Except that Steve wouldn't have made the change if it were not cost effective. He's a businessman, and the kiddies that like his fancy animated fish don't care if it was rendered or developed on a Mac or not. At some point, the compute power of the G5, please the ease of installation and ongoing maintenance made it worthwhile to switch.
In all actuality, he probably didn't even request that his company do this - its not the kind of thing a CEO tends to think about. His CTO probably did the evaluations and ran the numbers...
People that want a high quality, high performance product, perhaps?
Or perhaps they teach assembler in India? Or perhaps the Indians took the trouble to learn it instead of stopping at Javascript since thats all their job entailed?
Its dipshits like you that assume you'll get a free ride that drive the jobs to India. Programming is hard - if you can't do it well, please don't.
I will not work with someone that cannot at least read assembly. When they smash the stack and are dropped into GDB, I don't want to waste my time helping them understand what a load off of $r3 means.
The fact is that you don't always have source, and you need to be able to read assembler if you're going to be an effective C or C++ programmer.
Also important is a knowledge of what actually occurs at the ABI level - on some platforms, passing a small struct by value can be cheaper than passing it by reference. You can't understand these issues unless you understand what happens at the instruction level. If you can't describe to me (in vague terms at least) how a C function call works, you will not get hired.
Extra points if you understand how those instructions are in turn implemented by the microcode.
I basically agree that static polymorphism is OK (eg C++ classes) but dynamic function pointer assignment can be lead to programmers errors that can only be discovered at runtime. I'm trying to track down a copy of the MISRA C spec, which describes this some more, but not having much luck...
>> So has anyone thought of using Obj-C in an embedded system? Is it a viable, attractive alternative?
Objective-C would not be a good language for embedded development. Embedded applications need as much static type checking and validation as possible. Embedded developers don't even like using function pointers, let alone dynamic dispatching.
I agree that it is a nice language, but I wouldn't want to receive a selector not bound exception when I need to turn right in my car...
When I outgrow my Macs, I usually either sell them on eBay or donate them; they will get a few more years that way (usually running a current OS from year 1 to 4, then sticking with that in years 4 -> 8.)
For example, my first Mac, a Mac II went with system 6.0.4 in 1989 to 7.5 in 1993, when I gave it to a school where they kept it until 1995.
My second Mac, a PB 170 went from 7.1 in 1991 (or 2?) to 7.5 in 1994, when I gave it to my sister to use in her school. She still uses it.
I had a 6100 for a year or two, and sold it for about 1/3 what I paid, which is just about right for depreciation on computer equipment. System 7.5 on that, I think.
I had a PowerBook 5300 at around this point, and it was a total piece of shit. Worst Mac Ever.
My 8500 had System 7.5 to 9.0, lasted in my house for I think 2 years, and then I sold it again for about 1/3 purchase price.
My 450mhz G4 I bought in 1999 (a few months after my Dell XP 450). I still use it as my primary computer - it went from system 8.1 to OS X 10.3. I've only ever added memory and a second internal disk. I'll probably hang on to it for another year. While I use a 2ghz DP G5 at work, I don't find the G4 slow enough to warrant an upgrade for the light duty development work I do from home. If I were to sell the machine on eBay right now, I'd get about $300.
The Dell? It would cost me more to get rid of it than its worth. I see two of them on eBay with a buy it now price of $79 and no bidders.
I'd say the PowerMac G5. For one thing, its a completely new design internally, losing a lot of the legacy of old Mac OS machines. (Which they can do since they don't need to support a 20 year old BIOS or OS.)
Another advancement is the attention spent on creating a case that can effectively, efficiently, and quietly cooling the new design.
It just isn't worth my time to do this. Free p2p (like free software) is only free if my time is free, which it certainly isn't.
Even though I listen to lots of music, and have an extensive CD collection (all ripped now, thank you) I never bothered to download and use any of the p2p music trading programs - it just wasn't worth my time when I could purchase the CD online or at a local record store. (Not to mention, I respect the rights of the intellectual property owner, sleazy though they might be - its up to the artist to negotiate a decent contract...)
The biggest losers now that there are legitimate, efficient, digital content delivery are going to be the chain record stores like Tower or Warehouse. I'll still go to the small dealers, since some of the music I like probably won't make it online, but I will go, and I'll spend my money - because its cheaper than wasting my time using the p2p networks.
In this case, I'm referring to the homogeneity of the case design. Every desktop PC I see has pretty much the same form factor (ATX case?) while each "new" mac (G4, G5, every powerbook) has a unique case and connector placement.
The G5 case wasn't trying to fit an off the shelf motherboard. Of course, this means signifcant retooling at the factory, which is probably yet another reason macs cost more.
Make a tube of your hand (like you were grasping, say, um, a bannana. No really, nobody's watching.) Blow through this tube gently; notice how quiet it is. Now blow against a your flattened palm. Notice that it is appreciably louder.
The design of the G5 is to use two fans in each zone, one gently blowing, one gently sucking. The result is that you're never slamming air against a wall, which is actually where a lot of the fan noise come from.
As to whether its revolutionary, I doubt it - its just solid engineering without concern with having to fit old form factor bits into the box. (PeeCees have much more homogenous designs, since Macs always come from a single vendor.)
The switch on the handlebars would be key. There are times when you *know* that you've got a safe few seconds to glance around. It would be nice if you could be looking forward at that point (instead of looking down at a map on your tankbag, for example) since during that time you *know* its safe to look down, Bambi over there *knows* its time to jump in front of you and cause $3k damage to your front end.
Of that list, only BBEdit and Quake are commercial and are going to cost extra. (Possibly RBrowserLite, I've never heard of it since I usually don't use FTP.)
So, how much is your mid range PC going to cost vs. a mid range mac? If money is an issue, you might want to re-evaluate the costs...
My computer has several buses; since the keyboard and mouse contain microcontrollers that talk over USB, could they be considered a "Network" and thus taxed?
How about establishing a PPP connection to, oh, say AOL?
Cell phone data?
Forgot to mention why I would want to do these things. In my job, I develop frameworks used by other applications; often, changes we make in our frameworks breaks some third party application. By disassembling the third party app, I can figure out what their erroneous assumption was that we just broke - and then we can implement a workaround until they fix it.
Another reason, and one that I've come up against time and time again, is buggy third party libraries. Sometimes the vendor has gone out of business; sometimes they want more money to fix their bugs. But if our license allows for it, we can just fix their bugs and move on.
Steve Jasik has/had a product called MacNosy. It was a disassembler that allowed you to iterate over a disassembly. It would isolate access to globals, for example: you could name a global, and from then on, all references would have the name of the global. You could define structures and tell it that a given register held a pointer to it for some nice structured disasembly, not as nice as theoretical decompilation, but certainly quite useful.
Unfortunately, the user interface left a lot to be desired, owing to the authors peculiar, um, tastes in UI design. And it never produced assembly that could be fed back into an assembler after modification, which would've been most useful. It did, however, come with a fairly detailed analysis of the Mac roms (back in the day;-) and so was invaluable in learning the secrets of the Mac toolbox. Anybody know of a similar product for linux/windows/os x?
As an aside, the parent article is complete crap written at a high school level by someone that recently learned that what you put in the compiler vaugly resembles what you can see from the debug prompt. I kept waiting for the "here's my magic algorithm that allows me to trace object usage accross appearent compilation units", but this pointless article didn't even come close.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
NeWS was a peer of X-Windows, based on postscript; it was incredibly powerful and underpromoted. The only licensee that I recall was SGI: it was the basis of the IRIX window system in the early 90s. The language itself was an object oriented version of PostScript; the frameworks were entirely object oriented.
NeWS was canned because it couldn't compete commercially with (free) X11. For a humorous slant, check out the Unix Haters Handbook or this link.
Many of the language implementation ideas from NeWS went on to Java; James Gosling was a primary with both.
As an aside, this is an example of how "free" software dealt a death blow to demonstrably superior commercial software.
The Apple model gives you the right to burn the music to an Audio CD (as high quality as the original encoding, which is plenty good enough for consumer CD players in cars, etc.)
It also gives you the right to use the music you've purchased for non-commercial soundtracks to slideshows and digital movies that you produce. A subscription service would obviously not work in this model.
The only rational way to approach it is to purchase the rights to the music for use in your own creations. Apple has done the legwork in getting the labels to accept this model; they know that the video of your daughters confirmation, set to Madonna's "Like a Virgin", isn't likely to gross big bucks and step on their commercial licensing terms. Remember, this is about individuals applying music they've purchased, and the DRM is in place only to deter large scale duplication.
I use Symantec MORE 3.1 (1991) on Mac OS X almost every day. Its my preferred note taking application. I've been using MORE since MORE 2.0 in 1988. MORE 3.0 probably still works, but I paid for the 3.1 upgrade and damnit I'm going to use it.
I'm sure lots of PC apps still work, but then again, the PC architecture hasn't really advanced in that time.
Its called a library. You can even get music there. Videos too. (And copyright holders aren't terribly happy about that either, but the copyright law encourages it.)
If you want to "share", perhaps you should encourage funding of your local library. Or lie-berry, if you prefer.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that Steve wouldn't have made the change if it were not cost effective. He's a businessman, and the kiddies that like his fancy animated fish don't care if it was rendered or developed on a Mac or not. At some point, the compute power of the G5, please the ease of installation and ongoing maintenance made it worthwhile to switch.
In all actuality, he probably didn't even request that his company do this - its not the kind of thing a CEO tends to think about. His CTO probably did the evaluations and ran the numbers...
When you are going to stop consuming, and start producing? Stop sucking at the teat of pop culture.
People that want a high quality, high performance product, perhaps?
Or perhaps they teach assembler in India? Or perhaps the Indians took the trouble to learn it instead of stopping at Javascript since thats all their job entailed?
Its dipshits like you that assume you'll get a free ride that drive the jobs to India. Programming is hard - if you can't do it well, please don't.
I will not work with someone that cannot at least read assembly. When they smash the stack and are dropped into GDB, I don't want to waste my time helping them understand what a load off of $r3 means.
The fact is that you don't always have source, and you need to be able to read assembler if you're going to be an effective C or C++ programmer.
Also important is a knowledge of what actually occurs at the ABI level - on some platforms, passing a small struct by value can be cheaper than passing it by reference. You can't understand these issues unless you understand what happens at the instruction level. If you can't describe to me (in vague terms at least) how a C function call works, you will not get hired.
Extra points if you understand how those instructions are in turn implemented by the microcode.
Its on the far right hand side of the image, moving to the left, you see the "tail", "ribcage" and "head" as you scan to the left.
Of course, I'm still not as big an idiot as these guys.
I basically agree that static polymorphism is OK (eg C++ classes) but dynamic function pointer assignment can be lead to programmers errors that can only be discovered at runtime. I'm trying to track down a copy of the MISRA C spec, which describes this some more, but not having much luck...
>> So has anyone thought of using Obj-C in an embedded system? Is it a viable, attractive alternative?
Objective-C would not be a good language for embedded development. Embedded applications need as much static type checking and validation as possible. Embedded developers don't even like using function pointers, let alone dynamic dispatching.
I agree that it is a nice language, but I wouldn't want to receive a selector not bound exception when I need to turn right in my car...
(Homer imagines Tetris and puts in all the garage sale items a la it, but screws up, leaving no room for him)
Homer: Done and done.
Marge: But there's no room for you!
Homer: D'oh!
Its a troll, but I'll bite.
When I outgrow my Macs, I usually either sell them on eBay or donate them; they will get a few more years that way (usually running a current OS from year 1 to 4, then sticking with that in years 4 -> 8.)
For example, my first Mac, a Mac II went with system 6.0.4 in 1989 to 7.5 in 1993, when I gave it to a school where they kept it until 1995.
My second Mac, a PB 170 went from 7.1 in 1991 (or 2?) to 7.5 in 1994, when I gave it to my sister to use in her school. She still uses it.
I had a 6100 for a year or two, and sold it for about 1/3 what I paid, which is just about right for depreciation on computer equipment. System 7.5 on that, I think.
I had a PowerBook 5300 at around this point, and it was a total piece of shit. Worst Mac Ever.
My 8500 had System 7.5 to 9.0, lasted in my house for I think 2 years, and then I sold it again for about 1/3 purchase price.
My 450mhz G4 I bought in 1999 (a few months after my Dell XP 450). I still use it as my primary computer - it went from system 8.1 to OS X 10.3. I've only ever added memory and a second internal disk. I'll probably hang on to it for another year. While I use a 2ghz DP G5 at work, I don't find the G4 slow enough to warrant an upgrade for the light duty development work I do from home. If I were to sell the machine on eBay right now, I'd get about $300.
The Dell? It would cost me more to get rid of it than its worth. I see two of them on eBay with a buy it now price of $79 and no bidders.
Macs simply hold their value longer.
Is here http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120 289.
I'd say the PowerMac G5. For one thing, its a completely new design internally, losing a lot of the legacy of old Mac OS machines. (Which they can do since they don't need to support a 20 year old BIOS or OS.) Another advancement is the attention spent on creating a case that can effectively, efficiently, and quietly cooling the new design.
It just isn't worth my time to do this. Free p2p (like free software) is only free if my time is free, which it certainly isn't.
Even though I listen to lots of music, and have an extensive CD collection (all ripped now, thank you) I never bothered to download and use any of the p2p music trading programs - it just wasn't worth my time when I could purchase the CD online or at a local record store. (Not to mention, I respect the rights of the intellectual property owner, sleazy though they might be - its up to the artist to negotiate a decent contract...)
The biggest losers now that there are legitimate, efficient, digital content delivery are going to be the chain record stores like Tower or Warehouse. I'll still go to the small dealers, since some of the music I like probably won't make it online, but I will go, and I'll spend my money - because its cheaper than wasting my time using the p2p networks.
The G5 case wasn't trying to fit an off the shelf motherboard. Of course, this means signifcant retooling at the factory, which is probably yet another reason macs cost more.
The design of the G5 is to use two fans in each zone, one gently blowing, one gently sucking. The result is that you're never slamming air against a wall, which is actually where a lot of the fan noise come from.
The 2.0ghz G5 chip consumes97 watts of power
From a cursory investigation, a Pentium IV seems to take between 60 and 100 watts
As to whether its revolutionary, I doubt it - its just solid engineering without concern with having to fit old form factor bits into the box. (PeeCees have much more homogenous designs, since Macs always come from a single vendor.)
The switch on the handlebars would be key. There are times when you *know* that you've got a safe few seconds to glance around. It would be nice if you could be looking forward at that point (instead of looking down at a map on your tankbag, for example) since during that time you *know* its safe to look down, Bambi over there *knows* its time to jump in front of you and cause $3k damage to your front end.
Friggin Bambi.
Objective-C is java with pointers. (1988...)
And:
APPLE COMP INC (RTM/ECN)
Symbol: AAPL
Last Trade: 23.28 2:56PM ET
After Hours Change: N/A
Today's Change: 0.68 (3.01%)
Bid: 23.23
Ask: 23.27
Of that list, only BBEdit and Quake are commercial and are going to cost extra. (Possibly RBrowserLite, I've never heard of it since I usually don't use FTP.)
So, how much is your mid range PC going to cost vs. a mid range mac? If money is an issue, you might want to re-evaluate the costs...
My computer has several buses; since the keyboard and mouse contain microcontrollers that talk over USB, could they be considered a "Network" and thus taxed? How about establishing a PPP connection to, oh, say AOL? Cell phone data?
Forgot to mention why I would want to do these things. In my job, I develop frameworks used by other applications; often, changes we make in our frameworks breaks some third party application. By disassembling the third party app, I can figure out what their erroneous assumption was that we just broke - and then we can implement a workaround until they fix it.
Another reason, and one that I've come up against time and time again, is buggy third party libraries. Sometimes the vendor has gone out of business; sometimes they want more money to fix their bugs. But if our license allows for it, we can just fix their bugs and move on.
Unfortunately, the user interface left a lot to be desired, owing to the authors peculiar, um, tastes in UI design. And it never produced assembly that could be fed back into an assembler after modification, which would've been most useful. It did, however, come with a fairly detailed analysis of the Mac roms (back in the day ;-) and so was invaluable in learning the secrets of the Mac toolbox. Anybody know of a similar product for linux/windows/os x?
As an aside, the parent article is complete crap written at a high school level by someone that recently learned that what you put in the compiler vaugly resembles what you can see from the debug prompt. I kept waiting for the "here's my magic algorithm that allows me to trace object usage accross appearent compilation units", but this pointless article didn't even come close.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
NeWS was a peer of X-Windows, based on postscript; it was incredibly powerful and underpromoted. The only licensee that I recall was SGI: it was the basis of the IRIX window system in the early 90s. The language itself was an object oriented version of PostScript; the frameworks were entirely object oriented.
NeWS was canned because it couldn't compete commercially with (free) X11. For a humorous slant, check out the Unix Haters Handbook or this link.
Many of the language implementation ideas from NeWS went on to Java; James Gosling was a primary with both.
As an aside, this is an example of how "free" software dealt a death blow to demonstrably superior commercial software.
It also gives you the right to use the music you've purchased for non-commercial soundtracks to slideshows and digital movies that you produce. A subscription service would obviously not work in this model.
The only rational way to approach it is to purchase the rights to the music for use in your own creations. Apple has done the legwork in getting the labels to accept this model; they know that the video of your daughters confirmation, set to Madonna's "Like a Virgin", isn't likely to gross big bucks and step on their commercial licensing terms. Remember, this is about individuals applying music they've purchased, and the DRM is in place only to deter large scale duplication.
I'm sure lots of PC apps still work, but then again, the PC architecture hasn't really advanced in that time.
Its called a library. You can even get music there. Videos too. (And copyright holders aren't terribly happy about that either, but the copyright law encourages it.) If you want to "share", perhaps you should encourage funding of your local library. Or lie-berry, if you prefer.