When the 3B15 from UPR got decommissioned after I graduated, we all got an email in our jobs from the head of the computer department, telling us that. He closed it stating that it was "the end of an era". In a way, he was right, all the 3B's were replaced with Linux and Solaris systems.
In other words, they replaced a bunch of microprocessor-based UN*X boxes with a bunch of microprocessor-based UN*X boxes.
My complaint is more that X11 does not seem to have moved forward with the rest of the system and has remained in the same state as it was in Tiger rather than adopting the new colorscheme of Leopard. X11 windows are darker when they're in the background than Leopard windows (making them seem to be active).
Yes. As a core Wireshark developer, I use it quite a lot.
Apple has their own windowmanager that's installed by default called "aquawm"
Yes, I'm quite aware of that, but...
that not only gives the apps the aqua look and feel
...as a long-time user of X11-based desktops, I'm also quite aware that the window manager only affects title bars and the window border, not the look and feel provided by the toolkit an application uses; the window manager, for example, is not responsible for scrollbars, text boxes, drop-down lists/option menus, etc.
I.e., by "window styling" are you referring to the title bar and window border, or everything in the window?
X11 window styling does not match the rest of the OS
If you mean "X11 apps don't look like Aqua apps", then
that's not new in Leopard;
that might be the fault of Apple legal as much as Apple engineering:-) (i.e., if some X11 toolkit looked like Aqua, Apple's lawyers might go after them; perhaps Apple could develop and supply Aqua-style themes for the X11 versions of Qt and GTK+, but whether that's worth Apple's while is another matter - and whether they'd have to supply the source, and thus allow an Aqua style on non-Macs, is another matter, given that Qt is GPLed and GTK+ is LGPLed)
For example, we now take it for granted that the OS should implement a disk file as a simple byte stream, with bigger structures, such as records or indexes, being implemented on the application level.
I don't take that for granted -- I think they were onto something.
Yeah, instead of the lowest levels of the OS implementing a disk file as a seekable byte stream, with bigger structures implemented atop that, they had the lowest levels of the OS implementing a disk file as an array of words mapped into your address space, with bigger structures implemented atop that.
Yes, Multics implemented a PL/I-style record access package atop that; back in 1979 or so, UNIX had the dbm library, so it's not as if you had nothing other than byte streams even above the kernel level.
Apple locks their software to particular hardware, and locks up their hardware (e.g. the iPhone) and bricks it if an end-user tries to modify it.
...tries to unlock it. Have there been any cases where merely installing third-party software on a machine caused it to be bricked on an update (and, if so, was it demonstrated that the third-party apps were the cause, and were there any cases of an unmodified iPhone being bricked by an update)?
Unlocking and jailbreaking are not the same thing.
Actually, Leopard is UNIX. Really. Tiger and previous versions wasn't UNIX.
OK, we'll say UN*X instead. For many purposes, being UN*X is good enough - for example, no Linux distribution I know of is UNIX, none having passed the SUS validation suite, but a lot of stuff written for UN*X Just Works.
It doesn't have any provision, in the built-in software, for acting as a router for either of its network interfaces (Wi-Fi or EDGE). There is an iPhone port of srelay, a SOCKS relay, although I don't know whether any OSes offer completely transparent SOCKS access (e.g., some way of intercepting all IP-layer network accesses and SOCKSifying them).
but it would not be bad if a laptop could be linked up to it.
Do you mean "EDGE modem"? Or are you talking about laptops without built-in Wi-Fi interfaces?
That being said, a real killer feature would be to provide an app where (over wifi/celltowers) you can search or browse for specific applications and download them through the wifi/celltowers.
But what if you're using Windows? Is there a suggested development toolchain for Windows?
Apple hasn't suggested anything yet.
The compiler can probably be ported to Windows (it is, after all, based on gcc); if the assembler (used as the last pass of the compiler, in the grand UN*X tradition) and linker are the same as the ones that come with Mac OS X, they're not based on gas or gld and might take more work to port. Perhaps Apple will release a Windows cross-development toolchain, with versions of the compiler, assembler, linker, etc. ported to Windows. I don't know what they'd do about an IDE - plug into Microsoft's tools (which don't know anything about Objective-C), or port XCode?
The first reference quotes an alleged anonymous source from Apple, and the second one doesn't appear to quote anybody (it has a slide from a Jobs presentation, but "no SDK required" isn't the same as "no SDK ever"). Do you have a source for Jobs explicitly saying "no, we will never let you write anything other than Web apps for the iPhone"?
OS X as a platform has been around for long enough, and Apple took pride in announcing that their phone and new iPod runs on the same platform
Well, sort of. They didn't mention that the iPhone version of the OS has UIKit rather than AppKit, for example. hello.c would Just Work (if you have Mobile Terminal in which to run it), but J. Random GUI App wouldn't.
If the API's have been settled, they wouldn't and shouldn't have released the product.
You need more than stable API's, you also need stable ABI's, and they could well have released it without stable ABI's - all the bundled apps would have to be recompiled if the ABI changed, but that's doable. You might believe that they shouldn't have released the iPhone without stable ABIs; I believe otherwise, and, quite frankly, think arguing that they shouldn't have released the iPhone without stable ABI's is bogus.
Even API changes, although they're more disruptive to the code base, wouldn't be out of the question.
Unstable API's and ABI's, however, do cause problems for third-party apps, so they need to stabilize those before releasing an SDK.
You can buy Tiger which is currently universal as well.
You can buy a version of Tiger without buying a Mac, and there is a version of Tiger that's universal, but have you verified that the two versions are the same? I.e., is the retail Tiger PPC-only, and the Tiger you get on a current Mac universal?
If all of what you consider problems in the (presumably file system) hierarchy are forbidden by the Single UNIX® Specification, Version 3, then definitely yes. Otherwise, not necessarily.
That means no limits to network use like preventing raw ICMP and raw packet access.
If you have admin access on your Mac (which you probably do, as the initial account is set up with it), the command sudo gives you "raw ICMP and raw packet access"; if that's a security problem on a given network, that network needs to be fixed.
Yes, running apps as root on the iPhone has its problems, but my sympathy with people who consider "Oh noes! You could open a BPF device or a SOCK_RAW socket!" to be one of those problems is a bit limited.
Opening the SDK doesn't necessarily imply legal unlocking, given that "unlocking", when talking about a mobile phone, refers to allowing it to work on arbitrary networks, not to allowing third-party apps on it.
and make it easy for people to write apps
...and hard for Apple to change UIKit, for example, if they decide that the version of UIKit in the current release of Handheld OS X needs cleaning up in ways that break binary compatibility with that version.
and then sell them for them on iTunes.
At least one application I would have liked to have had on my iPhone yesterday, to try to figure out why its connection to the Wi-Fi network at the restaurant I was at wasn't working, isn't "sold" (and, yes, there have been earlier versions of it that ran on handhelds, and, yes, somebody did ls -l/dev on a jailbroken 1.0.2 iPhone and the usual four initial instances of my favorite device were there).
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Linux doesn't have the clap.
In other words, they replaced a bunch of microprocessor-based UN*X boxes with a bunch of microprocessor-based UN*X boxes.
Never allow somebody who works for the government to edit "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"? Nothing about "democracy" prevents that.
Err, umm, that's sort of what the Wikipedia is all about - people can edit the content directly. Take that into account when reading it.
Does the latest Xquartz from http://www.x.org/wiki/XDarwin fix that?
Yes. As a core Wireshark developer, I use it quite a lot.
Yes, I'm quite aware of that, but...
...as a long-time user of X11-based desktops, I'm also quite aware that the window manager only affects title bars and the window border, not the look and feel provided by the toolkit an application uses; the window manager, for example, is not responsible for scrollbars, text boxes, drop-down lists/option menus, etc.
I.e., by "window styling" are you referring to the title bar and window border, or everything in the window?
If you mean "X11 apps don't look like Aqua apps", then
Yeah, instead of the lowest levels of the OS implementing a disk file as a seekable byte stream, with bigger structures implemented atop that, they had the lowest levels of the OS implementing a disk file as an array of words mapped into your address space, with bigger structures implemented atop that.
Yes, Multics implemented a PL/I-style record access package atop that; back in 1979 or so, UNIX had the dbm library, so it's not as if you had nothing other than byte streams even above the kernel level.
American football quarterback, PhD in mathematics (yes, they are the same Frank Ryan).
And even the userland isn't the same; it picks up a lot from FreeBSD, but there are parts that are different.
...tries to unlock it. Have there been any cases where merely installing third-party software on a machine caused it to be bricked on an update (and, if so, was it demonstrated that the third-party apps were the cause, and were there any cases of an unmodified iPhone being bricked by an update)?
Unlocking and jailbreaking are not the same thing.
OK, we'll say UN*X instead. For many purposes, being UN*X is good enough - for example, no Linux distribution I know of is UNIX, none having passed the SUS validation suite, but a lot of stuff written for UN*X Just Works.
Or, rather, by IBM and a certain other company, the fact that they've obliterated it (and Xenix) from their annoyingly Flash-ridden history (unless I missed it) nonwithstanding.
It doesn't have any provision, in the built-in software, for acting as a router for either of its network interfaces (Wi-Fi or EDGE). There is an iPhone port of srelay, a SOCKS relay, although I don't know whether any OSes offer completely transparent SOCKS access (e.g., some way of intercepting all IP-layer network accesses and SOCKSifying them).
Do you mean "EDGE modem"? Or are you talking about laptops without built-in Wi-Fi interfaces?
And, apparently, works only, as the name suggests, over Wi-FI, not over EDGE, which means that the "celltowers" part of
wouldn't work.
(The picture is linked to from a Daring Fireball item.)
Apple hasn't suggested anything yet.
The compiler can probably be ported to Windows (it is, after all, based on gcc); if the assembler (used as the last pass of the compiler, in the grand UN*X tradition) and linker are the same as the ones that come with Mac OS X, they're not based on gas or gld and might take more work to port. Perhaps Apple will release a Windows cross-development toolchain, with versions of the compiler, assembler, linker, etc. ported to Windows. I don't know what they'd do about an IDE - plug into Microsoft's tools (which don't know anything about Objective-C), or port XCode?
The first reference quotes an alleged anonymous source from Apple, and the second one doesn't appear to quote anybody (it has a slide from a Jobs presentation, but "no SDK required" isn't the same as "no SDK ever"). Do you have a source for Jobs explicitly saying "no, we will never let you write anything other than Web apps for the iPhone"?
The file system on the iPhone is called HFS Plus, and, once you've jailbroken your phone, you can put stuff on it.
The iPhone has these handy APIs with names such as open() , close() , read() , write() , lseek() , unlink() , rename() , mkdir() , rmdir() , opendir() , etc..
For those not just using Safari to read PDFs, there's MobilePreview, which might work on the iPod Touch, too.
Well, there's a command-line SSH client, for use with MobileTerminal.
Well, I'm not sure anybody's done any of the first two yet, although there is an RSS reader.
Yeah, it's not as if AT&T sells cards for PC's that support EDGE, so that any packet your PC could send out over Wi-Fi could also be sent out over EDGE.
Well, sort of. They didn't mention that the iPhone version of the OS has UIKit rather than AppKit, for example. hello.c would Just Work (if you have Mobile Terminal in which to run it), but J. Random GUI App wouldn't.
You need more than stable API's, you also need stable ABI's, and they could well have released it without stable ABI's - all the bundled apps would have to be recompiled if the ABI changed, but that's doable. You might believe that they shouldn't have released the iPhone without stable ABIs; I believe otherwise, and, quite frankly, think arguing that they shouldn't have released the iPhone without stable ABI's is bogus.
Even API changes, although they're more disruptive to the code base, wouldn't be out of the question.
Unstable API's and ABI's, however, do cause problems for third-party apps, so they need to stabilize those before releasing an SDK.
You can buy a version of Tiger without buying a Mac, and there is a version of Tiger that's universal, but have you verified that the two versions are the same? I.e., is the retail Tiger PPC-only, and the Tiger you get on a current Mac universal?
If all of what you consider problems in the (presumably file system) hierarchy are forbidden by the Single UNIX® Specification, Version 3, then definitely yes. Otherwise, not necessarily.
If you have admin access on your Mac (which you probably do, as the initial account is set up with it), the command sudo gives you "raw ICMP and raw packet access"; if that's a security problem on a given network, that network needs to be fixed.
Yes, running apps as root on the iPhone has its problems, but my sympathy with people who consider "Oh noes! You could open a BPF device or a SOCK_RAW socket!" to be one of those problems is a bit limited.
Opening the SDK doesn't necessarily imply legal unlocking, given that "unlocking", when talking about a mobile phone, refers to allowing it to work on arbitrary networks, not to allowing third-party apps on it.
...and hard for Apple to change UIKit, for example, if they decide that the version of UIKit in the current release of Handheld OS X needs cleaning up in ways that break binary compatibility with that version.
At least one application I would have liked to have had on my iPhone yesterday, to try to figure out why its connection to the Wi-Fi network at the restaurant I was at wasn't working, isn't "sold" (and, yes, there have been earlier versions of it that ran on handhelds, and, yes, somebody did ls -l /dev on a jailbroken 1.0.2 iPhone and the usual four initial instances of my favorite device were there).