We have sacked those responsible for sacking the ones who renamed the planet Eurectum and will now continue the renaming in an entirely different style.
I guess FreeBSD is totally flawed due to its lack of one particular application, of which there are probably open-source tools to do the same thing.
No, not really - the grandparent poster was pointing out that OS X is not equal to FreeBSD and followed up with a rhetorical question - if this *was* equal to FreeBSD, then how come there are applications, such as iPhoto, that won't run on FreeBSD but will run on OS X? Because it's not equal to FreeBSD, obviously.
Without resorting to trolling and/or name-calling or casting people into stereotypes (as every other direct ascendent of this comment), let's settle for the facts that a) FreeBSD and OS X are both good, solid OSes with their own benefits, and that b) FreeBSD and OS X are not equal. If you think that OS X has absolutely nothing useful over plain FreeBSD and that you're just happy using FreeBSD, then good for you! Keep using FreeBSD, and keep not using OS X, but there's no need for you to flame others over it (or for others to flame you over it, for that matter).
It's not debunking. Gruber has been going back and forth on this - not because he doesn't know which side to stand on but because as it stands now, more than in any other previous rumor round like this, this could really go either way. The "Odds and Ends" are really just odds and ends, interesting anecdotes. He's written more about this - just go read the current front page which has them all: http://daringfireball.net/
I think it's dumb to take an absolutist stand for or against "Intel and Apple". It depends on what chip they'll use, where they'll use it, when they'll use it and if it even happens at all. Then there's - among other things - the bigger company politics (OS X in ordinary PCs, partnering with other PC makers, etc) and what transition the developers and existing apps will have to go through. The questions about the chip is not at all where it ends, it's where it *starts*.
Regardless of marketing, tens of thousands of companies manufacture personal computers. "As Seen on TV", a Slashdot user claiming to work for Apple, has used the statistic "the fourth biggest computer manufacturer in the world", and that doesn't sound unlikely at all, regardless of metric.
I can't personally find a link to the SPA web site, but if it includes shareware developers, and I think it does, this could very easily be explained.
There's a creeping suspicion that the average Mac users spend more on software than the average PC (and by PC in this context I mean Windows on x86, because it's shorter to write) user. Why is this?
Most PCs sit around in offices and do stuff you'd normally do with Office - word processing, spread sheets, emails. Far from all PCs, of course, but definitely *most*.
A sizable part of the Mac installed base are those who do publishing, or video editing, or DVD production, or something with media in general. These people go out and buy font managers, editing software and plug-ins, each probably running up an average of 80 bucks per product, with the actual editing software running from 200 bucks and up, not uncommonly into 500+ territory. People do this on PCs too, but I would bet on the percentage of the installed base being a lot smaller.
Another sizable part of the Mac installed base are those who sit at home and buy lots of shareware. This has a direct counterpart in the PC world, and they're probably about the same size percentage-wise. Note that games fall in the same price spectrum, that the hard-core gamer is likely to spend more on extra hardware (mice, gpu, keyboard, display) than on software, and that piracy probably helps inflate this segment.
And then there's also the fact that, *for whatever reason*, people seem to use Macs longer. Getting three years out of a Mac isn't extraordinary, it's average. Macs also have a higher value on the used market, so there's no rush to sell it.
I think all of this adds up to a skewing of these statistics.
The article promises to deliver "decent insight to where the G5/Mac OS X combination positions itself". Decent insight sounds like it should measure actual performance instead of optimal performance (running applications compiled by the IBM C compiler). GCC is both the common, de facto and supported "party line" compiler - like you say, all of OS X, all of Apple's currently shipping apps and the lion's part of third party apps are compiled using some version of GCC. This is as "actual" as you're going to get. If the article promised to deliver on what the *G5* could do, and nothing else, your concerns would have been accurate, and they would be better off with more optimal compilers.
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We have sacked those responsible for sacking the ones who renamed the planet Eurectum and will now continue the renaming in an entirely different style.
I guess FreeBSD is totally flawed due to its lack of one particular application, of which there are probably open-source tools to do the same thing.
No, not really - the grandparent poster was pointing out that OS X is not equal to FreeBSD and followed up with a rhetorical question - if this *was* equal to FreeBSD, then how come there are applications, such as iPhoto, that won't run on FreeBSD but will run on OS X? Because it's not equal to FreeBSD, obviously.
Without resorting to trolling and/or name-calling or casting people into stereotypes (as every other direct ascendent of this comment), let's settle for the facts that a) FreeBSD and OS X are both good, solid OSes with their own benefits, and that b) FreeBSD and OS X are not equal. If you think that OS X has absolutely nothing useful over plain FreeBSD and that you're just happy using FreeBSD, then good for you! Keep using FreeBSD, and keep not using OS X, but there's no need for you to flame others over it (or for others to flame you over it, for that matter).
January 20th? I guess we'll have to refer to it as "the nasty in the past-y".
I hope they're taking this groundbreaking technology to Office - who wouldn't want an ASCII clippy? ;)
They've opened up for contributions too - Hyatt just mentioned that he's already committed a few changes to the database.
Wake me up when people start realizing that some people will want to know about the road to the goal, not just about the goal.
It's as if a million voices cried out at once, and kept going for fifty more years than originally planned.
It's not debunking. Gruber has been going back and forth on this - not because he doesn't know which side to stand on but because as it stands now, more than in any other previous rumor round like this, this could really go either way. The "Odds and Ends" are really just odds and ends, interesting anecdotes. He's written more about this - just go read the current front page which has them all: http://daringfireball.net/
I think it's dumb to take an absolutist stand for or against "Intel and Apple". It depends on what chip they'll use, where they'll use it, when they'll use it and if it even happens at all. Then there's - among other things - the bigger company politics (OS X in ordinary PCs, partnering with other PC makers, etc) and what transition the developers and existing apps will have to go through. The questions about the chip is not at all where it ends, it's where it *starts*.
Regardless of marketing, tens of thousands of companies manufacture personal computers. "As Seen on TV", a Slashdot user claiming to work for Apple, has used the statistic "the fourth biggest computer manufacturer in the world", and that doesn't sound unlikely at all, regardless of metric.
...Okay, that may have come out wrong. You know what I mean.
From the weight of it, I'd be more worried about the unit breaking your pocket.
I can't personally find a link to the SPA web site, but if it includes shareware developers, and I think it does, this could very easily be explained.
There's a creeping suspicion that the average Mac users spend more on software than the average PC (and by PC in this context I mean Windows on x86, because it's shorter to write) user. Why is this?
Most PCs sit around in offices and do stuff you'd normally do with Office - word processing, spread sheets, emails. Far from all PCs, of course, but definitely *most*.
A sizable part of the Mac installed base are those who do publishing, or video editing, or DVD production, or something with media in general. These people go out and buy font managers, editing software and plug-ins, each probably running up an average of 80 bucks per product, with the actual editing software running from 200 bucks and up, not uncommonly into 500+ territory. People do this on PCs too, but I would bet on the percentage of the installed base being a lot smaller.
Another sizable part of the Mac installed base are those who sit at home and buy lots of shareware. This has a direct counterpart in the PC world, and they're probably about the same size percentage-wise. Note that games fall in the same price spectrum, that the hard-core gamer is likely to spend more on extra hardware (mice, gpu, keyboard, display) than on software, and that piracy probably helps inflate this segment.
And then there's also the fact that, *for whatever reason*, people seem to use Macs longer. Getting three years out of a Mac isn't extraordinary, it's average. Macs also have a higher value on the used market, so there's no rush to sell it.
I think all of this adds up to a skewing of these statistics.
Ah, a spiritual journey.
And that was almost funny.
Yeah, that way, if it fails, then at least Ben Affleck will be dead. It's a win-win! :)
In Korea, only old hackers have outdated information about their own country's WMD! No matter if it's North or South Korea!
I mean, that things almost a laptop already!
And a bike is almost a motorcycle.
You're all wrong - Apple is just going out of business as usual. :)
The article promises to deliver "decent insight to where the G5/Mac OS X combination positions itself". Decent insight sounds like it should measure actual performance instead of optimal performance (running applications compiled by the IBM C compiler). GCC is both the common, de facto and supported "party line" compiler - like you say, all of OS X, all of Apple's currently shipping apps and the lion's part of third party apps are compiled using some version of GCC. This is as "actual" as you're going to get. If the article promised to deliver on what the *G5* could do, and nothing else, your concerns would have been accurate, and they would be better off with more optimal compilers.
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Hey! My mother was a saint!
No need. They're old enough to have LiveJournals, right? :)
Well, that or "braaaaains".
No, it was pushing up the daisies.
If everyone starts saying that now, I'm going to have to pun-ch someone in the face.