term retirement savings. This is above and beyond my 401K contributions. If I'm out of work I won't be contributing to long term savings so this is to fill that hole, but I found I had to take this out of my pocket first or I just couldn't learn to save it.
I cut my monthly expenses (rent, internet access, etc) from 40% to 30% of my net pay. No cable. One phone line. Do without heat or AC except in emergencies. The 10% saved went into paying off my credit cards and now goes into unplanned expenses. This also helps me become less dependent on those nice but unnecessary comforts so I won't miss them when I must cut to the bone.
I've started really being a tightwad about daily and spontaneous expenditures. This was where my biggest waste was. I now allocate only 10% of my net pay to food, gas, and these day to day consumables. If I have money left from this, I allow myself use it on computer books, dining out, and other spur of the moment luxuries. It makes it a very powerful incentive to save, but it was the hardest to get used to.
25% of my net goes to unplanned expenses. Car repair. Unplanned doctor visits. Rent and insurance price hikes. Stuff like that. This isn't to be used spontaneously, but it's not realistic for me to consider it "savings". Things will and have come up that have wiped out this pot of money and then some. But once or twice the pot has grown to more than $2K at which point I funnel the excess into savings.
The final 25% goes one of three places:
1. A kitty to pay expenses for eight months.
2. A pre-planned large purchase.
3. Long term savings.
The eight month expense kitty is a must have even if I wasn't considering quitting. I might get fired or laid off tomorrow so this is the biggest need.
The pre-planned large purchase is for something I need like a new car downpayment, a necessary computer upgrade, a training class, or a big birthday present for my dad's birthday. I keep it to one goal at a time and I know how much I need to save beforehand. It helps keep from getting carried away because I have $X burning a hole in my pocket.
Finally, if I have a full kitty and no preplanned item to buy on the horizon, I put the money into long term savings and don't think about it again.
It has taken me over a year to get disciplined enough to follow this method. There have been some suprises that have wiped out my plans. It's been really eye-opening to do this while I have regular income coming in. It's certainly not going to happen when I don't.
Finally, a couple of other things I've found are good to check out:
1. IRS filings. I paid someone to look over my returns for the past three years which I had self-filed. Good thing I did.
2. Credit rating and fico score. I was suprised that mine wasn't quite as pristine as I expected it to be (and VERY suprised at who had requested it)
3. Medical and dental health. Make sure that your in good shape because these expenses and health insurance will be much more expensive if not part of a company plan.
It's been more than a year to get in financial shape, but having not found a better job in the meantime I'm glad that I've been setting this money aside. Come my next paycheck I should have enough financial cushion to say goodbye if I want to.
One thing I decided to do though: Don't burn my bridges. I'm not going to write a goodbye manifesto to embarass
To keep all of the vampires and blood drive workers* from getting too anxious, the plasma this article refers to is not a component of blood (medical jargon). This other plasma (physics jargon) is matter that has been charged with so much energy it begins exhibiting characteristics of a liquid rather than a gas.
*After seeing some of the workers running our corporate guilt-a-thon, I suspect this may be redundant.
Cool way to make profit. (1) Create successful company. (2) Leave company. (3) Create new company kinda like old company. (4) Sell new company to old comapny. (5) Repeat. Based on this scenario, I'd expect the next company to be named "Cash Cow". Or perhaps "Other Handspring".
:-)
No idea about handhelds, but for desktop OS's I think "NeXT would be a good name.
I'm not sure if it's worth $20, but it's worth something....
$20 would help pay my monthly internet access charges. So if I only have to watch for an hour each month, I'll take the money. Of course their checks need to come regularly and on-time.
Microsoft won their lawsuit because of expert testimony from NeXT CEO Steven Jobs about the original terms of the licensing he made with MicroSoft when he was Apple CEO.
Outside observers concur that this was the key testimony that completely undermined Apple's case, but no one is quite certain what MicroSoft put into the black box (aka NeXT) to get Steve to produce this output.
With the Apple / MicroSoft public declaration of patent cross-licensing back in 1997, the legal ramifications of this case are moot. But whatever back alley deals were made might still have some significance.
Sticking with the PPC 970 gives Apple an easy way to maintain backward compatability for its current market of folk unable to break their addiction to legacy, non-native Mac software.
Moving to an AMD or Intel chip gives Apple an easy way to attract the business users looking for cutting edge innovation like 64-bit compatability and a Unix based OS.
My guess is that because they'll have two well defined audiences, that won't overlap it would be right up Apple's alley to do both. Here's our line of computers for the "Classic" mac crowd unable to leave Quark 4 and PixelPaint. But here's our line of cutting-edge, Classic-free boxes that you can order with your choice of AMD or Intel chip inside.
The wilder rumors of a "Classic" like environment on AMD or Intel processors may have a bit of truth, but they're anxious to ditch the Mac legacy crap so if anything it'd be a Classic environment designed to boot your copy of Windows, OS/2, or other legacy 80x86 OS. I still don't believe them, but once you dump the Mac legacy stuff, moving to a different processor is much simpler.
Going on what the developer perceives of the situation, it's completely understandable.
He was working as a new Apple employee after a year of contract work and was an eager supporter of the platform making many sacrifices to take the job. Additionally, he developed the Cocoa/AbiWord software as a hobby on top of his paid work. He says that Apple terminated him during his probationary period with the reason of "incompetence" and he feels that this is documentably untrue and unfair.
Personally, I think AbiWord is cool and I think Apple makes some cool stuff. But whether this story is true or fair is irrelevent. This is his perception of the way he has been treated and I feel he's absolutely right for terminating this hobby if this is what he perceives.
It's disappointing. I sympathize with the guy in his current situation. And I hope that someone takes over AbiWord development (it is pretty cool stuff). It's too bad that this had to happen in this way.
I'm epileptic. I work in front of a CRT monitor in a room with fluorescent lighting. Our "big company" has advisors who set policies on ergonomics. Their conclusion is that my situation does not justify addressing (e.g. with an LCD monitor or using non-fluorescent lighting). I've had two seizures while working there so I'm now seeking outside opinions and trying to get this addressed.
I can't conciously "perceive" the flicker on my CRT, but something in my mind clearly can. Unless they're testing this with real trials with real epileptic people, I'm not sure I'd trust the "experts" opinions. At least in my company, it seems that the ergonomic experts are there to provide rules that will get them out of legal hot water later ("Oh, you didn't keep your chair adjusted to the standard? Well we won't pay for your carpal tunnel problems."). I'm sure they'll do enough testing to make them safe from litigation, but will it really be safe? I'm skeptical.
(BTW: for those of you who only knew epileptics in your grade school and think the whole business is kind of funny, I used to think so too. When I was younger I used to enjoy having seizures. "God visits" or "Demon posessions" like the Shakers and Baptists might call them. Now that my job depends on my mental skills though, they are a huge liability. It's like a built in blue screen of death and losing 2 weeks worth of memories. Kernel panics in the brain are very nasty.)
I admit that I found Mac OS X's finder very confusing when I switched to it. Two things that drove me crazy were:
:-)
1) Having my documents folder 4-5 levels deep.
In OS 9 my documents were only two to three levels deep at most.
2) The whole "group" system of domain organization.
Fonts, applications, documents, and settings can be set up to be used just by certain people. This is a fantastic improvement over Mac OS 9 where everyone had universal access to the disk. Sure there are ways to break this security but the organization this provides on a multi-user box was badly needed. Unfortunately, it's a major shift from the way things were done in Mac OS 9 and it's not the easiest thing to learn. I've heard more than a few users ask "Where do I put my fonts? there are four different font folders!" But having different domains is pretty simple once you get the hang of it. Apple tried to implement domains in previous Mac systems with products like At Ease and Simple Finder but had horrible problems because Mac OS was single-user system.
The Simple Finder in Mac OS 9 got a horrible reputation because it used "behind the scenes" trickery to force apps to save, open, and navigate just to the special areas that it was showing the user. It was slow and it often caused an app to break because it expected to be operating on a single-user system with universal disk access.
In Mac OS X, the Simple Finder is much friendlier and more permissive in what it allows you and your apps to do (since Mac OS X is a multiuser system). It does some of the things that John wants his "spatial finder" and even though it uses "behind the scenes" trickery to give a different view to the user. It doesn't have the same problems that older Mac OS's did because the system and applications already know how to deal with multiple users on a controlled access file system.
My mom might think it odd that ls in terminal is different from the folder organization she sees in the Simple Finder, but as long as it doesn't confuse the shell scripts and apps she uses she probably doesn't care.
For the power-users, I think there current Finder is about 70% there. For novice users, I think the Simple Finder is about 90% there.
While I think it might be a cool idea for Apple or a third party to come out with a Less Simple Finder, I think what John is really advocating is the chucking of the user / group system for the simplicity and consistency of the Finder of old.
Personally, I'll gladly trade labels and popup folders and some of that simplicity for the nifty organizational advances of the new finder (and column view
The thing that upsets IT management the most is who writes these code rather than what the code is written in.
At any company there are subject-matter experts who know all of the ins-and-outs of something (the business rules, the production workflow, the style guidelines, etc). These are things that the IT staff does NOT know and is at the mercy of these other departments to provide. If writing even the "simpler" tools in higher level languages was allowed or encouraged, then that could cut out a major portion of the work, control, and power that people depend and fund the IT department to do.
It's not because Perl, Visual Basic, and AppleScript aren't feasible alternatives; it's because in many cases they are.