Trollbait: From Win32 to Cocoa: a Windows user's conversion to Mac OS X
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Jim Crafton wrote:
wait till you move to linux
Hold on. I thought when you moved to Linux, the sun always shined, it's always a nice 70 degrees with no rain, there's flowers, green trees, bunnies and blue birds singing the praises of Linus, you always get packages, even though it's not your birthday and there's eye candy galore. You mean ... none of that is true?!?! I .... I ... I feel so disillusioned right now ... I may need to lay down. :-D
No. That's all true. Come to the dark side. ;) Actually, you should just play around with Ubuntu 8.04 if you're not familiar with Linux at all. I wouldn't recommend it for serious, hard-core developer use...but plenty of people seem to like it...and it's great for just being able to see what's cool with Linux these days. (There's a lot of stuff that's cool with Linux these days.)
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It's a somewhat interesting article but what he forget is this: The software "ecosystem", if you will, on Windows is much, much richer than on a Mac. Many of the programs on a Mac tend to be tiny little utility apps, whereas windows has a whole range of apps, that span crappy ones to great ones, commercial, shareware, freeware, OSS, and everything in between. Macs tend to have a lot of shareware, with only a few commercial companies that make the majority of the more sophisticated apps out there. For example, for Office Suites on the Mac you have Microsoft Office and that's pretty much it. On windows there's a number of actual vendors out there that do make office programs (some good, some not so good). On Macs? Outside of Apple, it's pretty much non existent. And you find that pattern repeated in a lot of different areas. For example, in creative packages, you have a whole ream of advanced video/audio editing packages to choose from. On the Mac, outside of the big packages that Apple produces, there isn't that much to choose from other than Adobe. For development tools there's a whole range of stuff for Windows, Borland, Microsoft, and various 3rd party extensions to all of their products, plus all the oss tools. On Macs you have Xcode. That's pretty much it, as all the other tool vendors have died over the years (Metrowerks was the last casualty with the switch to Intel). And Xcode, in Apple's infinite wisdom, is not a very extensible package. This bothers me because it seems to me that Apple really throttles development on the platform, because lack of any competition, particularly in the developer arena means they can do as they please, and everyone else (developers) has to just suck it up. Hence yo end up with no clear idea what the future holds for the API, where it's going, and so on. Of course this is going on with Windows too now, because there's not much competition for Microsoft either. My opinion is that it's bad for everyone. Despite all this, if you think the software ecosystem Windows or Macs are bad, wait till you move to linux :)
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
Jim Crafton wrote:
On Macs you have Xcode.
and Eclipse and NetBeans:) Though I like XCode a lot.
Jim Crafton wrote:
Xcode, in Apple's infinite wisdom, is not a very extensible package.
I am not sure about that. There are a lot you can do with XCode. Currently, you can write Python, Perl, C, C++ (Intellisense that actually works:) ), ObjectiveC, Java and Ruby code. I have not written any XCode Add-Ins yet but I know that it is possible. Other nice thing about Xcode is that it can integrate with SVN, CVS and Perforce. The only thing which I don't like about XCode is the window management. Things get little complex when you have too many code windows open. It still is lacking when it compares with VS but I think it is not a whole lot behind. The another nice things about it are that it is free, and that folks of Apple actually use it for developing software for Mac.
You have, what I would term, a very formal turn of phrase not seen in these isles since the old King passed from this world to the next. martin_hughes on VDK
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No. That's all true. Come to the dark side. ;) Actually, you should just play around with Ubuntu 8.04 if you're not familiar with Linux at all. I wouldn't recommend it for serious, hard-core developer use...but plenty of people seem to like it...and it's great for just being able to see what's cool with Linux these days. (There's a lot of stuff that's cool with Linux these days.)
:) Actually, I have Ubuntu, Damn Small Linux and Linux Mint all on a VM. I've never done anything remotely serious with it, but I've considered porting my current PIII-650 that has Win2k on it, and runs like a dog a three legged dog with two bad knees, to a Linux Distro, since I only use it as a file server ... I just lack the time to make that all happen right now.
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Peter Bright writes for ArsTechnica[^]:
[...] Windows software has never struck me as being like that. The third-party software ecosystem for Windows is big, no doubt about that. But it's also incredibly shoddy. Most Windows applications—from both major software companies and minor ones alike—are ugly, poorly-thought-out, clunky pieces of crap. While there are a few artisan developers for Windows, most Windows devs just don't care.
I don't use Mac apps. But many's the time i've had the same thought. Rare indeed are the occasions when a piece of software fails to irritate or disgust me. I'm less inclined to blame it on the available APIs though; if anything, it seems to be a function of culture. So much of the software i use does not seem to have ever been under the control of anyone who actually uses it; perhaps that's too much of a generalization, but what else can i think when each new release of Explorer, Visual Studio, or the myriad of tools that mimick their appearance seem to go out of their way to make common tasks difficult, necessary information obscure, and eye-candy pointless. (friendly reminder: support your forum - vote "Abuse" for trolls)
Citizen 20.1.01
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
Going off on a tangent here, but one of the strengths of Windows and other graphical OS's is that it made using applications easier. You didn't have to remember how to exit a dozen different applications because they all have a bit red X in the top right hand corner. Easy! And much better than the old DOS days. However, it seems increasingly, and especially with media players and similar, that applications are moving away from this and coming up with all kinds of complicated GUIs that don't fit the standard. Applications such as Windows Media player that hides away the menus in order to try and look stylish, but just annoys the crap out of me. This seems to be a trend that started with Apple who are especially arrogant about creating Windows apps (I'm looking at you iTunes) that completely eschew the OS standards and generally make things less usable. I don't know if I have a point here, I just felt the need to vent!
modified on Friday, April 25, 2008 4:08 PM
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Jim Crafton wrote:
wait till you move to linux
Hold on. I thought when you moved to Linux, the sun always shined, it's always a nice 70 degrees with no rain, there's flowers, green trees, bunnies and blue birds singing the praises of Linus, you always get packages, even though it's not your birthday and there's eye candy galore. You mean ... none of that is true?!?! I .... I ... I feel so disillusioned right now ... I may need to lay down. :-D
take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning... On the second thought, screw that, just boot back in to Windows XP and get on with your life :)
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
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Jim Crafton wrote:
On Macs you have Xcode.
and Eclipse and NetBeans:) Though I like XCode a lot.
Jim Crafton wrote:
Xcode, in Apple's infinite wisdom, is not a very extensible package.
I am not sure about that. There are a lot you can do with XCode. Currently, you can write Python, Perl, C, C++ (Intellisense that actually works:) ), ObjectiveC, Java and Ruby code. I have not written any XCode Add-Ins yet but I know that it is possible. Other nice thing about Xcode is that it can integrate with SVN, CVS and Perforce. The only thing which I don't like about XCode is the window management. Things get little complex when you have too many code windows open. It still is lacking when it compares with VS but I think it is not a whole lot behind. The another nice things about it are that it is free, and that folks of Apple actually use it for developing software for Mac.
You have, what I would term, a very formal turn of phrase not seen in these isles since the old King passed from this world to the next. martin_hughes on VDK
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
and Eclipse and NetBeans
That's not a whole lot to get exited about :)
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
It still is lacking when it compares with VS but I think it is not a whole lot behind.
I was referring to being able to extend the IDE like can with VS (sort of, I don't know how open that is) or with Eclipse or Borland. Compared to any of those Xcode is really limited. Which is strange because it's based on a language which is *perfect* for this kind of dynamic extensibility!!! Better than Java or C++/C#.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
The another nice things about it are that it is free, and that folks of Apple actually use it for developing software for Mac.
That's because they don't have any choice. If you want to develop for Mac you don't have much choice, in terms of an IDE (and I'm excluding Java and any of the various scripting stuff).
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
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Going off on a tangent here, but one of the strengths of Windows and other graphical OS's is that it made using applications easier. You didn't have to remember how to exit a dozen different applications because they all have a bit red X in the top right hand corner. Easy! And much better than the old DOS days. However, it seems increasingly, and especially with media players and similar, that applications are moving away from this and coming up with all kinds of complicated GUIs that don't fit the standard. Applications such as Windows Media player that hides away the menus in order to try and look stylish, but just annoys the crap out of me. This seems to be a trend that started with Apple who are especially arrogant about creating Windows apps (I'm looking at you iTunes) that completely eschew the OS standards and generally make things less usable. I don't know if I have a point here, I just felt the need to vent!
modified on Friday, April 25, 2008 4:08 PM
Wjousts wrote:
I don't know if I have a point here
It's not required. :laugh:
BDF A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool. -- Moliere
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
and Eclipse and NetBeans
That's not a whole lot to get exited about :)
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
It still is lacking when it compares with VS but I think it is not a whole lot behind.
I was referring to being able to extend the IDE like can with VS (sort of, I don't know how open that is) or with Eclipse or Borland. Compared to any of those Xcode is really limited. Which is strange because it's based on a language which is *perfect* for this kind of dynamic extensibility!!! Better than Java or C++/C#.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
The another nice things about it are that it is free, and that folks of Apple actually use it for developing software for Mac.
That's because they don't have any choice. If you want to develop for Mac you don't have much choice, in terms of an IDE (and I'm excluding Java and any of the various scripting stuff).
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
BTW: I think Eclipse is the most extensible IDE available. I may get falmed for that but that is probably true.
Jim Crafton wrote:
IDE like can with VS
Like using VS SDK? You want to build a designer for VCF with-in XCode? Is that what you are after?
You have, what I would term, a very formal turn of phrase not seen in these isles since the old King passed from this world to the next. martin_hughes on VDK
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Going off on a tangent here, but one of the strengths of Windows and other graphical OS's is that it made using applications easier. You didn't have to remember how to exit a dozen different applications because they all have a bit red X in the top right hand corner. Easy! And much better than the old DOS days. However, it seems increasingly, and especially with media players and similar, that applications are moving away from this and coming up with all kinds of complicated GUIs that don't fit the standard. Applications such as Windows Media player that hides away the menus in order to try and look stylish, but just annoys the crap out of me. This seems to be a trend that started with Apple who are especially arrogant about creating Windows apps (I'm looking at you iTunes) that completely eschew the OS standards and generally make things less usable. I don't know if I have a point here, I just felt the need to vent!
modified on Friday, April 25, 2008 4:08 PM
Wjousts wrote:
This seems to be a trend that started with Apple who are especially arrogant about creating Windows apps (I'm looking at you iTunes) that completely eschew the OS standards and generally make things less usable.
The sad thing is, Apple's "brushed metal" skinned apps were criticized for years by Mac users, and - AFAIK - most of them have been phased out with the latest release of OS X. And while apps like Firefox are using skin engines to produce cross-platform apps that look appropriate for each target platform, native Windows apps are using them to "differentiate" themselves, destroying the advantages of consistency that you speak of. Meanwhile, WMP gets uglier and uglier with each release - I rarely touch it anymore, but when i do i use the main menu by right-clicking on the title bar. While less flagrant examples, both Windows Explorer and IE take ugly turns for the worse in Vista. To say nothing of the many, many apps that try to mimick the latest look in Office. I'm using a source control client now that tries to do a "Ribbon"-style UI - it succeeds only in consistently hiding the most relevant commands.
Citizen 20.1.01
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
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BTW: I think Eclipse is the most extensible IDE available. I may get falmed for that but that is probably true.
Jim Crafton wrote:
IDE like can with VS
Like using VS SDK? You want to build a designer for VCF with-in XCode? Is that what you are after?
You have, what I would term, a very formal turn of phrase not seen in these isles since the old King passed from this world to the next. martin_hughes on VDK
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
I think Eclipse is the most extensible IDE available.
I agree. I think they made it a bit obtuse, but it's amazing what you can do with it. Delphi used to have a really cool, if undocumented, set of API's to extend the IDE.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
You want to build a designer for VCF with-in XCode? Is that what you are after?
Well not necessarily for the VCF but just in general, the ability to add some custom editor, or an advanced debugging visualizer, or any of the various add-ins that you can do with VS, and so on. To the best of my knowledge none of that's possible with Xcode. I'm on the Xcode mailing list and I've seen people inquire about stuff like this only to get turned down.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
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Jim Crafton wrote:
wait till you move to linux
Hold on. I thought when you moved to Linux, the sun always shined, it's always a nice 70 degrees with no rain, there's flowers, green trees, bunnies and blue birds singing the praises of Linus, you always get packages, even though it's not your birthday and there's eye candy galore. You mean ... none of that is true?!?! I .... I ... I feel so disillusioned right now ... I may need to lay down. :-D
Douglas Troy wrote:
I thought when you moved to Linux, the sun always shined, it's always a nice 70 degrees with no rain,
Why do you think they use a penguin as a symbol? ;P
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BTW: I think Eclipse is the most extensible IDE available. I may get falmed for that but that is probably true.
Jim Crafton wrote:
IDE like can with VS
Like using VS SDK? You want to build a designer for VCF with-in XCode? Is that what you are after?
You have, what I would term, a very formal turn of phrase not seen in these isles since the old King passed from this world to the next. martin_hughes on VDK
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
BTW: I think Eclipse is the most extensible IDE available. I may get falmed for that but that is probably true.
Oh, it totally is. Eclipse provides so many extension points, it's awesome. Heck, part of the whole 3.x move was separating the Java language from the Eclipse environment so that you didn't have to use the Java stuff if you didn't want to. That's pretty freakin' awesome, when the primary use-case uses the same extensibility points as everybody else. :)
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Wjousts wrote:
This seems to be a trend that started with Apple who are especially arrogant about creating Windows apps (I'm looking at you iTunes) that completely eschew the OS standards and generally make things less usable.
The sad thing is, Apple's "brushed metal" skinned apps were criticized for years by Mac users, and - AFAIK - most of them have been phased out with the latest release of OS X. And while apps like Firefox are using skin engines to produce cross-platform apps that look appropriate for each target platform, native Windows apps are using them to "differentiate" themselves, destroying the advantages of consistency that you speak of. Meanwhile, WMP gets uglier and uglier with each release - I rarely touch it anymore, but when i do i use the main menu by right-clicking on the title bar. While less flagrant examples, both Windows Explorer and IE take ugly turns for the worse in Vista. To say nothing of the many, many apps that try to mimick the latest look in Office. I'm using a source control client now that tries to do a "Ribbon"-style UI - it succeeds only in consistently hiding the most relevant commands.
Citizen 20.1.01
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
Shog9 wrote:
native Windows apps are using them to "differentiate" themselves, destroying the advantages of consistency that you speak of
The company I work for has mandated a common look-and-feel for all of our products. The group that defined the standard deliberately chose to deviate from both the Mac and Windows conventions, and create a brand new one. Our housekeeping staff are getting tired of scrubbing the blood off the wall where I beat my head.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
BTW: I think Eclipse is the most extensible IDE available. I may get falmed for that but that is probably true.
Oh, it totally is. Eclipse provides so many extension points, it's awesome. Heck, part of the whole 3.x move was separating the Java language from the Eclipse environment so that you didn't have to use the Java stuff if you didn't want to. That's pretty freakin' awesome, when the primary use-case uses the same extensibility points as everybody else. :)
David Stone wrote:
Heck, part of the whole 3.x move was separating the Java language from the Eclipse environment so that you didn't have to use the Java stuff if you didn't want to.
Eclipse has now achieved its true destiny. It is no longer a mere IDE. It is now an extremely non-specific meta-IDE. Define your tools, then define the code to solve your original problem with those tools. If the technology had existed 30 years ago, just think of what emacs could have been by now! Actually, that should be good for a few wake-up-screaming nightmares; an emacs even more inscrutably, impenetrably omnipotent than Emacs 22... everybody who uses it is a geek god, because only geek gods will put in the effort necessary for mastery.... :-P
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