I created a 36 slide presentation immediately after installing Keynote, with barely a hitch and never cracking open the user manual. It took me 1 hour yesterday to modify two build slides in PowerPoint
Yeah, Keynote's something else. I've never really used PowerPoint, and when I bought Keynote two weeks ago, I bought a book along with it assuming I'd need something to get me started.
It took about an hour of messing around to learn how to do just about anything. I didn't crack the third party book, manual or even the quick reference card. And somehow I didn't need a wizard!:)
This may not seem very impressive to some because Keynote is "just" presentation software. But when you see the results, you see why the low learning curve is so impressive.
True, I have a Mac OS X box today that I use a lot, but I find myself looking longingly over at the Linux side of the world and I'm even prepping a couple of spare boxes that I can use just to toy with Linux.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to find some software or technology works on Linux but doesn't work on Mac OS X. GNOME, Qt, X11, gcc -- they all work on Mac OS X.
I've found it necessary to learn C. Of course I've tried to learn Cocoa and GnuStep but it's not nearly as easy as what I'm able to whip up with the kindergarten graphical tools. But now I've started really understanding the elegance of pipes and the simple syntax of C and the GUI things are really getting on my nerves.
Basic C is essentially the same on Mac OS X or Linux. In any case, Cocoa/Objective-C is an abstraction above raw C. You can freely mix C and Objective-C.
In fact, Objective-C objects are just pointers to C structures.:) This makes Objective-C nearly as easy to use as scripting languages but with much more flexibility and speed.
I think you've just proved the point of the article!
It's possible to get so bogged down in the philosophy that the higher level goal is missed. Sure having multiple vendors is nice, but all the options in the world don't matter if none of them are the one I want to use.
If there was only PC vendor who sold machines that could run run Linux and all the rest ran Windows 3.1, which would you buy?:)
Cocoa isn't portable directly, but why do you think that is? It uses things like Quartz that don't have an obvious counterpart on other platforms.. If you really want cross-platform, then use something like Qt or Java. GNUstep implements OpenStep (which is what Cocoa is based on).
major incompatibilities with glibc and bsd based systems
Huh?
As mentioned, aptitude, innovation and hard-work is what we need.. not another wheel..
The difference between open source efforts and Mac OS X isn't hard work, it's philosophy. Apple treats a computer as a whole and complete thing in and of itself. That's how the user thinks of it.
On one hand, Apple created something that is truly easy to use. It deserves some protection so that it can extract revenue and continue to invest in future products that we can enjoy. Copying the iPod's concepts doesn't make the copier a good designer. It only helps consumers in the very short term.
The fact that Apple will create things and Microsoft copies them enough to fool casual consumers means that most people have more frustrating experiences with computers than they need to. As a result, Apple makes less money for making genuinely good products. If Dell and Microsoft can knock off anything Apple makes to the point that consumers don't see any reason to buy from Apple, Apple can't make money and the good ideas dry up. The industry as a whole takes the hit.
On the other hand, the concepts in the iPod (which actually incorporate some ideas from NeXT) will eventually become commonplace, so it would be silly to have them protected forever. Some ideas in the iPod are logical conclusions, but some are creative and quite unique.
In the changelog for PHP, it is suggested that all exceptions _must_ inherit from a base 'Exception' class
Hmmmm....
"Even though the above example shows that it is possible to define exception classes that don't inherit from Exception it is best to do so. This is because the internal Exception class can gather a lot of information otherwise not available."
All the OO features are nice, but what's really missing in PHP are some critical "enteprise" features, like true connection pooling (and no, pconnect doesn't count)
I don't know offhand, but I wonder if any of the Zend stuff does that kind of thing.
Wonder whats new about PHP5 though that will help the average web scripter....
I haven't kept real close tabs on PHP recently, but I think the most significant change is that the object model is vastly improved. I get the impression this is at least partially an adaption to the Java-centric market.
No really, I don't need any faster chips. I already tried the old 533 MHz version and it fullfills all my needs. And I imagine that many other desktop users don't need much more speed either
That will only hold as long as all new software is written with low-level frameworks and languages.
In order to make software more reliable, flexible and easier to write, we author softare at progressively more abstracted levels. That abstraction comes at the cost of CPU cycles and memory.
Absolutely they deserve credit for the pioneering aspect, but I get the impression Parc's stuff was closer to X11 than Mac.
The Lisa was Apple's first attempt to copy the Xerox PARC GUI work, and it failed.
Just so you know, Xerox got a pile of Apple stock out of the deal, which is different than what most people seem to assume. It wasn't like Xerox was oblivious to Apple being in the business of making computers.
But none of this negates the issue that computer would be a lot more primitive at this point without Apple and Next.
Pixar certainly doesn't have to worry about being shaken down for expensive licenses
You have a point in general, but Mac OS X only costs $130, and every machine comes with a copy. The lack of expensive licenses has nothing to do with them being Pixar.
I don't see how this applies. Taste issues aside, you can probably run your preferred Linux navigator on OS X.
more open and flexible
Fair enough, that's a design difference.
and has nicer amenities for developers
Not sure I agree with this, but probably matters what you develop for.
Also, you don't have access to the huge number of applications that run best on Linux.
I wonder what this means.
There's no question there are certain people and situations better suited to Linux, and those that are better suited to Mac OS X, but I just don't agree with much of the commentary above -- partially because it's so general.
Not guilty because I am betraying Linux or any related ideal, but guilty because I am betraying myself--giving up speed convenience and usability every time I watch the dreaded spinning beach ball of death, or wait for OS X to switch between windows.
I'm really puzzled by this commentary.
I've been using Linux for about six years and Mac OS X since it came out, and these experiences just don't seem familiar. In particular, I don't see how you get more convenience and usability out of Linux than Mac OS X. It's my opinion (and the opinion of many others, as far as I can tell), that Mac OS X is without peer in these areas.
I also don't understand the comment about "wait for OS X to switch between windows." I have two year old hardware (G4/733) and there's no delay on window switches at all unless 1) I run out of real ram, or 2) the disk is in the midst of spinning up. In fact, on that topic, you might want to check System Preferences > Energy Saver and turn off "spin down hard disk when possible." That might be the source of some of your waiting. Another possibility is that you have the energy settings such that your iBook is never running at full speed. Finally, if you're not already doing so, definitely upgrade to Panther. The speed increase is significant.
As for Expose, it's definitely a few notches above a hack. It's possible because of the way the window server was designed.
My only beef about Mac's is the fact that everything is proprietary.
I think this comment probably applied more to the previous era of Apple products.
Today, Apple's machines are built using largely industry-standard parts. A lot of the OS is closed-source, but uses standard protocols in most places where it makes sense. Some big changes on this front took place in Panther (10.3).
but it tends to make things more pricey than I like
There's no question Apple could charge less for the things it sells if it didn't have to invest in the invention of them.:)
Apple with Microsoft and we'll see how many people would be screaming the
Microsoft has a lot more "bad faith" issues than Apple. Based on their contributions and culture, I think there are a number of people willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt until more information arrives. All we have right now is one person and a rumor site.
By contrast, Microsoft's conspiracies are rarely disproven.
Apple 'brutally crushed' Apple clones going way back into the Apple II days. There were a number of Apple II clones, all run out of business by the Apple legal team.
I don't quite get why it's a sin to prevent copies of a product from being made. Perhaps you don't like it, you don't have implicit rights to someone else's creation.
The low maintenance aspect of the Mac owes a lot to the fact that it's a unified software/hardware product without dozens of variations. I'd think you'd have to agree it's good for the market to at least have the option to buy this type of computer. Plenty of people would prefer have something that configures itself rather than multiple vendors. A lot of people dont't care about the politics.
It's interesting how many people I see 'soft pedaling' this because it's Apple Computer doing it.
I'm an Apple fan, but I don't approve of the behavior that's been described by the story. In fact, I wouldn't want to work at a company to exhibited such behavior. Of course, we don't know at all if the story reflects reality. I mean it's on rumor site, dude.
This is dangerous stuff, folks.
What's dangerous is making a decision based on a single source of information. The employee is going to be upset, no shit. So that leaves us with the rumor site.
Do you know that Apple wasn't working on related product? Do you know company resources weren't used? I can't understand how you can come to a definitive decision with so little information.
Of course the fact that Microsoft gives away for free in the form of service packs what their competitors charge you for never crossed your mind, did it?
Apple's 'service packs' are free (x.x.1, x.x.2, etc). The for-pay releases (Jaguar 10.2, Panther 10.3) are major revisions that include substantial new functionality. In reality, Panther is Mac OS X 3.0, but it's called 10.3 for marketing reasons -- to keep the 'ten'/X thing.
Slashdot Mirror
If there was only PC vendor
Whoops. Make that "if there was only one PC vendor."
- Scott
People don't buy Macs because of Darwin or khtml, they buy it because of Aqua, Quartz, Microsoft Office and Photoshop.
KHTML is a particularly interesting example, because it's the receipient of a large amount of donated code from Apple.
They used it for Safari, but they gave back many of the improvements they made.
- Scott
I created a 36 slide presentation immediately after installing Keynote, with barely a hitch and never cracking open the user manual. It took me 1 hour yesterday to modify two build slides in PowerPoint
:)
Yeah, Keynote's something else. I've never really used PowerPoint, and when I bought Keynote two weeks ago, I bought a book along with it assuming I'd need something to get me started.
It took about an hour of messing around to learn how to do just about anything. I didn't crack the third party book, manual or even the quick reference card. And somehow I didn't need a wizard!
This may not seem very impressive to some because Keynote is "just" presentation software. But when you see the results, you see why the low learning curve is so impressive.
An excellent piece of software.
- Scott
True, I have a Mac OS X box today that I use a lot, but I find myself looking longingly over at the Linux side of the world and I'm even prepping a couple of spare boxes that I can use just to toy with Linux.
:) This makes Objective-C nearly as easy to use as scripting languages but with much more flexibility and speed.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to find some software or technology works on Linux but doesn't work on Mac OS X. GNOME, Qt, X11, gcc -- they all work on Mac OS X.
I've found it necessary to learn C. Of course I've tried to learn Cocoa and GnuStep but it's not nearly as easy as what I'm able to whip up with the kindergarten graphical tools. But now I've started really understanding the elegance of pipes and the simple syntax of C and the GUI things are really getting on my nerves.
Basic C is essentially the same on Mac OS X or Linux. In any case, Cocoa/Objective-C is an abstraction above raw C. You can freely mix C and Objective-C.
In fact, Objective-C objects are just pointers to C structures.
- Scott
I think you've just proved the point of the article!
:)
It's possible to get so bogged down in the philosophy that the higher level goal is missed. Sure having multiple vendors is nice, but all the options in the world don't matter if none of them are the one I want to use.
If there was only PC vendor who sold machines that could run run Linux and all the rest ran Windows 3.1, which would you buy?
Cocoa isn't portable directly, but why do you think that is? It uses things like Quartz that don't have an obvious counterpart on other platforms.. If you really want cross-platform, then use something like Qt or Java. GNUstep implements OpenStep (which is what Cocoa is based on).
major incompatibilities with glibc and bsd based systems
Huh?
As mentioned, aptitude, innovation and hard-work is what we need.. not another wheel..
The difference between open source efforts and Mac OS X isn't hard work, it's philosophy. Apple treats a computer as a whole and complete thing in and of itself. That's how the user thinks of it.
Best Regards,
- Scott
BRING BACK FUTURAMA!
But the key is to put it somewhere, anywhere other than Fox. Same with Family Guy.
In fact, just keep it on Cartoon Network.
- Scott
On one hand, Apple created something that is truly easy to use. It deserves some protection so that it can extract revenue and continue to invest in future products that we can enjoy. Copying the iPod's concepts doesn't make the copier a good designer. It only helps consumers in the very short term.
The fact that Apple will create things and Microsoft copies them enough to fool casual consumers means that most people have more frustrating experiences with computers than they need to. As a result, Apple makes less money for making genuinely good products. If Dell and Microsoft can knock off anything Apple makes to the point that consumers don't see any reason to buy from Apple, Apple can't make money and the good ideas dry up. The industry as a whole takes the hit.
On the other hand, the concepts in the iPod (which actually incorporate some ideas from NeXT) will eventually become commonplace, so it would be silly to have them protected forever. Some ideas in the iPod are logical conclusions, but some are creative and quite unique.
This takes a very gentle touch.
- Scott
Microsoft pumped how many billions into their R&D department and what they did get? A ripoff of J2EE and a ripoff of MacOS X.
BTW: J2EE is a ripoff of Objective-C and Cocoa (called OpenStep back then).
- Scott
php seems to be only used for small pages
:)
I'm not so sure about that. I'm also not sure what a "small page" is.
Either way, PHP is absolutely everywhere. It's hard to spend a day on the internet and not end up on at least a few sites that use it.
- Scott
In the changelog for PHP, it is suggested that all exceptions _must_ inherit from a base 'Exception' class
Hmmmm....
"Even though the above example shows that it is possible to define exception classes that don't inherit from Exception it is best to do so. This is because the internal Exception class can gather a lot of information otherwise not available."
http://www.php.net/zend-engine-2.php
- Scott
All the OO features are nice, but what's really missing in PHP are some critical "enteprise" features, like true connection pooling (and no, pconnect doesn't count)
I don't know offhand, but I wonder if any of the Zend stuff does that kind of thing.
- Scott
Wonder whats new about PHP5 though that will help the average web scripter....
I haven't kept real close tabs on PHP recently, but I think the most significant change is that the object model is vastly improved. I get the impression this is at least partially an adaption to the Java-centric market.
- Scott
No really, I don't need any faster chips. I already tried the old 533 MHz version and it fullfills all my needs. And I imagine that many other desktop users don't need much more speed either
That will only hold as long as all new software is written with low-level frameworks and languages.
In order to make software more reliable, flexible and easier to write, we author softare at progressively more abstracted levels. That abstraction comes at the cost of CPU cycles and memory.
- Scott
Xerox PARC did the R&D for modern GUIs.
Absolutely they deserve credit for the pioneering aspect, but I get the impression Parc's stuff was closer to X11 than Mac.
The Lisa was Apple's first attempt to copy the Xerox PARC GUI work, and it failed.
Just so you know, Xerox got a pile of Apple stock out of the deal, which is different than what most people seem to assume. It wasn't like Xerox was oblivious to Apple being in the business of making computers.
But none of this negates the issue that computer would be a lot more primitive at this point without Apple and Next.
- Scott
Pixar certainly doesn't have to worry about being shaken down for expensive licenses
You have a point in general, but Mac OS X only costs $130, and every machine comes with a copy. The lack of expensive licenses has nothing to do with them being Pixar.
- Scott
Pay Apple tax to use software that can run on Windows: $2000
:)
Wrong decade, dude.
- Scott
Pentiums are still clock-for-clock faster
Don't think so. If this was the true, the G5s would be 30% slower than a 3GHz Pentium, which simply isn't the case.
There's probably some space to discuss if the current G5 or current Pentium is faster, but the G5 at the same clock rate is unquestionably faster.
- Scott
I was under the impression that physical distance was always a limitation...?
:)
Depends on which physics you want to use.
- Scott
It's more stable
How do you determine this?
easier to navigate
I don't see how this applies. Taste issues aside, you can probably run your preferred Linux navigator on OS X.
more open and flexible
Fair enough, that's a design difference.
and has nicer amenities for developers
Not sure I agree with this, but probably matters what you develop for.
Also, you don't have access to the huge number of applications that run best on Linux.
I wonder what this means.
There's no question there are certain people and situations better suited to Linux, and those that are better suited to Mac OS X, but I just don't agree with much of the commentary above -- partially because it's so general.
- Scott
Not guilty because I am betraying Linux or any related ideal, but guilty because I am betraying myself--giving up speed convenience and usability every time I watch the dreaded spinning beach ball of death, or wait for OS X to switch between windows.
I'm really puzzled by this commentary.
I've been using Linux for about six years and Mac OS X since it came out, and these experiences just don't seem familiar. In particular, I don't see how you get more convenience and usability out of Linux than Mac OS X. It's my opinion (and the opinion of many others, as far as I can tell), that Mac OS X is without peer in these areas.
I also don't understand the comment about "wait for OS X to switch between windows." I have two year old hardware (G4/733) and there's no delay on window switches at all unless 1) I run out of real ram, or 2) the disk is in the midst of spinning up. In fact, on that topic, you might want to check System Preferences > Energy Saver and turn off "spin down hard disk when possible." That might be the source of some of your waiting. Another possibility is that you have the energy settings such that your iBook is never running at full speed. Finally, if you're not already doing so, definitely upgrade to Panther. The speed increase is significant.
As for Expose, it's definitely a few notches above a hack. It's possible because of the way the window server was designed.
- Scott
My only beef about Mac's is the fact that everything is proprietary.
:)
I think this comment probably applied more to the previous era of Apple products.
Today, Apple's machines are built using largely industry-standard parts. A lot of the OS is closed-source, but uses standard protocols in most places where it makes sense. Some big changes on this front took place in Panther (10.3).
but it tends to make things more pricey than I like
There's no question Apple could charge less for the things it sells if it didn't have to invest in the invention of them.
- Scott
Apple with Microsoft and we'll see how many people would be screaming the
Microsoft has a lot more "bad faith" issues than Apple. Based on their contributions and culture, I think there are a number of people willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt until more information arrives. All we have right now is one person and a rumor site.
By contrast, Microsoft's conspiracies are rarely disproven.
- Scott
Apple 'brutally crushed' Apple clones going way back into the Apple II days. There were a number of Apple II clones, all run out of business by the Apple legal team.
I don't quite get why it's a sin to prevent copies of a product from being made. Perhaps you don't like it, you don't have implicit rights to someone else's creation.
The low maintenance aspect of the Mac owes a lot to the fact that it's a unified software/hardware product without dozens of variations. I'd think you'd have to agree it's good for the market to at least have the option to buy this type of computer. Plenty of people would prefer have something that configures itself rather than multiple vendors. A lot of people dont't care about the politics.
- Scott
It's interesting how many people I see 'soft pedaling' this because it's Apple Computer doing it.
I'm an Apple fan, but I don't approve of the behavior that's been described by the story. In fact, I wouldn't want to work at a company to exhibited such behavior. Of course, we don't know at all if the story reflects reality. I mean it's on rumor site, dude.
This is dangerous stuff, folks.
What's dangerous is making a decision based on a single source of information. The employee is going to be upset, no shit. So that leaves us with the rumor site.
Do you know that Apple wasn't working on related product? Do you know company resources weren't used? I can't understand how you can come to a definitive decision with so little information.
- Scott
Of course the fact that Microsoft gives away for free in the form of service packs what their competitors charge you for never crossed your mind, did it?
Apple's 'service packs' are free (x.x.1, x.x.2, etc). The for-pay releases (Jaguar 10.2, Panther 10.3) are major revisions that include substantial new functionality. In reality, Panther is Mac OS X 3.0, but it's called 10.3 for marketing reasons -- to keep the 'ten'/X thing.
- Scott