I don't mean to disparage all the great work done by Apple's Carbon
engineers; I blame higher levels of management for lacking the
understanding and vision to ensure Carbon gets a proper commitment.
Or just greed.
I think one of the most shocking things is the seeing the HIToolbox
team apparently forced to dismantle their own work: what is arguably
the very technology that enabled Mac OS X to have even the slightest
chance of success. Carbon is not a framework, but a foundation. The
HIObject/HIView/Carbon Event implementation might arguably be called
the most advanced and elegant windowing API ever created.
Anybody who has been on this list for any amount of time can easily
name the men who represent Apple with the brilliance, insight, and
level-headed consideration that earns the whole of Apple as having
the "best developers in the world". Some still here, some run off
long ago. They are the hardest workers I have ever observed, and
have inspired me and many others to improve. We in turn went out and
rewrote our apps, at least once if not twice, and sure we've
complained, but we're still here. So is Mac OS X.
This "vision" has been in motion for a number of years. The people
in power at Apple quite apparently have every intention of having all
applications be written in Cocoa using objective-c. Or I imagine you
can write a Web 2.0 "app" as well. Just as good.
Because of the NDA, again this year, it's not possible to discuss
what was actually said by Apple. I can tell you that, as I observed
the screen in one of the overflow rooms and this particular bullet
point was revealed, there were audible cheers from the audience on
the screen. Not a whole bunch, but a gleeful lot nonetheless. It
was a profoundly sad and disturbing moment. Next slide.
I have no desire to learn Cocoa. I don't like the Objective C, and
I don't believe it's a good idea for Apple to continue down the
path of what is essentially a dead language. I suspect I would give
up on my own Mac development efforts, and just concentrate on
creating embedded products, if I had to give up C++ (or D). And
note, just because there are ways to call Cocoa from C++ doesn't
mean I want to go to all the trouble.
If it is possible to rewrite your application in objective-c, then
consider yourself lucky. My app is an object-oriented programming
language. Why in the world Apple thinks we would ever use objective-
c is simply beyond my comprehension. It's not the size of the shop,
or the app, it's the size of the effort. Our time is, ultimately,
the most valuable resource.
"Unfortunately" none of us will ever be the same again, no matter
what happens. This is purely a political, not a technical,
decision. The only difference now is that Apple's stock is a hundred
points higher, and it's frankly impossible to imagine they can't make
the technical leap. Which brings us back to the primary reason any
large corporation produces a proprietary black-box: greed.
I'm forced to wonder what "a day without Carbon" would look like?
Enjoy.
More later,
Jack
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