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Re: why we hate fink

From: Rich Cook <email@hidden>
Subject: Re: scitech digest, Vol 2 #629 - 8 msgs
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:35:50 -0800
To: email@hidden

So what solution gives people good access to X11 packages that vendors
don't port to Aqua on OS X?  Apple's Frameworks don't support e.g.
OpenGL on X11.  You have to have a separate library for that.  Most
people aren't going to want to port their X11 Unix codes to Aqua, so
it's not realistic to even suggest that as a solution.

Apple has laboured long and hard to make it easy to move OpenGL code to a Mac native environment. Surely the point of using OpenGL is portability. Apple have also worked on Aqua Tcl/Tk and there is already Aqua Gtk.

In fact, Apple's X11 installs into /usr/X11R6; is that Apple violating
its own policies or just following good common sense?

There is all the difference in the world between what the system vendor can do and what an application developer should do. All developers know what the vendor does. They can have no way of knowing what other developers do.

This attitude has cost Apple countless programmers through the years,
including yours truly.  Apple needs to treat their programmers as
nicely as they try to treat their customers.  They have greatly
improved, by making OS X into Unix.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/unix/

At this point the debate becomes philosophical, but the attitude that programmers/support people are more important than users is a peculiarity of the IT industry that is responsible for most of the dissatisfaction people have with their computers. The reality is that users way outnumber programmers and for the programmers to think that things should be organised to make their life simple at the expense of the users could well be regarded as extreme arrogance. (not of course saying that I do so regard it).

As an interesting topic it is closely related to the bizarre disconnect that sees people happy to shell out thousands of extra dollars for a car that more comfortable/easy to drive, but when it comes to computers, the same people won't spend a hundred dollars or a little time to make them work better.

I think I made my point, and hopefully got some people thinking. So I will shut up now.

Bill Northcott
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