Yellow Box (applications specifically written for Rhapsody, based on the NS framework from the NEXTSTEP/OpenStep era. Yellow box is now known as Cocoa)
Actually, Yellow Box is/was OpenStep for NT, and what is now Cocoa is just a slightly enhanced version of the OpenStep API. All the developers I know that had apps running under the Rhapsody DR releases simply considered them to be OpenStep apps. All the developers I know that had apps running under Yellow Box are cursing Apple for dropping support.
Interestingly, Linux does not seem overly bound by backwards-compatibility needs. Maybe we could devise a better solution for the *nix world?
Nope. Too many open source developers are focused on getting out copies of what Apple and MS have put on the desktop; a fairly reasonable approach of targeting "proven solutions". Very few are actually looking forward to the next killer app. They're not the only ones to blame, since it's a very risky proposition to restructure everything around metadata. Apple could have used the clean break of OS X to do it, but didn't want to make the switch that much more complicated for users. Desktop computers are just getting powerful enough for proper metadata management, but users may not even be ready for it just yet. Are you prepared to deal with a system that doesn't really have file names or directories/folders, any need for links/aliases, or any visible typing mechanism? If you are, you may just be ready for Mary, a meta object manager (MOM) that I'm working on that should see an alpha release by the end of the year (send me an email if alpha testing interests you). It's being developed on OS X, but could see a Linux version via GNUstep.
because then Joe Bob, COO, has to remember 5 different password instead of having to remember to bring his fingers along with him to each meeting.
If Joe Bob doesn't realize that security isn't supposed to be easy, he shouldn't be COO. He'll be the first to lose a finger when someone discovers they can't get what they want off the computer they just stole.
Sorry, but when it gets right down to it, for better or worse I (and my employees) want something they can give to a bad guy if they absolutely have to. I can give them a key card or a password, but I'm in trouble if they need body parts, attached or not, to get what they want.
1) I stay in my budget. I take out cash when I get paid, and know exactly how much I have to spend until my next pay check.
How does a credit card prevent you from staying in your budget? I suppose you could say cash makes it easier to track your limit, but you already have problems if a) you need to set a limit, b) you live close to that limit, and c) you're unaware when you do unusual things that impact your budget.
2) I get less junk mail. No more grocery store fliers, no more technical junk, jut good ol' mail. Coincidence? I think not.
Think again. Does your spam stop when you no longer post to Usenet (or whatever)? Nope. If you're on a list in the first place, it's highly unlikely that your use of cash got you taken off. Other factors are probably at work.
3) People who provide services for me (yoga, karate, acupuncture, housing, servers, etc) get instant payment, and can do what they want with it, including not reporting taxes. This makes them happy.
Well, they can do what they want with any payment they get, and they're free to not report income from other, cashless transactions as well. The more hand-to-fist you live, though, obviously the less of a paper trail you leave. I wouldn't necessarily classify that as a "happy" situation.
Historically, people have made innumerable theories that were later proved wrong. Could it not be that the Jedi Council (who are obviously not omniscient) made up this (incorrect) theory to explain things? Perhaps these so-called "super-intelligent germs" are merely particularly Force-attuned creatures that tend to congregate towards those most attuned to the Force? This would also explain why the midi-whatsits aren't mentioned at all in the original trilogy... it was an old theory that was later debunked (or forgotten, with the disbanding of the Council).
Excellent points. Another thing to consider is that Lucas has to somehow turn the Jedi from a respected galactic diplomatic/religious organization into a laughable, "hokey" band of outcasts in the span of, what, 25 years? Mistakes in proclamations like these ("the universe revolves around the Earth" anyone?) are often used as evidence against a religion's claims as a bearer of truth. I expect it'll be used as ammunition by the Empire, or otherwise debunked.
Do you know anything about what you're talking about? Can you name any feature of any OS X API (aside from Cocoa obviously) that isn't available from a Carbon app?
I can name all sorts of problems with the integration of Carbon and Cocoa, Mr. Anonymous Coward. If you truly know what you're talking about, come out in the open.
Services is the most offensive. As a developer I have the 10.1 seed, which has the Services menu enabled, but still not working for Carbon apps. Perhaps it will be in the release version, but given that 10.0.4 is the version users have, users of Carbon apps don't get services support. That includes things like system-wide spell checking.
The problems extend to areas which give users an even more inconsistent experience. Text dragging happens without a delay in Carbon apps, but with a delay in Cocoa apps. Window title bar icon dragging is just the opposite. Cocoa controls can also be manipulated for apps that are in the background (e.g., hold down the command key and you can scroll a window without making it active), but not so for Carbon apps. The list goes on, but I have posted my complaints on Usenet already (if you're a developer and read the Mac development newsgroups, you'd have seen them already) and I tire of repeating myself.
Add to that the fact that Carbon is being used to straddle between OS 9 and OS X (by most developers) and you get apps that simply don't fit with the new OS. You can sit in the shadows and call it into question all you want, but to anyone who actually uses their computer, Carbon apps suck. GNUstep is just a side reason to do Cocoa development.
Not that there can't be more than one good cross-platform library, but I think Qt is probably the best choice at the moment.
As was pointed out by another response, it has issues, as does the bulk of cross-platform work. OpenStep has been the only framework I have used that has properly abstracted from particular widgets such that native widgets can be used on different platforms, not just simulated. If you used WebObjects, you'd see how Yellow Box for Windows produces a proper looking and behaving Windows app while the same code base is leveraged for a proper OS X app. Perhaps Qt will eventually get there, too, but nobody can at this point just wave their hands and pretend they can get an application running on Linux, Windows, and a Mac that the users of every platform are happy with.
I don't think I jumped the gun by saying Qt is viable for MacOS X development.
You did. Hell, even Apple has jumped the gun when they say Carbon is viable for OS X development. I mean, yeah, you can get your old apps ported to OS X quicker, but as a user, it is painfully obvious which apps are Carbonized because they don't really take advantage of all OS X has to offer. Will Qt support services, spelling, transparency, toolbars, AppleScript or the Dock? If not, the user experience will drive people to your competition, who will then use GNUstep to bring a superior experience to your Linux users as well. Ouch!
I still find C++ code much easier to read than Obj-C code, because the OO syntax in Obj-C don't fit well with C syntax.
You say that as though it were a bad thing. Anyone with significant OO experience knows that proper OO development is much different than than procedural coding. ObjC is a hybrid language, and mixing it with C has advantages and disadvantages. The syntax was based on Smalltalk, so move over to that if you want a pure object environment without the syntax mix.
Also, I don't think you can say that C++ is a poor OO language compared to Obj-C.
Perhaps you can't, but I absolutely can. I have used all sorts of OO technologies over the years, and C++ has been the worst one to receive any significant attention. I now consider the years I spent with C++ to be wasted time. I suggest you expand your knowledge by doing significant development with other languages. I think you'll find that just about anything else better implements a solid OO design. If you want to get really tricky, start wrapping your mind around OO without classes (and many other things people just assume must be part of the OO paradigm), as supported by languages like Self, which won't really get any attention until the Java hype dies out, just like the C++ hype eventually did.
Why would I want to develop crossplatform applications with GNUStep, when I can use Qt 3.0 [trolltech.com]?
Why use anything? If you're ga-ga for Qt, use it. If you actually want to learn about alternatives, look into GNUstep. The OpenStep API happens to have over a decade of refinements in it and is based on an outstanding OO language.
All this using the proven C++ language.
Heh. "Proven to suck" comes to mind. In reality, C++ is a very poor OO language; ObjC just blows it away. You can take a day out of your schedule ot learn the basic syntax additions to C and if you've got an ounce of OO skill you will immediately see the huge advantage to things like categories.
This is not vaporware folks. Each supported platform is just that: fully supported and stable.
Yet the page you link to has "Beta" all over it, and suggests you "Evaluate" the Mac version. Depending on your needs GNUstep might not be ready just yet, but don't go pretending that your pet toolkit is something it's not. I have SDL-based apps running on my OS X box, but where are the Qt-based apps I should be expecting from this "fully supported and stable" toolkit?
Besides the obvious cost of using Qt for commercial development (which should only be a financial issue for individual developers, not companies), what good reason is there to use anything else?
Your argument is flawed in that it could apply to anything. If you're comfortable with Qt and uncomfortable actually trying anything new, just use Qt. Let me know when I can run your applications on my platform. I had OpenStep-based apps running on Linux in 1996, and GNUstep has only gotten better since then.
Why was so much American money given to NORAD to buy guns?
Guns for the North American Aerospace Defense Command? You're not even responding to points in my post, but in the future should at least have supporting evidence when you post such rants. I think you're clueless and know you're clueless, so you post as an AC. Grow up.
The United States has no choice. The magnitude of today's action requires the U.S. government to launch wide ranging and vicious reprisals against BinLaden, the Afghan government and all other terrorist organizations and governments that support them in the Middle East. It is likely that major parts of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria will be destroyed in order to show that attacking the United States is not something they should be doing.
And this will likely be true even if bin Laden isn't responsible for this particular attack. The entire world just got a nasty wake up call, and all terrorists and would-be-terrorists are on the shit list. Bin Laden has attacked too many people in too many places to claim his hands are now clean. It may indeed turn out to be someone else that orchestrated this, but no terrorist should assume they're in a safe harbor if they weren't involved.
This type of action is not something the U.S. likes to do. It has taken quite a bit of provocation to get to this point. But large, powerful states cannot let attacks like this go unpunished.
This is true and sadly necessary. We address these things with grim resolve, and we won't be dancing in the streets or handing out candy until the killing stops.
You and the poster you're responding to are talking as though this situation can play out in the future in any similar manner. In the past, yes, hijackers landed the plane safely and made demands and usually the people mostly went free. This incident has changed everything. Now giving up the plane or not fighting back means not just your death and the deaths of the <100 people on the plane, but the deaths of thousands, and the Pandora's Box that their plan's success will open up. Too much will change because of this.
In short, they lie to the passengers and make it sound like sitting back is the safe and reasonable thing to do. The terrorists have absolutely no reason to let the passengers know what's really going to happen to them at the end of the flight. And the passengers have very little reason to suspect it.
Sadly, that does make the most sense. The big "problem" is now for other terrorists/hijackers/kidnappers. This one incident has destroyed any "stay calm and you'll all be OK" leverage they might have had in the past. I don't think anybody who finds themselves in that position in the future can ever justify not fighting back. I don't care if the bastard has a gun or a bomb strapped to his chest, I don't see how I could now die peacefully knowing their plans to kill thousands more would work out, and I sat there and did nothing.
Yeah, I got really annoyed last week when I received a tax rebate from the state for nearly double what the federal government sent me, even though I paid federal taxes far in excess of triple what I paid in state taxes. Just who does Jessie and his crew think they are, doing that and making GWB look like a chump? (Needless to say, I'll take "annoying" people like Jessie over politics as usual any day)
Who else besides MS is making money [with an x86 OS]?
It's only partly an issue of the MS monopoly. The other major issue is branding. People don't know about the alternatives. Apple is a well-known company does not suffer from that. In many minds, their only choice is Mac or Windows. Companies like Be failed because they couldn't create a new brand in the Windows-dominated PC world. Apple doesn't need PC users to switch, which is why they're in a better position to make the play.
Many developers won't bothering port apps if users can already run Windows on the same machine -- they'll just buy the Windows software.
You don't understand; there simply is no "porting" to do. If you only produce Windows software, yes you've got problems (in more ways than one;-). But if you've already got a PPC Mac product, you'd essentially have an x86 Mac product with the click of a button. NeXT even had a product called the Yellow Box that allowed you to give your app a Windows look-and-feel. It's not supported by Apple, but they still use it internally for WebObjects development tools.
The hardware helps sell the software and vice-versa. Separate one from the other, and you lose a lot of the value.
Yet that same separation is what allowed NeXT to survive at least long enough for Apple to buy it. I'm not saying it would be a cake walk, but I think a profitable x86 Mac OS X is very doable.
Office and IE aren't written in Cocoa, and they actually use CodeWarrior for IE, not PB.
The principle is the same: Apple would provide Carbon frameworks with an x86 OS X just like they would provide Cocoa frameworks. Emulation of Classic apps is probably expecting a bit much, though. My understanding is that Carbon (at least a major subset) is essentially available for the x86 already because of Apple's work on QuickTime for Windows.
OSX for x86 would be in direct competition with them -- they wouldn't support it.
Were that true, no MS product would ship for a Mac. I think the Mac division is one of the most profitable at MS, and any intelligent company works hard to maximize profits.
Re:$1200 is everything but cheap
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$1200 Cheap!
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Anyone who doesn't want some or all of the toys bundled with the $1200 version is going to go buy the $499 one assuming it's available.
You have bought into the illusion of choice. You're sitting there with your $500 bundle saying, "I can't believe people are paying over twice as much", but blissfully ignorant and uncaring that you yourself have paid almost twice as much as you had to. You, sadly, have been suckered and you, more sadly, are happy about it.
"I think only if they start making OS X available to intel/amd architecture."
There's no money in that and there are tons of hurdles to surmount to get there.
Heh, yeah, companies like MS have had a real tough go of it trying to turn a profit on an OS for x86 hardware. And OS X is derived from OPENSTEP, which already ran on x86 hardware. Darwin has an x86 build, and there are persistent rumors of an internal x86 OS X build at Apple. The only real hurdle is getting Apple to stop thinking of themselves as a hardware company and start marketing their software as a separate product.
Do you think Microsoft would seriously port their software to x86 Mac OS X?
Never developed on a NeXT system, I see. The "porting" cost was essentially the time it took to go into ProjectBuilder and click the checkbox for the desired platform. With the same look and feel, IE for OS X on x86 would take all of 10 minutes (or however long it would take to recompile it).
A lot of this value comes from the fact that Mac OS X runs on standardized hardware. You lose a good chunk of this value by moving to a non-standardized hardware platform.
While I agree that most x86 hardware is absolute crap, the real value is in the abstractions built by Apple that vendors can follow. They leveraged those abstractions back when they moved from the 68k to the PPC and are further leveraging them to bring old apps to OS X. It's not an issue of total control, but more an issue of managed control.
There are some benchmarks at Ace's hardware (search for binaries vs. bytecodes) that aren't perfect, but make some very valid points.
I happen to disagree. Like statistics, benchmarks can be massaged to say anything a person likes. I prefer real world results, preferably doing tasks similar to those I'm planning on using the language for.
Perhaps a/. based C++ vs. Java coding contest would be interesting. Any interesting problems come to mind? I'm sure we have the talent around here to get close to max performance with both languages.
We could also just wait for the results of this year's ICFP. It's not purely a speed test, but I really don't much see the point into going so far as to do some sort of double-blind study of programming language productivity at both the machine and human levels.
I'd expect Objective-C to be a bit slower than C++ in general, given the method lookup overhead, and lack of generic types.
It would possibly be slower than C++, but probably not for a parity task (I've converted C++ code that had to hack out runtime concepts of its own and the ObjC version was faster and cleaner). I don't know what you mean by "lack of generic types". In proper OO languages like ObjC, we just call them "objects".
I do like Objective-C, but I really don't think it'll ever gain mainstream acceptance.
Who gives a damn? I use languages to get jobs done, to to get some warm fuzzy feeling of belonging. Even the oh-so-clever naming conventions that played off the Java name make me queasy ("We'll call them BEANS!! HAHAHA. Get it? Java beans!" ugh).
Garbage collection is stronger than reference counting as well.
Neither are specified as part of the ObjC language, and you can drop in something like Bohem GC if you like even if you happen to be using the frameworks of a vendor like Apple that likes reference counting.
Plus (assuming you're talking about a traditional compiler like gcc) you lose the advantages of bytecode like dynamic compilation tuned for the exact CPU (say Athlon for instance) that you're using.
Yeah, big loss by using a native binary instead. If I wanted to thow away RAM and CPU on an emulator (aka, a VM without a marketing department), I'd buy one.
I didn't make that claim, so I'm not sure why I'd want to do that. I'll stand by my claim WRT C++ (used as an OOL).
And I said you could even use ObjC (which you believe to be even slower than C++) if you wanted to compare a C-based OO language to Java. You essentially claim is that Java emulation can be done at near-native speeds. I've never seen such a thing outside of slanted, non-parity benchmark comparisons. What I do see in real world apps like Apple's TextEdit that comes with OS X, both Java and ObjC versions, is that the Java version is a real dog. Make whatever excuse you like for that, but as a user I don't give a damn why the app sucks, I just know I won't be using the Java version if I want to be productive.
Do you honestly feel C is as productive as Java? I certainly don't.
If Java works best for you in the things you do, by all means use it. To make a blanket statement that C cannot be as productive as Java is downright foolish. Every language has a particular area where it shines, and C has been shining in many more productive areas for far longer than Java has been around shining in the marketing department.
To a large extent they were right. Have you checked the ratio of C++ to C jobs lately?
You completely missed my point. It has always been that way. Languages come and go and leave greater or lesser footprints on the computing landscape. The footprint Java has left has not been due to any technical innovation, but because Sun marketing has somehow convinced people that emulation is a great idea.
Yes, you missed the point. First, the VM based versions of Java (using adaptive compilation as opposed to simple interpretation) are now very competitive with C++ speedwise. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster with usually a fairly small delta.
I have to laugh every time I see these claims, because the people making them always fail to back them up with proof. Please give hard evidence that Java is on par with C (within 10% of both CPU and RAM usage) for a significant, parity task. No bogus benchmarking, please; let's keep this in the real world! If you like, you may even compare it to a real OO C-based language like Objective-C, but not C++, which is one crappy OO language.
C is generally more efficient, but you lose object orientation.
Spoken like someone who doesn't really understand OO. OO programming can be done in any language, even C, though certain things are made easier for the programmer if the language has OO support.
Java is open, productive, fast, cross-platform, widely taught, supported by every significant software company, and somewhat future-proof. What other language/platform comes close?
Uh, how about C? In fact, it's true of any language that was popular for at least a year. For those of us who lived through the C++ hype, you people who are riding the Java bandwagon are downright funny. They're all just languages, not ways of life.
The real proof will be forthcoming - when many anti-Java Luddites are in the unemployment lines, still complaining about it...;-)
Problem: I can't point to a single Java app that I could call "killer", unless you count RAM and CPU as its victims. All computer languages have periods of popularity and decline. Java has crested, and I have to give credit to MS for at least trying to create/catch the next wave with C#.
Konqueror has exactly this option - you can tell it to disallow opening new windows completely, to have it ask, or to allow javascript window.open() always. Handy little feature...
OmniWeb for OS X has it beat, with a setting to open the window only if it was requested by a user action. I can go to a site like the The Onion and have its left-hand bar popups like Horoscopes open just fine, but I have never, ever seen a popup ad.
besides that, there was a whole set of productivity applications from LightHouse Design
The really interesting/ironic thing is that it was Sun that bought out Lighthouse and then proceeded to kill all those apps. If Sun really gave a damn about OS X, they would open source that code. Their dropping of support for OpenStep in favor of their over-hyped Java has not amused many developers either.
Now I'm considering taking it down because I'm worried that it's building more resentment in me than when I just didn't have it at all.
Go the other way. I first saw the PayPal button on your main page a long time ago and I said to myself I'd definitely kick you $5 if I ever had a need to get a PayPal account myself. Then, when I got one not too long ago, I popped by your site and simply didn't see see the button anymore, so I thought you gave up on it then. The main page has no PayPal link, and the content pages have it in "banner space", which simply doesn't get far enough past my mental filters to be processed.
My suggestion is to move it to the bottom of every page as a footer just before (or after) the copyright with a little descriptive text to go along with it. Screw the unappreciative leeches who get offended by the fact that it costs money to put a site up. I somehow doubt they'll be so offended that they stop using your resources.
SmartTags could be a very powerful improvement to the WWW if done properly. And that means no concentrated authority on where these links point to. I'd be interested in it if it used an open directory for the link info instead of some corporate "money word" bucket.
And give up that potential profit base? Not bloody likely! Even if they did direct to an open directory, they could detect based on money, all the while tracking user usage.
As I pointed out in round one, software already exists that allows users to do a quick web search with any text selection; no MS approval, no funky presentation changes. In fact, it can work from any application, not just a web browser! I'm talking about InstantLinks, which I wrote. The only hitch is that it requires Mac OS X for its coolness to work, but a limited version could be done for other systems, perhaps directly as a browser plugin.
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Yellow Box (applications specifically written for Rhapsody, based on the NS framework from the NEXTSTEP/OpenStep era. Yellow box is now known as Cocoa)
Actually, Yellow Box is/was OpenStep for NT, and what is now Cocoa is just a slightly enhanced version of the OpenStep API. All the developers I know that had apps running under the Rhapsody DR releases simply considered them to be OpenStep apps. All the developers I know that had apps running under Yellow Box are cursing Apple for dropping support.
Interestingly, Linux does not seem overly bound by backwards-compatibility needs. Maybe we could devise a better solution for the *nix world?
Nope. Too many open source developers are focused on getting out copies of what Apple and MS have put on the desktop; a fairly reasonable approach of targeting "proven solutions". Very few are actually looking forward to the next killer app. They're not the only ones to blame, since it's a very risky proposition to restructure everything around metadata. Apple could have used the clean break of OS X to do it, but didn't want to make the switch that much more complicated for users. Desktop computers are just getting powerful enough for proper metadata management, but users may not even be ready for it just yet. Are you prepared to deal with a system that doesn't really have file names or directories/folders, any need for links/aliases, or any visible typing mechanism? If you are, you may just be ready for Mary, a meta object manager (MOM) that I'm working on that should see an alpha release by the end of the year (send me an email if alpha testing interests you). It's being developed on OS X, but could see a Linux version via GNUstep.
Or someone who will take up the proposal for a movie of TheMatriXXX.
because then Joe Bob, COO, has to remember 5 different password instead of having to remember to bring his fingers along with him to each meeting.
If Joe Bob doesn't realize that security isn't supposed to be easy, he shouldn't be COO. He'll be the first to lose a finger when someone discovers they can't get what they want off the computer they just stole.
Sorry, but when it gets right down to it, for better or worse I (and my employees) want something they can give to a bad guy if they absolutely have to. I can give them a key card or a password, but I'm in trouble if they need body parts, attached or not, to get what they want.
1) I stay in my budget. I take out cash when I get paid, and know exactly how much I have to spend until my next pay check.
How does a credit card prevent you from staying in your budget? I suppose you could say cash makes it easier to track your limit, but you already have problems if a) you need to set a limit, b) you live close to that limit, and c) you're unaware when you do unusual things that impact your budget.
2) I get less junk mail. No more grocery store fliers, no more technical junk, jut good ol' mail. Coincidence? I think not.
Think again. Does your spam stop when you no longer post to Usenet (or whatever)? Nope. If you're on a list in the first place, it's highly unlikely that your use of cash got you taken off. Other factors are probably at work.
3) People who provide services for me (yoga, karate, acupuncture, housing, servers, etc) get instant payment, and can do what they want with it, including not reporting taxes. This makes them happy.
Well, they can do what they want with any payment they get, and they're free to not report income from other, cashless transactions as well. The more hand-to-fist you live, though, obviously the less of a paper trail you leave. I wouldn't necessarily classify that as a "happy" situation.
Historically, people have made innumerable theories that were later proved wrong. Could it not be that the Jedi Council (who are obviously not omniscient) made up this (incorrect) theory to explain things? Perhaps these so-called "super-intelligent germs" are merely particularly Force-attuned creatures that tend to congregate towards those most attuned to the Force? This would also explain why the midi-whatsits aren't mentioned at all in the original trilogy... it was an old theory that was later debunked (or forgotten, with the disbanding of the Council).
Excellent points. Another thing to consider is that Lucas has to somehow turn the Jedi from a respected galactic diplomatic/religious organization into a laughable, "hokey" band of outcasts in the span of, what, 25 years? Mistakes in proclamations like these ("the universe revolves around the Earth" anyone?) are often used as evidence against a religion's claims as a bearer of truth. I expect it'll be used as ammunition by the Empire, or otherwise debunked.
Do you know anything about what you're talking about? Can you name any feature of any OS X API (aside from Cocoa obviously) that isn't available from a Carbon app?
I can name all sorts of problems with the integration of Carbon and Cocoa, Mr. Anonymous Coward. If you truly know what you're talking about, come out in the open.
Services is the most offensive. As a developer I have the 10.1 seed, which has the Services menu enabled, but still not working for Carbon apps. Perhaps it will be in the release version, but given that 10.0.4 is the version users have, users of Carbon apps don't get services support. That includes things like system-wide spell checking.
The problems extend to areas which give users an even more inconsistent experience. Text dragging happens without a delay in Carbon apps, but with a delay in Cocoa apps. Window title bar icon dragging is just the opposite. Cocoa controls can also be manipulated for apps that are in the background (e.g., hold down the command key and you can scroll a window without making it active), but not so for Carbon apps. The list goes on, but I have posted my complaints on Usenet already (if you're a developer and read the Mac development newsgroups, you'd have seen them already) and I tire of repeating myself.
Add to that the fact that Carbon is being used to straddle between OS 9 and OS X (by most developers) and you get apps that simply don't fit with the new OS. You can sit in the shadows and call it into question all you want, but to anyone who actually uses their computer, Carbon apps suck. GNUstep is just a side reason to do Cocoa development.
Not that there can't be more than one good cross-platform library, but I think Qt is probably the best choice at the moment.
As was pointed out by another response, it has issues, as does the bulk of cross-platform work. OpenStep has been the only framework I have used that has properly abstracted from particular widgets such that native widgets can be used on different platforms, not just simulated. If you used WebObjects, you'd see how Yellow Box for Windows produces a proper looking and behaving Windows app while the same code base is leveraged for a proper OS X app. Perhaps Qt will eventually get there, too, but nobody can at this point just wave their hands and pretend they can get an application running on Linux, Windows, and a Mac that the users of every platform are happy with.
I don't think I jumped the gun by saying Qt is viable for MacOS X development.
You did. Hell, even Apple has jumped the gun when they say Carbon is viable for OS X development. I mean, yeah, you can get your old apps ported to OS X quicker, but as a user, it is painfully obvious which apps are Carbonized because they don't really take advantage of all OS X has to offer. Will Qt support services, spelling, transparency, toolbars, AppleScript or the Dock? If not, the user experience will drive people to your competition, who will then use GNUstep to bring a superior experience to your Linux users as well. Ouch!
I still find C++ code much easier to read than Obj-C code, because the OO syntax in Obj-C don't fit well with C syntax.
You say that as though it were a bad thing. Anyone with significant OO experience knows that proper OO development is much different than than procedural coding. ObjC is a hybrid language, and mixing it with C has advantages and disadvantages. The syntax was based on Smalltalk, so move over to that if you want a pure object environment without the syntax mix.
Also, I don't think you can say that C++ is a poor OO language compared to Obj-C.
Perhaps you can't, but I absolutely can. I have used all sorts of OO technologies over the years, and C++ has been the worst one to receive any significant attention. I now consider the years I spent with C++ to be wasted time. I suggest you expand your knowledge by doing significant development with other languages. I think you'll find that just about anything else better implements a solid OO design. If you want to get really tricky, start wrapping your mind around OO without classes (and many other things people just assume must be part of the OO paradigm), as supported by languages like Self, which won't really get any attention until the Java hype dies out, just like the C++ hype eventually did.
Why would I want to develop crossplatform applications with GNUStep, when I can use Qt 3.0 [trolltech.com]?
Why use anything? If you're ga-ga for Qt, use it. If you actually want to learn about alternatives, look into GNUstep. The OpenStep API happens to have over a decade of refinements in it and is based on an outstanding OO language.
All this using the proven C++ language.
Heh. "Proven to suck" comes to mind. In reality, C++ is a very poor OO language; ObjC just blows it away. You can take a day out of your schedule ot learn the basic syntax additions to C and if you've got an ounce of OO skill you will immediately see the huge advantage to things like categories.
This is not vaporware folks. Each supported platform is just that: fully supported and stable.
Yet the page you link to has "Beta" all over it, and suggests you "Evaluate" the Mac version. Depending on your needs GNUstep might not be ready just yet, but don't go pretending that your pet toolkit is something it's not. I have SDL-based apps running on my OS X box, but where are the Qt-based apps I should be expecting from this "fully supported and stable" toolkit?
Besides the obvious cost of using Qt for commercial development (which should only be a financial issue for individual developers, not companies), what good reason is there to use anything else?
Your argument is flawed in that it could apply to anything. If you're comfortable with Qt and uncomfortable actually trying anything new, just use Qt. Let me know when I can run your applications on my platform. I had OpenStep-based apps running on Linux in 1996, and GNUstep has only gotten better since then.
Why was so much American money given to NORAD to buy guns?
Guns for the North American Aerospace Defense Command? You're not even responding to points in my post, but in the future should at least have supporting evidence when you post such rants. I think you're clueless and know you're clueless, so you post as an AC. Grow up.
The United States has no choice. The magnitude of today's action requires the U.S. government to launch wide ranging and vicious reprisals against BinLaden, the Afghan government and all other terrorist organizations and governments that support them in the Middle East. It is likely that major parts of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria will be destroyed in order to show that attacking the United States is not something they should be doing.
And this will likely be true even if bin Laden isn't responsible for this particular attack. The entire world just got a nasty wake up call, and all terrorists and would-be-terrorists are on the shit list. Bin Laden has attacked too many people in too many places to claim his hands are now clean. It may indeed turn out to be someone else that orchestrated this, but no terrorist should assume they're in a safe harbor if they weren't involved.
This type of action is not something the U.S. likes to do. It has taken quite a bit of provocation to get to this point. But large, powerful states cannot let attacks like this go unpunished.
This is true and sadly necessary. We address these things with grim resolve, and we won't be dancing in the streets or handing out candy until the killing stops.
You and the poster you're responding to are talking as though this situation can play out in the future in any similar manner. In the past, yes, hijackers landed the plane safely and made demands and usually the people mostly went free. This incident has changed everything. Now giving up the plane or not fighting back means not just your death and the deaths of the <100 people on the plane, but the deaths of thousands, and the Pandora's Box that their plan's success will open up. Too much will change because of this.
In short, they lie to the passengers and make it sound like sitting back is the safe and reasonable thing to do. The terrorists have absolutely no reason to let the passengers know what's really going to happen to them at the end of the flight. And the passengers have very little reason to suspect it.
Sadly, that does make the most sense. The big "problem" is now for other terrorists/hijackers/kidnappers. This one incident has destroyed any "stay calm and you'll all be OK" leverage they might have had in the past. I don't think anybody who finds themselves in that position in the future can ever justify not fighting back. I don't care if the bastard has a gun or a bomb strapped to his chest, I don't see how I could now die peacefully knowing their plans to kill thousands more would work out, and I sat there and did nothing.
When has this ever happened before?
Never before; never again.
Yeah, I got really annoyed last week when I received a tax rebate from the state for nearly double what the federal government sent me, even though I paid federal taxes far in excess of triple what I paid in state taxes. Just who does Jessie and his crew think they are, doing that and making GWB look like a chump? (Needless to say, I'll take "annoying" people like Jessie over politics as usual any day)
Who else besides MS is making money [with an x86 OS]?
It's only partly an issue of the MS monopoly. The other major issue is branding. People don't know about the alternatives. Apple is a well-known company does not suffer from that. In many minds, their only choice is Mac or Windows. Companies like Be failed because they couldn't create a new brand in the Windows-dominated PC world. Apple doesn't need PC users to switch, which is why they're in a better position to make the play.
Many developers won't bothering port apps if users can already run Windows on the same machine -- they'll just buy the Windows software.
You don't understand; there simply is no "porting" to do. If you only produce Windows software, yes you've got problems (in more ways than one ;-). But if you've already got a PPC Mac product, you'd essentially have an x86 Mac product with the click of a button. NeXT even had a product called the Yellow Box that allowed you to give your app a Windows look-and-feel. It's not supported by Apple, but they still use it internally for WebObjects development tools.
The hardware helps sell the software and vice-versa. Separate one from the other, and you lose a lot of the value.
Yet that same separation is what allowed NeXT to survive at least long enough for Apple to buy it. I'm not saying it would be a cake walk, but I think a profitable x86 Mac OS X is very doable.
Office and IE aren't written in Cocoa, and they actually use CodeWarrior for IE, not PB.
The principle is the same: Apple would provide Carbon frameworks with an x86 OS X just like they would provide Cocoa frameworks. Emulation of Classic apps is probably expecting a bit much, though. My understanding is that Carbon (at least a major subset) is essentially available for the x86 already because of Apple's work on QuickTime for Windows.
OSX for x86 would be in direct competition with them -- they wouldn't support it.
Were that true, no MS product would ship for a Mac. I think the Mac division is one of the most profitable at MS, and any intelligent company works hard to maximize profits.
Anyone who doesn't want some or all of the toys bundled with the $1200 version is going to go buy the $499 one assuming it's available.
You have bought into the illusion of choice. You're sitting there with your $500 bundle saying, "I can't believe people are paying over twice as much", but blissfully ignorant and uncaring that you yourself have paid almost twice as much as you had to. You, sadly, have been suckered and you, more sadly, are happy about it.
"I think only if they start making OS X available to intel/amd architecture." There's no money in that and there are tons of hurdles to surmount to get there.
Heh, yeah, companies like MS have had a real tough go of it trying to turn a profit on an OS for x86 hardware. And OS X is derived from OPENSTEP, which already ran on x86 hardware. Darwin has an x86 build, and there are persistent rumors of an internal x86 OS X build at Apple. The only real hurdle is getting Apple to stop thinking of themselves as a hardware company and start marketing their software as a separate product.
Do you think Microsoft would seriously port their software to x86 Mac OS X?
Never developed on a NeXT system, I see. The "porting" cost was essentially the time it took to go into ProjectBuilder and click the checkbox for the desired platform. With the same look and feel, IE for OS X on x86 would take all of 10 minutes (or however long it would take to recompile it).
A lot of this value comes from the fact that Mac OS X runs on standardized hardware. You lose a good chunk of this value by moving to a non-standardized hardware platform.
While I agree that most x86 hardware is absolute crap, the real value is in the abstractions built by Apple that vendors can follow. They leveraged those abstractions back when they moved from the 68k to the PPC and are further leveraging them to bring old apps to OS X. It's not an issue of total control, but more an issue of managed control.
There are some benchmarks at Ace's hardware (search for binaries vs. bytecodes) that aren't perfect, but make some very valid points.
I happen to disagree. Like statistics, benchmarks can be massaged to say anything a person likes. I prefer real world results, preferably doing tasks similar to those I'm planning on using the language for.
Perhaps a /. based C++ vs. Java coding contest would be interesting. Any interesting problems come to mind? I'm sure we have the talent around here to get close to max performance with both languages.
We could also just wait for the results of this year's ICFP. It's not purely a speed test, but I really don't much see the point into going so far as to do some sort of double-blind study of programming language productivity at both the machine and human levels.
I'd expect Objective-C to be a bit slower than C++ in general, given the method lookup overhead, and lack of generic types.
It would possibly be slower than C++, but probably not for a parity task (I've converted C++ code that had to hack out runtime concepts of its own and the ObjC version was faster and cleaner). I don't know what you mean by "lack of generic types". In proper OO languages like ObjC, we just call them "objects".
I do like Objective-C, but I really don't think it'll ever gain mainstream acceptance.
Who gives a damn? I use languages to get jobs done, to to get some warm fuzzy feeling of belonging. Even the oh-so-clever naming conventions that played off the Java name make me queasy ("We'll call them BEANS!! HAHAHA. Get it? Java beans!" ugh).
Garbage collection is stronger than reference counting as well.
Neither are specified as part of the ObjC language, and you can drop in something like Bohem GC if you like even if you happen to be using the frameworks of a vendor like Apple that likes reference counting.
Plus (assuming you're talking about a traditional compiler like gcc) you lose the advantages of bytecode like dynamic compilation tuned for the exact CPU (say Athlon for instance) that you're using.
Yeah, big loss by using a native binary instead. If I wanted to thow away RAM and CPU on an emulator (aka, a VM without a marketing department), I'd buy one.
I didn't make that claim, so I'm not sure why I'd want to do that. I'll stand by my claim WRT C++ (used as an OOL).
And I said you could even use ObjC (which you believe to be even slower than C++) if you wanted to compare a C-based OO language to Java. You essentially claim is that Java emulation can be done at near-native speeds. I've never seen such a thing outside of slanted, non-parity benchmark comparisons. What I do see in real world apps like Apple's TextEdit that comes with OS X, both Java and ObjC versions, is that the Java version is a real dog. Make whatever excuse you like for that, but as a user I don't give a damn why the app sucks, I just know I won't be using the Java version if I want to be productive.
Do you honestly feel C is as productive as Java? I certainly don't.
If Java works best for you in the things you do, by all means use it. To make a blanket statement that C cannot be as productive as Java is downright foolish. Every language has a particular area where it shines, and C has been shining in many more productive areas for far longer than Java has been around shining in the marketing department.
To a large extent they were right. Have you checked the ratio of C++ to C jobs lately?
You completely missed my point. It has always been that way. Languages come and go and leave greater or lesser footprints on the computing landscape. The footprint Java has left has not been due to any technical innovation, but because Sun marketing has somehow convinced people that emulation is a great idea.
Yes, you missed the point. First, the VM based versions of Java (using adaptive compilation as opposed to simple interpretation) are now very competitive with C++ speedwise. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster with usually a fairly small delta.
I have to laugh every time I see these claims, because the people making them always fail to back them up with proof. Please give hard evidence that Java is on par with C (within 10% of both CPU and RAM usage) for a significant, parity task. No bogus benchmarking, please; let's keep this in the real world! If you like, you may even compare it to a real OO C-based language like Objective-C, but not C++, which is one crappy OO language.
C is generally more efficient, but you lose object orientation.
Spoken like someone who doesn't really understand OO. OO programming can be done in any language, even C, though certain things are made easier for the programmer if the language has OO support.
Java is open, productive, fast, cross-platform, widely taught, supported by every significant software company, and somewhat future-proof. What other language/platform comes close?
Uh, how about C? In fact, it's true of any language that was popular for at least a year. For those of us who lived through the C++ hype, you people who are riding the Java bandwagon are downright funny. They're all just languages, not ways of life.
The real proof will be forthcoming - when many anti-Java Luddites are in the unemployment lines, still complaining about it... ;-)
The C++ people said the very same things . . .
Problem: I can't point to a single Java app that I could call "killer", unless you count RAM and CPU as its victims. All computer languages have periods of popularity and decline. Java has crested, and I have to give credit to MS for at least trying to create/catch the next wave with C#.
Konqueror has exactly this option - you can tell it to disallow opening new windows completely, to have it ask, or to allow javascript window.open() always. Handy little feature...
OmniWeb for OS X has it beat, with a setting to open the window only if it was requested by a user action. I can go to a site like the The Onion and have its left-hand bar popups like Horoscopes open just fine, but I have never, ever seen a popup ad.
besides that, there was a whole set of productivity applications from LightHouse Design
The really interesting/ironic thing is that it was Sun that bought out Lighthouse and then proceeded to kill all those apps. If Sun really gave a damn about OS X, they would open source that code. Their dropping of support for OpenStep in favor of their over-hyped Java has not amused many developers either.
Now I'm considering taking it down because I'm worried that it's building more resentment in me than when I just didn't have it at all.
Go the other way. I first saw the PayPal button on your main page a long time ago and I said to myself I'd definitely kick you $5 if I ever had a need to get a PayPal account myself. Then, when I got one not too long ago, I popped by your site and simply didn't see see the button anymore, so I thought you gave up on it then. The main page has no PayPal link, and the content pages have it in "banner space", which simply doesn't get far enough past my mental filters to be processed.
My suggestion is to move it to the bottom of every page as a footer just before (or after) the copyright with a little descriptive text to go along with it. Screw the unappreciative leeches who get offended by the fact that it costs money to put a site up. I somehow doubt they'll be so offended that they stop using your resources.
SmartTags could be a very powerful improvement to the WWW if done properly. And that means no concentrated authority on where these links point to. I'd be interested in it if it used an open directory for the link info instead of some corporate "money word" bucket.
And give up that potential profit base? Not bloody likely! Even if they did direct to an open directory, they could detect based on money, all the while tracking user usage.
As I pointed out in round one, software already exists that allows users to do a quick web search with any text selection; no MS approval, no funky presentation changes. In fact, it can work from any application, not just a web browser! I'm talking about InstantLinks, which I wrote. The only hitch is that it requires Mac OS X for its coolness to work, but a limited version could be done for other systems, perhaps directly as a browser plugin.