I find it interesting that in the same post you state there are things you can't do easily outside of a Mac, and then berate people for being "fools" to own one. Just maybe, they want to do some of those things? iDVD is certainly a prime example, but that same interface quality and ease of use extends throughout the system.
Are you kidding me? Mac OS X has more free solutions available than Windows by a LONG shot. It seems every single program on Windows is crippleware, whereas most of my utility and internet programs are free as in beer. Thanks to the BSD heritage, we have a billion programs that put a great user interface on top of existing Unix/Linux projects (things like Transmission and Camino come to mind).
X11 on the Mac is X11 with all of its warts, all the way down to startx and xorg.conf. What makes it so skanky and wretched on OS X is that it's not the native windowing system, and it shows, painfully so. Nothing integrates seamlessly; everything is a hack. Think of the worst of original Java programs, and that's about what it feels like.
This has little to nothing to do with "Apple's implementation", which was a lot better than the original XDarwin X11 port.
Carbon is NOT a fundamental API of Mac OS X. It sits side-by-side with Cocoa, and while it DID start out life as a transitional API from classic Mac OS, it is a peer API of Cocoa. In particular, if you can't deal with Objective-C, you'll likely be using Carbon as it's procedural and accessible from C/C++. Both Carbon and Cocoa are built atop the various "Core" API's. Remember that Mac OS X is a very direct descendent of NeXT, and as late as Rhapsody DR2, there was no such thing as Carbon.
As many others will likely chime in, Adobe products really are best of breed. They represent decades of effort, and are simply excellent software. You won't find anything comparable anywhere else. Period.
Now, if you want a more economical way to go, I recommend looking into previous versions (nothing wrong with training on CS1 or CS2 - the differences for the Adobe products aren't that extreme), or look for OEM copies. Or if you can arrange it, student copies are very, very reasonable. You might justify that as training is similar to education.
If I had mod points, I'd give them to you. This is probably the first argument I've seen that actually makes me consider the GPL reasonable. I tend to be in the BSD "do whatever the hell you want with the code" crowd.
Ultimately, Tivo should have used BSD - just as Mac OS X did. Hell, it's not like they've needed to use all of the cutting edge updates to the kernel and userland (they're still on a 2.4 kernel, if I'm not mistaken). Furthermore, the fact that they can port their crown jewels to Java (the user interface) says to me that porting from Linux to BSD, while not trivial by any means, would be entirely feasible.
DVD-covers. They are larger than CDs for no good reason. Except that they fit perfectly, 2 to a spot, in media storage gear originally designed to hold VHS tapes.
No, they don't. DVD cases are necessarily deeper, and for many VHS cabinets, won't work. Of course, they could have adopted the CD jewel case size and fit in the millions of CD storage units. Or they could have used a "slimline" design from the beginning.
Now, I don't have a particular stance on this issue - all companies could use some work on environmental friendliness, and Apple seemed to be singled out - but that title is just a tad inflammatory.
"We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be."
Nevermind that this should have been the case all along, and the fact that it wasn't is deeply disturbing.
Yet another reason to avoid the sewer that is Digg.
Hi, this is the real world calling. We've been leaving messages for several years as Linux has failed to work on the desktop. We wanted to let you know that we've found the problem, and it's not going to be cheap to fix. Essentially, users want to be able to download and install software or install it from a CD and just have a binary work. "Package management" and dependency hell confuses them and reminds them of DLL's on Win95.
You're going to have to decide if you want every last thing to be GPL and zealously "free", or want it to be accepted by the masses. You will NOT get both.
Well, except that what you're decribing is a custom installer, and launching that will trigger OS X's (somewhat annoying) "This is the first time you've launched this - are you sure?" dialogs. Now, some users may go ahead anyway, but I wouldn't. Transparent installer packages for me, or your software goes in the trash. Google apps and Adobe Reader included.
What, and there's a problem with that? Albums are still the same price as before, so this is still very competitive with CD's. Prices do change ocasionally, and I'm glad to see the additional quality (recall - this will mean twice as much storage and bandwidth for Apple to deliver to you). Or did you think that songs will still be $0.99 in 20 years, regardless of changes in technology?
Apple has NEVER claimed they're rewriting the Finder. Go ahead, back that one up. The only ones who have ever made such a claim are the rumor sites.
Meanwhile, the Leopard Finder does include a lot of enhancements, including View Options that make sense (default is to modify the current window only, and the dialog as a whole is just better), QuickLook (no more need for Preview), spring-loaded Dock (easy file access and filing), adjustable grid (make it as tight as you want to), and no more nags on changing filename extensions, if you so desire. Lots of tweaking and polish. That alone says to me that the Finder isn't going through any major rewrites. Of course, I would have said the same thing when I loaded up Mac OS X DP2 (kudos to anyone who remembers what I mean by that).
Hopefully more fundamental issues like network multithreading will be handled as well, and the default window type won't be a browser, but those can be accomplished relatively easily. The Finder itself is in no need of a rewrite, with all of the time, bugs, etc that would entail.
The Finder opens new windows in browser mode, which upsets those of us (myself included) who prefer spatial browsing. However, in day-to-day use I don't find it to be a problem. There simply aren't that many folders I'm still opening for the first time.
Networking in the Finder just sucks - I have no idea why it's not spun off into a separate thread or process, but it can bring down the UI if it disconnects.
No problems with thumbnails here, and I go through a LOT of them. For... research purposes, yeah. Even partial or corrupt ones have no effect (although until 10.4, they could crash the Finder, so this may be old information). Windows is snappier because it caches the thumbnails, and can end up with them being out of date. Thumbs.db, anyone?
Tabbed folders - missed them for about 5 minutes, then discovered the Dock. Could you dig down through multiple levels of folders with a click like you can with the Dock? No. And with Leopard, they're spring loaded finally.
Clipping support. Yes, they were useful, but this is the best you've got?
You most certainly do NOT have to "prod" the Finder to show new files. Kernel file notifications were added in 10.4 and work fine. Go ahead, open a window then "touch foo" in the terminal - the file will appear as soon as you hit enter.
So, it has some networking issues, and it really shouldn't default to opening new windows in browser mode. Otherwise, it's just fine. Despite the whining, it has made a lot of progress since 10.0.
And you really should be comparing market segments. After all, every Windows-based cash register, eTicket terminal, etc counts towards its market share. I'd rather see market share in segments - home, education, enterprise, utility, etc.
Oh please. I've deployed Websphere Application Server on dozens of systems, RHEL 3 and RHEL 4. There may be an occasional dependency on an older library, but seriously - what linux sofware doesn't run into that particular problem? It's why we have to use "package managers" and such in the first place.
We don't have enough troops in Iraq," Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, 2005. Yes, because two years ago more troops may have made a difference. Three years ago would have been even better. Had we been able to maintain security in the first place (especially of critical infrastructure such as the power grid), things likely wouldn't be the way they are now. Or heck, perhaps there could have been some planning for the "post-war" - because it's damn obvious the plan was "they'll adore us and all problems will go away".
Now it's too late to "win", in any meaningful way.
Christ - ever think that something in the iTunes store may be set up to only handle protected AAC? Or that they don't want differing licenses so that some songs work one way while other songs work another way? Simple things like the "Purchased Songs" item in iTunes are probably set up to just show all Protected AAC files, which wouldn't work for non-DRM'ed MP3's.
Could they fix all that? Sure, but not for free, and they aren't going to do it unless they have a fairly significant reason to, i.e. a major label supporting MP3. Don't underestimate the effort involved in these operations - this isn't a PHP script on your webpage, buddy.
Please name this fictitious "interoperable DRM"? Or do you consider anything from Microsoft to be the de facto standard?
As for licensing FairPlay, I've never understood why they haven't. Perhaps no one has approached them as Microsoft has most manufacturers safely in their pocket, just as they have PC manufacturers locked into Windows.
Jobs has been vocal since the beginning that DRM will not work, and is ultimately doomed to fail. Music labels have insisted on it from day one - not Apple.
That may be true, but isn't it better than banks that have NOT implemented such additional security? To rephrase that a bit, several years back you could have said the following:
"It's to protect Bank of America from liability. If someone's account integrity is compromised due to packet sniffing, the bank's ass is covered - they implemented 128-bit SSL encryption, the user just chose to ignore the lack of the little key icon (after indicating they read and understood the terms and function of encryption)"
At some point you MUST assume some basic level of competence from the user. Or do you expect that their system should work and magically do their work and taxes when they bang their fists on the keyboard?
There are certainly many security systems that fail to take into account human behavior - mostly draconian corporate ones. The BofA one is one of the friendliest I've seen; I know if I didn't see my SiteKey it would set off warning bells. What would be even better is if it allowed you to upload your own image (yes, it will require a metric ton of storage space) and was a bit more forceful of saying "Do you recognize this?".
Otherwise, I still believe this is a damn good system. At some point the user MUST take some responsibility.
Slashdot Mirror
Radiation is far less damaging to wildlife than human presence is.
What about massive radiation caused by human presence?
iDVD has a crap interface
Uh huh. And what is a "good" one, then? Written one lately?
I find it interesting that in the same post you state there are things you can't do easily outside of a Mac, and then berate people for being "fools" to own one. Just maybe, they want to do some of those things? iDVD is certainly a prime example, but that same interface quality and ease of use extends throughout the system.
Are you kidding me? Mac OS X has more free solutions available than Windows by a LONG shot. It seems every single program on Windows is crippleware, whereas most of my utility and internet programs are free as in beer. Thanks to the BSD heritage, we have a billion programs that put a great user interface on top of existing Unix/Linux projects (things like Transmission and Camino come to mind).
Seriously, look at http://www.macupdate.com/ and filter by "Free". Have fun.
X11 on the Mac is X11 with all of its warts, all the way down to startx and xorg.conf. What makes it so skanky and wretched on OS X is that it's not the native windowing system, and it shows, painfully so. Nothing integrates seamlessly; everything is a hack. Think of the worst of original Java programs, and that's about what it feels like.
This has little to nothing to do with "Apple's implementation", which was a lot better than the original XDarwin X11 port.
Why is there no moderation "-1 Flat Out Wrong" ?
From the horse's mouth.
Carbon is NOT a fundamental API of Mac OS X. It sits side-by-side with Cocoa, and while it DID start out life as a transitional API from classic Mac OS, it is a peer API of Cocoa. In particular, if you can't deal with Objective-C, you'll likely be using Carbon as it's procedural and accessible from C/C++. Both Carbon and Cocoa are built atop the various "Core" API's. Remember that Mac OS X is a very direct descendent of NeXT, and as late as Rhapsody DR2, there was no such thing as Carbon.
As many others will likely chime in, Adobe products really are best of breed. They represent decades of effort, and are simply excellent software. You won't find anything comparable anywhere else. Period.
Now, if you want a more economical way to go, I recommend looking into previous versions (nothing wrong with training on CS1 or CS2 - the differences for the Adobe products aren't that extreme), or look for OEM copies. Or if you can arrange it, student copies are very, very reasonable. You might justify that as training is similar to education.
If I had mod points, I'd give them to you. This is probably the first argument I've seen that actually makes me consider the GPL reasonable. I tend to be in the BSD "do whatever the hell you want with the code" crowd.
Ultimately, Tivo should have used BSD - just as Mac OS X did. Hell, it's not like they've needed to use all of the cutting edge updates to the kernel and userland (they're still on a 2.4 kernel, if I'm not mistaken). Furthermore, the fact that they can port their crown jewels to Java (the user interface) says to me that porting from Linux to BSD, while not trivial by any means, would be entirely feasible.
DVD-covers. They are larger than CDs for no good reason.
Except that they fit perfectly, 2 to a spot, in media storage gear originally designed to hold VHS tapes.
No, they don't. DVD cases are necessarily deeper, and for many VHS cabinets, won't work. Of course, they could have adopted the CD jewel case size and fit in the millions of CD storage units. Or they could have used a "slimline" design from the beginning.
Nah, just that the old name was much, much better.
Now, I don't have a particular stance on this issue - all companies could use some work on environmental friendliness, and Apple seemed to be singled out - but that title is just a tad inflammatory.
"We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be."
Nevermind that this should have been the case all along, and the fact that it wasn't is deeply disturbing.
Yet another reason to avoid the sewer that is Digg.
Hi, this is the real world calling. We've been leaving messages for several years as Linux has failed to work on the desktop. We wanted to let you know that we've found the problem, and it's not going to be cheap to fix. Essentially, users want to be able to download and install software or install it from a CD and just have a binary work. "Package management" and dependency hell confuses them and reminds them of DLL's on Win95.
You're going to have to decide if you want every last thing to be GPL and zealously "free", or want it to be accepted by the masses. You will NOT get both.
Well, except that what you're decribing is a custom installer, and launching that will trigger OS X's (somewhat annoying) "This is the first time you've launched this - are you sure?" dialogs. Now, some users may go ahead anyway, but I wouldn't. Transparent installer packages for me, or your software goes in the trash. Google apps and Adobe Reader included.
What, and there's a problem with that? Albums are still the same price as before, so this is still very competitive with CD's. Prices do change ocasionally, and I'm glad to see the additional quality (recall - this will mean twice as much storage and bandwidth for Apple to deliver to you). Or did you think that songs will still be $0.99 in 20 years, regardless of changes in technology?
Apple has NEVER claimed they're rewriting the Finder. Go ahead, back that one up. The only ones who have ever made such a claim are the rumor sites.
Meanwhile, the Leopard Finder does include a lot of enhancements, including View Options that make sense (default is to modify the current window only, and the dialog as a whole is just better), QuickLook (no more need for Preview), spring-loaded Dock (easy file access and filing), adjustable grid (make it as tight as you want to), and no more nags on changing filename extensions, if you so desire. Lots of tweaking and polish. That alone says to me that the Finder isn't going through any major rewrites. Of course, I would have said the same thing when I loaded up Mac OS X DP2 (kudos to anyone who remembers what I mean by that).
Hopefully more fundamental issues like network multithreading will be handled as well, and the default window type won't be a browser, but those can be accomplished relatively easily. The Finder itself is in no need of a rewrite, with all of the time, bugs, etc that would entail.
So, it has some networking issues, and it really shouldn't default to opening new windows in browser mode. Otherwise, it's just fine. Despite the whining, it has made a lot of progress since 10.0.
And you really should be comparing market segments. After all, every Windows-based cash register, eTicket terminal, etc counts towards its market share. I'd rather see market share in segments - home, education, enterprise, utility, etc.
Oh please. I've deployed Websphere Application Server on dozens of systems, RHEL 3 and RHEL 4. There may be an occasional dependency on an older library, but seriously - what linux sofware doesn't run into that particular problem? It's why we have to use "package managers" and such in the first place.
Use Debian. Some of us want a system that works out of the box to compete with Apple and MS.
Ubuntu was never created to be a Free distro the way Debian was.
Now it's too late to "win", in any meaningful way.
Christ - ever think that something in the iTunes store may be set up to only handle protected AAC? Or that they don't want differing licenses so that some songs work one way while other songs work another way? Simple things like the "Purchased Songs" item in iTunes are probably set up to just show all Protected AAC files, which wouldn't work for non-DRM'ed MP3's.
Could they fix all that? Sure, but not for free, and they aren't going to do it unless they have a fairly significant reason to, i.e. a major label supporting MP3. Don't underestimate the effort involved in these operations - this isn't a PHP script on your webpage, buddy.
Please name this fictitious "interoperable DRM"? Or do you consider anything from Microsoft to be the de facto standard?
As for licensing FairPlay, I've never understood why they haven't. Perhaps no one has approached them as Microsoft has most manufacturers safely in their pocket, just as they have PC manufacturers locked into Windows.
Jobs has been vocal since the beginning that DRM will not work, and is ultimately doomed to fail. Music labels have insisted on it from day one - not Apple.
That may be true, but isn't it better than banks that have NOT implemented such additional security? To rephrase that a bit, several years back you could have said the following:
"It's to protect Bank of America from liability. If someone's account integrity is compromised due to packet sniffing, the bank's ass is covered - they implemented 128-bit SSL encryption, the user just chose to ignore the lack of the little key icon (after indicating they read and understood the terms and function of encryption)"
At some point you MUST assume some basic level of competence from the user. Or do you expect that their system should work and magically do their work and taxes when they bang their fists on the keyboard?
There are certainly many security systems that fail to take into account human behavior - mostly draconian corporate ones. The BofA one is one of the friendliest I've seen; I know if I didn't see my SiteKey it would set off warning bells. What would be even better is if it allowed you to upload your own image (yes, it will require a metric ton of storage space) and was a bit more forceful of saying "Do you recognize this?".
Otherwise, I still believe this is a damn good system. At some point the user MUST take some responsibility.