Re: Is Carbon Viable?

On Jun 14, 2007, at 6:45 PM, Steve Christensen wrote:

That hasn't always been the official description. If that were the case then why have an announcement at last year's WWDC that Carbon would get 64-bit support? Why introduce an all new interface model (HIView) in the third major release of Mac OS X? Why would people want to abuse themselves carbonizing an old application just to have to redo it all again later in Cocoa?

Well, the easiest answer might have been that Apple engineers weren't focusing initial effort on a move to 64-bit Carbon, focusing on other features, Cocoa, etc. Then when they seriously delved into it, they realized that there were some major issues that couldn't be solved. Or perhaps management decided that 32/64-bit would be a good cut-off point and that those engineering resources could be better used elsewhere.

The latter is more accurate. 64-bit Carbon works pretty well in Leopard; you can see it in action when opening a menu in 64-bit Xcode, for example, since menus are still displayed in 64-bit compositing WindowRefs and HIViews. I spoke with several developers at the conference today who were making good progress in porting their Carbon apps to 64-bit, including one who was almost ready to go to beta-testing.

Fundamentally, Apple engineering is focused on Cocoa much more than Carbon, and Apple's engineering management made the decision to un-support 64-bit Carbon to emphasize that fact.