Are you an actual Apple developer? Their developer support is top notch. I can even get replies from Apple engineers on Apple's mailing lists. OS bugs are simple to submit. Just the other day Apple sent me a request making sure a bug I filed a year ago was still fixed. The documentation is great and every single last thing is covered. Not to mention they send all their WWDC sessions to developers out on DVD so we can get tutorial sessions on coding for the next version of OS X straight from the teams that wrote the feature. I'd like to see Microsoft do that...
Uhhhhh.... What? Thats completely wrong. Apple themselves don't even release quite a bit of the source in Mac OS X. The GPL says any code CONTAINING other GPL code must be released. So unless you're taking GPL code and copy/pasting it into your programs its not an issue. And Mac OS X uses linking to link against GPL libraries, so you can use them but not actually have to use their code in your program, meaning you don't have release your source.
Maybe you need to read the GPL carefully yourself...
Mac OS X uses GCC for its compiler, and last I checked, a lot of Mac OS X programs are closed source. Mac OS X itself is compiled with GCC and there are huge chunks of closed source there.
Considering all HP's and Compaqs and Apple's come with iTunes, and any Windows based system now ships with the Windows Media Store I don't think its a huge deal.:)
Common guys think about it..
"Oh... look at this web site I found! Oh cool! They have videos! What? They want me to download this DiVX thing to play video? Screw that."
Seriously. Stick to things that work with the OS out of the box.
However, the development systems for XBox 2 are G5's running Windows.
I don't think the Macs are slow comment was meant for you. The parent is another poster saying Macs were low end pc's.
Except no one support's their 64 architecture. They've abandon their previous 64 bit architectures.
For Apple, the transition to Cell would be very similar to the transition to PowerPC. The PowerPC had good 68k compatibility, and it allowed Apple to slowly phase out 68k code in favor of faster PowerPC code.
Uhhh... XBox 2 runs with PowerPC and Windows. There's your Windows on Cell. And as far as your comment about Macs being slow... Only a doofus would think a Dual 2.5 ghz G5 is slow. And stop trolling. I have a P4 3.6 ghz on my desk right now.
You realize you're talking about the company that had to cancel their P4 4.0 ghz, and is scrambling to just get to 64 bit. How are they supposed to be developing a competitor to the cell when there are behind in everywhere else? And guess what? IBM is co-creating the cell, and where are they going to use it? Workstations isn't it? Doesn't that mean... computers? Now why would they design the processor to run well in only games when they are going to use it in workstations? Not only that, but the Pentium 4 runs hot as hell. How do you suggest you're going to get 4 Pentium 4 cores in one chip, and then throw 4 of those in a machine without have major heat issues? I don't need to know what Intel is doing in their research department because they're already so far behind the game. Get back to me when Intel has a cool running 64 bit chip they can at least START WITH. AMD is in a much better position to go against Cell than them. There is a reason why Intel is out of the next gen game systems.
Except for games the next XBox, PS3, and Nintendo Revolution are on PowerPC (The cell is PPC). If the Mac gets cell, the article claims it could be a massive turnaround, as the cell benchmarks seem to be well and beyond anything Intel could offer in the near future.
Re:Linux Desktop Thoughts...
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Linux, Inc.
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· Score: 1
So if you like multiple desktops, enable them! Don't leave them in the way of a average user to get confused by. KISS = Keep it simple stupid. Yes, out of the box the OS should be very simple. That doesn't mean you can't include options for power user features.
Re:Linux Desktop Thoughts...
on
Linux, Inc.
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· Score: 1
That is why I mentioned it was from 1996.. And also mentioned I had the same feelings about my Fedora Core 3 box that is under my desk right now...
Re:Linux Desktop Thoughts...
on
Linux, Inc.
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· Score: 1
...until you compare to Windows and Mac OS X. I have all three systems at my desk now, and yes, my Fedora box is running Gnome. In terms of usability, Linux is blown away by both, simply because they are so much cleaner. By the time Longhorn comes out, X11 will be in the dark ages because it won't be a hardware accelerated interface. Not only that, but my Fedora box won't mount cd's without root access. Thats pretty usual, but for a new user, thats a pita, considering both my Mac and my Windows box will mount cd's automatically. And why is the WM claimng I have a cd-r drive when it is a standard cd drive? The Gnome preferences system is horrible, and KDE's isn't much better. Windows XP's default is still better imo, and Mac OS X's blows it away. Linux developers seem to follow the "user error" concept from what I've seen. If you don't want multiple desktops, the idea is that the problem is with you, the user, and you should be using multiple desktops. If a new user installed Linux, and happened to click on that second desktop by accident, all the users windows would disappear and they'd have no idea why. Linux needs to start following the KISS concept. Keep it simple stupid. Mac OS X is the ultimate of this. My mail icon tells me how much mail I have without even having to open mail. Icons automatically sort on my desktop. By going to "About this Mac" in my menu bar I can easily gather all the hardware information about my computer. Windows are grouped by application so I can pull up all my web windows, or still go through them one at a time. It's these little details that Linux developers seem to miss. They add features very quickly, but when it comes to refining the features they already have, there is no interest. All the window managers above look very pretty, but they suffer from feature overload. Don't put the power user features right in front of a normal user (multiple desktops would be a power user feature, believe it or not). Don't make the user even have to deal with "root" or things that they really have no clue what they are. Instead, put them in settings and allow power users to enable them themselves. Many people seem to think its applications holding Linux back. I don't believe that. I think its usability.
Re:Linux Desktop Thoughts...
on
Linux, Inc.
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· Score: 1
XWindows more usable than Windows? The problem with XWindows is features YOU (the geek) find help you usability often simply confuse others (the real world). Hell, I'm a CS major. Our class just went from Windows (Java) to UNIX/X11 (C). Our Window manager isn't exactly the best (something from 1996), but already half the class is mumbling about how annoying X11 is. The problem with X11 is while devs of window managers put in every feature under the sun to make them "usable", they completely miss the polish that most users have come to expect from an OS. My XP box's GUI can't do as much as my Linux box's, but I know the GUI on my Windows box is going to be pretty consistent, much cleaner, much quicker, and much easier to get around without features I'm not going to use getting in the way. If Linux devs were smart, they'd approach from the opposite way. Disable all the special features that will confuse normal users, and allow power users to enable them as needed. If Linux is to be the OS for a normal user, it needs to be built with the normal user in mind. You can't force the normal user to accept all these new features.
I don't get your point. OpenOffice will run the exact same way it does under OS X as it does under Linux. The point of the article is that a version of OpenOffice that would act like an OS X application rather than a Linux application was canceled. Instead, the OpenOffice teams wants to keep all the platforms acting the same.
Having been a Macintosh programmer in Seattle, I can say its not a niche market. Strangely enough for being next to Microsoft, the Mac is very popular in Seattle. It's not as popular as it is in say... Portland, but with all the tech money in Seattle a lot of people can afford them. I did some consulting, and I even worked for the local school district, which amazingly enough was still at about %95 Mac.
Apple doesn't use undocumented calls. Cocoa is based on the OpenStep standard, and the Objective C compiler is the standard GCC one. GnuStep is an implementation of Cocoa using OpenStep on non-Mac OS X systems. It's like WineLib, except more compatible because its based on the exact same foundation. Last I checked GnuStep had all the necessary classes in place for me to port over my Cocoa game engine without recoding. The only parts that aren't open are Carbon (which is a OS X implementation of the OS 9 API, which you shouldn't be coding in anyway, but Office and Photoshop are written in it because it's easy to port from 9 with it), and Apple's private frameworks (Cocoa is not part of it, usually these are frameworks like keyboard backlight control and such, nothing very important for programming). And, you do realize, any private calls us programmers ourselves can't call, meaning we're not using them, meaning they aren't a problem for porting to GnuStep.
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As a fellow Game Gear owner I have to ask... Are you crazy? Game Boy owned Game Gear...
Are you an actual Apple developer? Their developer support is top notch. I can even get replies from Apple engineers on Apple's mailing lists. OS bugs are simple to submit. Just the other day Apple sent me a request making sure a bug I filed a year ago was still fixed. The documentation is great and every single last thing is covered. Not to mention they send all their WWDC sessions to developers out on DVD so we can get tutorial sessions on coding for the next version of OS X straight from the teams that wrote the feature. I'd like to see Microsoft do that...
Yeah, I did a quick look through his posts after I replied. He made a similar post about Windows being good or something.
Uhhhhh.... What? Thats completely wrong. Apple themselves don't even release quite a bit of the source in Mac OS X. The GPL says any code CONTAINING other GPL code must be released. So unless you're taking GPL code and copy/pasting it into your programs its not an issue. And Mac OS X uses linking to link against GPL libraries, so you can use them but not actually have to use their code in your program, meaning you don't have release your source. Maybe you need to read the GPL carefully yourself...
Mac OS X uses GCC for its compiler, and last I checked, a lot of Mac OS X programs are closed source. Mac OS X itself is compiled with GCC and there are huge chunks of closed source there.
They did. It's called the Aluminum Powerbook G4. It came out two years ago.
Considering all HP's and Compaqs and Apple's come with iTunes, and any Windows based system now ships with the Windows Media Store I don't think its a huge deal. :)
Common guys think about it.. "Oh... look at this web site I found! Oh cool! They have videos! What? They want me to download this DiVX thing to play video? Screw that." Seriously. Stick to things that work with the OS out of the box.
The iPod shipped DRM free Day 1. It actually wasn't until the 3rd generation of iPod they were updated with DRM.
However, the development systems for XBox 2 are G5's running Windows. I don't think the Macs are slow comment was meant for you. The parent is another poster saying Macs were low end pc's.
Except no one support's their 64 architecture. They've abandon their previous 64 bit architectures. For Apple, the transition to Cell would be very similar to the transition to PowerPC. The PowerPC had good 68k compatibility, and it allowed Apple to slowly phase out 68k code in favor of faster PowerPC code.
Uhhh... XBox 2 runs with PowerPC and Windows. There's your Windows on Cell. And as far as your comment about Macs being slow... Only a doofus would think a Dual 2.5 ghz G5 is slow. And stop trolling. I have a P4 3.6 ghz on my desk right now.
You realize you're talking about the company that had to cancel their P4 4.0 ghz, and is scrambling to just get to 64 bit. How are they supposed to be developing a competitor to the cell when there are behind in everywhere else? And guess what? IBM is co-creating the cell, and where are they going to use it? Workstations isn't it? Doesn't that mean... computers? Now why would they design the processor to run well in only games when they are going to use it in workstations? Not only that, but the Pentium 4 runs hot as hell. How do you suggest you're going to get 4 Pentium 4 cores in one chip, and then throw 4 of those in a machine without have major heat issues? I don't need to know what Intel is doing in their research department because they're already so far behind the game. Get back to me when Intel has a cool running 64 bit chip they can at least START WITH. AMD is in a much better position to go against Cell than them. There is a reason why Intel is out of the next gen game systems.
Except for games the next XBox, PS3, and Nintendo Revolution are on PowerPC (The cell is PPC). If the Mac gets cell, the article claims it could be a massive turnaround, as the cell benchmarks seem to be well and beyond anything Intel could offer in the near future.
So if you like multiple desktops, enable them! Don't leave them in the way of a average user to get confused by. KISS = Keep it simple stupid. Yes, out of the box the OS should be very simple. That doesn't mean you can't include options for power user features.
That is why I mentioned it was from 1996.. And also mentioned I had the same feelings about my Fedora Core 3 box that is under my desk right now...
...until you compare to Windows and Mac OS X. I have all three systems at my desk now, and yes, my Fedora box is running Gnome. In terms of usability, Linux is blown away by both, simply because they are so much cleaner. By the time Longhorn comes out, X11 will be in the dark ages because it won't be a hardware accelerated interface. Not only that, but my Fedora box won't mount cd's without root access. Thats pretty usual, but for a new user, thats a pita, considering both my Mac and my Windows box will mount cd's automatically. And why is the WM claimng I have a cd-r drive when it is a standard cd drive? The Gnome preferences system is horrible, and KDE's isn't much better. Windows XP's default is still better imo, and Mac OS X's blows it away. Linux developers seem to follow the "user error" concept from what I've seen. If you don't want multiple desktops, the idea is that the problem is with you, the user, and you should be using multiple desktops. If a new user installed Linux, and happened to click on that second desktop by accident, all the users windows would disappear and they'd have no idea why. Linux needs to start following the KISS concept. Keep it simple stupid. Mac OS X is the ultimate of this. My mail icon tells me how much mail I have without even having to open mail. Icons automatically sort on my desktop. By going to "About this Mac" in my menu bar I can easily gather all the hardware information about my computer. Windows are grouped by application so I can pull up all my web windows, or still go through them one at a time. It's these little details that Linux developers seem to miss. They add features very quickly, but when it comes to refining the features they already have, there is no interest. All the window managers above look very pretty, but they suffer from feature overload. Don't put the power user features right in front of a normal user (multiple desktops would be a power user feature, believe it or not). Don't make the user even have to deal with "root" or things that they really have no clue what they are. Instead, put them in settings and allow power users to enable them themselves. Many people seem to think its applications holding Linux back. I don't believe that. I think its usability.
XWindows more usable than Windows? The problem with XWindows is features YOU (the geek) find help you usability often simply confuse others (the real world). Hell, I'm a CS major. Our class just went from Windows (Java) to UNIX/X11 (C). Our Window manager isn't exactly the best (something from 1996), but already half the class is mumbling about how annoying X11 is. The problem with X11 is while devs of window managers put in every feature under the sun to make them "usable", they completely miss the polish that most users have come to expect from an OS. My XP box's GUI can't do as much as my Linux box's, but I know the GUI on my Windows box is going to be pretty consistent, much cleaner, much quicker, and much easier to get around without features I'm not going to use getting in the way. If Linux devs were smart, they'd approach from the opposite way. Disable all the special features that will confuse normal users, and allow power users to enable them as needed. If Linux is to be the OS for a normal user, it needs to be built with the normal user in mind. You can't force the normal user to accept all these new features.
If they brought GNUStep to AmigaOS it might help get ports of Cocoa software.
Loading Linux on a Mac is like putting a engine of a Ford Fiesta in a Cadillac...
They aren't ignoring Apple... They're still making OpenOffice for Mac. They're just going to use X11 instead of Aqua for windowing.
Development of OpenOffice on Mac hasn't stopped. Rather they're opting to not use the native Aqua window server and use the X11 server instead.
I don't get your point. OpenOffice will run the exact same way it does under OS X as it does under Linux. The point of the article is that a version of OpenOffice that would act like an OS X application rather than a Linux application was canceled. Instead, the OpenOffice teams wants to keep all the platforms acting the same.
Having been a Macintosh programmer in Seattle, I can say its not a niche market. Strangely enough for being next to Microsoft, the Mac is very popular in Seattle. It's not as popular as it is in say... Portland, but with all the tech money in Seattle a lot of people can afford them. I did some consulting, and I even worked for the local school district, which amazingly enough was still at about %95 Mac.
Apple doesn't use undocumented calls. Cocoa is based on the OpenStep standard, and the Objective C compiler is the standard GCC one. GnuStep is an implementation of Cocoa using OpenStep on non-Mac OS X systems. It's like WineLib, except more compatible because its based on the exact same foundation. Last I checked GnuStep had all the necessary classes in place for me to port over my Cocoa game engine without recoding. The only parts that aren't open are Carbon (which is a OS X implementation of the OS 9 API, which you shouldn't be coding in anyway, but Office and Photoshop are written in it because it's easy to port from 9 with it), and Apple's private frameworks (Cocoa is not part of it, usually these are frameworks like keyboard backlight control and such, nothing very important for programming). And, you do realize, any private calls us programmers ourselves can't call, meaning we're not using them, meaning they aren't a problem for porting to GnuStep.