A question which can separate the wise from the inexperienced is: "given a situation (interviewer can make up), what do you think is the best approach: 1) to use the existing code or 2) dump existing and write it all from scratch?"
Regardless of the 'the situation', many newbies, especially from hot shot engineering schools often will answer #2 and give a coding estimate that is unreasonably short. Unreasonable for 2 reasons, one, they can't hit their estimate in the first place and second, to get the bugs out to make it a useful application often takes way longer than anticipated.
I know this is a generalization, but its like Eisenhower said, "all generalizations are wrong including this one" - Lou
Check PC magazine, they have had articles in the past few months with 5-6 reviews per article. Based on that the Oct 1 article, I got my wife the Elura 50 and she's real happy (thank God!)
My experience underscores some of Cringely's points. However, Apple has too many open issues overall for corporate comfort. Some random thoughts....
Apple basically sells a 1U server which has limited application, at least in the corporate environment. Most corporations I have seen, need lots more horsepower and diskpower.
Another issue that Apple must face up to, is the abscense of either well accepted applications (e.g. databases) on their hardware or the abscence of programmers for applications where their is programming depth in the organization. Ultimately the major worry of any IT manager is who will support an application after the original developer leaves, dies etc.
In support of the client side, I was always amazed in the early 90's, where you needed one SA for every 30-50 Microsoft PC, while you could get away with 1 SA for every 120 Macs! Obviously the ratio have improved in both camps.
Regarding usability, I think OSX has been somewhat of small step back. Many might argue but OS9 seemed less quirky. Also Apple has some annoying issues (from a corporate management point of vu) such as using Macs with print server. Try connecting a relatively common Epson with a Mac through a print server.
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A question which can separate the wise from the inexperienced is: "given a situation (interviewer can make up), what do you think is the best approach: 1) to use the existing code or 2) dump existing and write it all from scratch?" Regardless of the 'the situation', many newbies, especially from hot shot engineering schools often will answer #2 and give a coding estimate that is unreasonably short. Unreasonable for 2 reasons, one, they can't hit their estimate in the first place and second, to get the bugs out to make it a useful application often takes way longer than anticipated. I know this is a generalization, but its like Eisenhower said, "all generalizations are wrong including this one" - Lou
Check PC magazine, they have had articles in the past few months with 5-6 reviews per article. Based on that the Oct 1 article, I got my wife the Elura 50 and she's real happy (thank God!)
My experience underscores some of Cringely's points. However, Apple has too many open issues overall for corporate comfort. Some random thoughts.... Apple basically sells a 1U server which has limited application, at least in the corporate environment. Most corporations I have seen, need lots more horsepower and diskpower. Another issue that Apple must face up to, is the abscense of either well accepted applications (e.g. databases) on their hardware or the abscence of programmers for applications where their is programming depth in the organization. Ultimately the major worry of any IT manager is who will support an application after the original developer leaves, dies etc. In support of the client side, I was always amazed in the early 90's, where you needed one SA for every 30-50 Microsoft PC, while you could get away with 1 SA for every 120 Macs! Obviously the ratio have improved in both camps. Regarding usability, I think OSX has been somewhat of small step back. Many might argue but OS9 seemed less quirky. Also Apple has some annoying issues (from a corporate management point of vu) such as using Macs with print server. Try connecting a relatively common Epson with a Mac through a print server.