You're clearly unfamiliar with Carbon. There are really two kinds of GUI Carbon: ancient stuff from Mac OS 9 and older, and new hot HIToolbox APIs introduced in 2002-2004, for 10.2 and 10.3. The new APIs are clean, written in a prototype OO, near-Core Foundation style, with increasing integration with Cocoa and a basis on composited windows, opaque Carbon Events which interact well with Foundation (Objc) and Core Foundation (C) types, Quartz graphics, and suppport for embedded Cocoa controls.
If Carbon were a stopgap, why would Apple spend all this money on 'modern Carbon'? From what I understand the Modern Carbon I had management's full support until suddenly they didn't.
I work on one of the largest Carbon apps out there, and I'm a huge Cocoa bigot. I'm happy about Cocoafication, but i understand the business justification for staying Carbon while Apple kept giving us an improved HIToolbox with each release. Denying that apple went to considerable expense to modernize and extend Carbon in a useful and interesting direction, and then killed the project in mid flight when they'd been telling us about and then doing all this cool carbon modernization, is just being their apologist. We were encouraged to keep using it, it made sense to do so, and then suddenly it's our fault that we did.
At the well-known company where I code, several code names have escaped and become public knowledge. A notable example of one similar case from another company is described at the Wikipedia page for an older Power Macintosh, whose codenamesake (Carl Sagan) sued Apple.
Management doesn't even want to take the risk of someone even threatening to sue. Code names are now usually limited to public place names (which are inoffensive and lack a body to sue over the use of the name) or Product ${VERSION} + 1. The last major project I worked on had a four-syllable code name, but no one ever used it; it was easier just to refer to it by its one-syllable version number.
Apple bundle Safari, but it's trivial to remove in it's entirety (or simply not install)
Actually, Safari is just a UI on top of Web Kit -- remove Safari and you still have a/System/Library/WebKit.framework. If you tried to remove Web Kit, you'd find that many applications don't work anymore, including Open Source applications like Colloquy and Adium. Other apps use Web Kit in nonobvious ways, too. I remember when I was first learning Cocoa, I was taught that a poor man's way of supporting printing was to create an offscreen Web Kit view with an HTML template, and just create a PDF of it when you wanted to print. I know of one popular Carbon app that uses HIWebView for embedding a Web Kit view, because one particular text-heavy view in the app is easier to manipulate using HTML and CSS, instead of custom Carbon HIObjects. As final example, I believe Apple's help system is entirely based on Web Kit.
Apple and Microsoft are obviously two different stories -- Microsoft has a monopoly influence on the market, and Apple does not, so Apple can get away with feats of bundling that Microsoft can only dream about. However, given the myriad ways third party developers, on both Windows and the Mac, rely on built-in HTML rendering engines, I'd be hesitant to remove those facilities from the standard libraries.
Standards compliance, though? I'm all over anyway to force the IE folks into that.
I know everyone loves that Steve Jobs quote about decreasing boot time*, and I know a distributed crime is still a crime, and I figure that white-collar criminals are probably the group of lawbreakers most likely to be swayed by 'examples' of horribly disproportionate punishments for crimes --
but to claim that being violently raped, repeatedly, is an acceptable repayment to society for any crime, is a sign that some people here need to unplug a bit. If you get more bent out of shape over spam than large scale violence against fellow people, no matter what laws or social boundaries they've crossed, then I sincerely hope I am never on the recieving end of your decision-making process. It's just junk mail. Yeah, it sucks; but if someone gave a nation the choice between everyone receiving junk mail every day, or having a specific individual gang raped, I should hope the nation would be enlightened enough to deal with the stupid colored pamphlets.
* It goes something like "It's my moral responsiblity to decrease the Mac's boot time, because if I shave ten seconds off, and have 5 million users, and they each use their Macs for so many years, I'll have saved fifty lives". Uncle Google is failing me right now...
Money isn't the only way Microsoft could stifle us.
A similar problem is posed with Mono: what if MS says, "Sure, our IP" -- I don't like the term, but play along -- "is open for anyone. But all OSS projects have to do this paperwork dance for approval." And then, they sit on the paperwork. Your cool new cross-platform whizzy-bangtacular project just got caught up in all kinds of red tape you'll never get out of. Do you really think, if MS (or any company) felt threatened and able to get away with such a thing, that they wouldn't try?
Similar scenarios have been posited, and I haven't seen a clear answer from either MS or the OSS folks on this. (Although I'd love to see an answer, one way or the other) I don't mean to spread FUD about Mono -- I think it's an excellent technology, from what I've seen -- or interoperating with MS XML. But will you really benefit enough to justify that kind of risk, when you could use the rapidly-maturing OpenOffice file standard (OpenDocument?) or one of the open-source cross platform GUI development kits? I'd take the disadvantages to using WxPython, Glade, or similar over losing my project to IP politics.
Well, the one thing that I'm really left worrying about is protocol handling: that document allows the file:, about:, and a few other protocols. However, this link shows you how to alleviate that problem as well. I'm also kind of worried about what happens whenever the user tries to download a new filetype, and is given the option to save to disk or select a program -- they could, for instance, select Konq or xterm when downloading (say).Z zipped files, and there's no way I can set up valid rules for every possible file type -- after all, someone could make one up. What I really need is a method of denying any downloads but images,.pdf files, or HTML/text. I'm still looking for a solution, and if I find one, I'll be sure to send you the information.
It should be somewhat more secure, though, than an unpatched Windows installation using Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. And I'm hoping to beat the computer around for the rest of the week and find new holes to fix before deploying.
I'm a student working in my University's Computing Services department (only Unix geek there -- and almost the only Comp Sci major, too), where we're looking at deploying Linux workstations and whatnot. My boss recently asked me to replace the Win2k image on the Union's email kiosks.
I was using KDE (wanted Blackbox, but that's a long story), so I figured I'd use Konqueror's kiosk mode lockdown (see here). But after googling around and finding this one for Firefox, I was sold. XUL makes it so easy to modify the interface and ban commands (like bookmarking or opening local files). And my boss was even impressed. (( Dorky '50s ad grin )) Thanks, Mozilla!
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You're clearly unfamiliar with Carbon. There are really two kinds of GUI Carbon: ancient stuff from Mac OS 9 and older, and new hot HIToolbox APIs introduced in 2002-2004, for 10.2 and 10.3. The new APIs are clean, written in a prototype OO, near-Core Foundation style, with increasing integration with Cocoa and a basis on composited windows, opaque Carbon Events which interact well with Foundation (Objc) and Core Foundation (C) types, Quartz graphics, and suppport for embedded Cocoa controls.
If Carbon were a stopgap, why would Apple spend all this money on 'modern Carbon'? From what I understand the Modern Carbon I had management's full support until suddenly they didn't.
I work on one of the largest Carbon apps out there, and I'm a huge Cocoa bigot. I'm happy about Cocoafication, but i understand the business justification for staying Carbon while Apple kept giving us an improved HIToolbox with each release. Denying that apple went to considerable expense to modernize and extend Carbon in a useful and interesting direction, and then killed the project in mid flight when they'd been telling us about and then doing all this cool carbon modernization, is just being their apologist. We were encouraged to keep using it, it made sense to do so, and then suddenly it's our fault that we did.
At the well-known company where I code, several code names have escaped and become public knowledge. A notable example of one similar case from another company is described at the Wikipedia page for an older Power Macintosh, whose codenamesake (Carl Sagan) sued Apple.
Management doesn't even want to take the risk of someone even threatening to sue. Code names are now usually limited to public place names (which are inoffensive and lack a body to sue over the use of the name) or Product ${VERSION} + 1. The last major project I worked on had a four-syllable code name, but no one ever used it; it was easier just to refer to it by its one-syllable version number.
Actually, Safari is just a UI on top of Web Kit -- remove Safari and you still have a /System/Library/WebKit.framework. If you tried to remove Web Kit, you'd find that many applications don't work anymore, including Open Source applications like Colloquy and Adium. Other apps use Web Kit in nonobvious ways, too. I remember when I was first learning Cocoa, I was taught that a poor man's way of supporting printing was to create an offscreen Web Kit view with an HTML template, and just create a PDF of it when you wanted to print. I know of one popular Carbon app that uses HIWebView for embedding a Web Kit view, because one particular text-heavy view in the app is easier to manipulate using HTML and CSS, instead of custom Carbon HIObjects. As final example, I believe Apple's help system is entirely based on Web Kit.
Apple and Microsoft are obviously two different stories -- Microsoft has a monopoly influence on the market, and Apple does not, so Apple can get away with feats of bundling that Microsoft can only dream about. However, given the myriad ways third party developers, on both Windows and the Mac, rely on built-in HTML rendering engines, I'd be hesitant to remove those facilities from the standard libraries.
Standards compliance, though? I'm all over anyway to force the IE folks into that.
Answer me this, when in the modern Mac era has apple ever showed it's computers being used by buisnessmen in ties...
w dcontrol.mov and http://www.theapplecollection.com/Collection/Apple Movies/mov/serious_computer.html, not to mention all the Newton ads showing execs on the go.
For a more current frame of reference, Apple has http://www.apple.com/macatwork/ on their web site.
Probably not modern enough, but there is http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/redlightrunner/cro
I hope no one counter-sues; it'd be a shame if Apple were to end up in prison, married to the the guy with the most cigarettes.
I know everyone loves that Steve Jobs quote about decreasing boot time*, and I know a distributed crime is still a crime, and I figure that white-collar criminals are probably the group of lawbreakers most likely to be swayed by 'examples' of horribly disproportionate punishments for crimes --
but to claim that being violently raped, repeatedly, is an acceptable repayment to society for any crime, is a sign that some people here need to unplug a bit. If you get more bent out of shape over spam than large scale violence against fellow people, no matter what laws or social boundaries they've crossed, then I sincerely hope I am never on the recieving end of your decision-making process. It's just junk mail. Yeah, it sucks; but if someone gave a nation the choice between everyone receiving junk mail every day, or having a specific individual gang raped, I should hope the nation would be enlightened enough to deal with the stupid colored pamphlets.
For the love of all that's right, end prison rape.
* It goes something like "It's my moral responsiblity to decrease the Mac's boot time, because if I shave ten seconds off, and have 5 million users, and they each use their Macs for so many years, I'll have saved fifty lives". Uncle Google is failing me right now...
Money isn't the only way Microsoft could stifle us.
A similar problem is posed with Mono: what if MS says, "Sure, our IP" -- I don't like the term, but play along -- "is open for anyone. But all OSS projects have to do this paperwork dance for approval." And then, they sit on the paperwork. Your cool new cross-platform whizzy-bangtacular project just got caught up in all kinds of red tape you'll never get out of. Do you really think, if MS (or any company) felt threatened and able to get away with such a thing, that they wouldn't try?
Similar scenarios have been posited, and I haven't seen a clear answer from either MS or the OSS folks on this. (Although I'd love to see an answer, one way or the other) I don't mean to spread FUD about Mono -- I think it's an excellent technology, from what I've seen -- or interoperating with MS XML. But will you really benefit enough to justify that kind of risk, when you could use the rapidly-maturing OpenOffice file standard (OpenDocument?) or one of the open-source cross platform GUI development kits? I'd take the disadvantages to using WxPython, Glade, or similar over losing my project to IP politics.
Mac mini + simple Finder.
I dunno about updates, though. I know you could use Apple Remote Desktop/VNC, but it'd be nice if I could patch Granny's Mac over SSH.
Well, the one thing that I'm really left worrying about is protocol handling: that document allows the file:, about:, and a few other protocols. However, this link shows you how to alleviate that problem as well. I'm also kind of worried about what happens whenever the user tries to download a new filetype, and is given the option to save to disk or select a program -- they could, for instance, select Konq or xterm when downloading (say) .Z zipped files, and there's no way I can set up valid rules for every possible file type -- after all, someone could make one up. What I really need is a method of denying any downloads but images, .pdf files, or HTML/text. I'm still looking for a solution, and if I find one, I'll be sure to send you the information.
It should be somewhat more secure, though, than an unpatched Windows installation using Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. And I'm hoping to beat the computer around for the rest of the week and find new holes to fix before deploying.
(Haven't R'ed TFA)
I'm a student working in my University's Computing Services department (only Unix geek there -- and almost the only Comp Sci major, too), where we're looking at deploying Linux workstations and whatnot. My boss recently asked me to replace the Win2k image on the Union's email kiosks.
I was using KDE (wanted Blackbox, but that's a long story), so I figured I'd use Konqueror's kiosk mode lockdown (see here). But after googling around and finding this one for Firefox, I was sold. XUL makes it so easy to modify the interface and ban commands (like bookmarking or opening local files). And my boss was even impressed. (( Dorky '50s ad grin )) Thanks, Mozilla!
It'll never get me laid though...