Re: Cocoa/EOF for non-enterprise apps Re: proof of cocoa
Re: Cocoa/EOF for non-enterprise apps Re: proof of cocoa
- Subject: Re: Cocoa/EOF for non-enterprise apps Re: proof of cocoa
- From: Christopher Lloyd <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 03:11:08 -0400
At 08:54 AM 6/15/2001 -0400, bbum wrote:
On Friday, June 15, 2001, at 12:03 AM, Christopher Lloyd wrote:
At 10:51 AM 6/14/2001 -0400, bbum wrote:
Apple is a for profit company building hardware that is largely
aimed at the consumer and education markets. Apple does not have a
history of building systems for the enterprise market. Apple is in
the middle of-- well, coming out of the middle of-- changing EVERYTHING
about the way that Mac OS worked.
So why would Apple help maintain and release Darwin/x86 ? Doesn't sell
hardware, doesn't even sell Apple software.
The should be pretty obvious;
It is and it doesn't fit into your sweeping statement that Apple is this
focused for-profit machine in the consumer and education market.
- to keep options open
EOF/ObjC doesn't do that?
- to take advantage of the value of open source both in a
marketing and community sense
So why not release EOF/ObjC as an open source project, because, in your own
words ...
- because it requires a comparatively trivial quantity of
resources when measured against maintaining/releasing a product that has
to be fully qualified, packaged, etc...
How does WOF fit into your statements? From Apple's product description:
"WebObjects allows you to focus on only that code needed for your
e-commerce, asset management, or MIS solution", yea, that sounds like the
consumer&education market. WOF is an enterprise product, no question.
Yup; WOF is an enterprise solution, always has been and, likely, always
will be. Most importantly, it is the enterprise solution that Apple has
built a huge part of their business operations on top of. Everything
from product registrations to the apple store to iTools to the apps used
to check folks in at WWDC are built with WO.
They don't need to keep it as a product to do this. As a product it doesn't
fit into their strategy according to you, was a massive resource suck to
rewrite in Java and remains an also-ran product. I'm not advocating they
drop it, but it flies in the face of your "Apple is a for profit company
building hardware that is largely aimed at the consumer and education
markets".
Likely, the internal use of WO combined with the marketing value-- which,
obviously, they haven't really leveraged-- of remaining a solutions
provider in the Web space is the only thing keeping WebObjects alive.
Not very encouraging words for WebObjects. Prepare to jump onto the next
bandwagon!
You are doing one thing "CodeFab provides a wide range of system
integration and consulting solutions, focused on developing and deploying
enterprise scaled object-oriented solutions for large corporations. " And
saying another.
(Speaking for CodeFab for only a moment-- the rest of this has been purely
personal....)
Hardly; CodeFab uses many technologies and many languages.
Do as you say not as you do? Writing enterprise software using Apple
enterprise technology, advocating that Apple is a consumer and education
focused company and lambasting those who depended on Apple to deliver
enterprise(and desktop) software. It is just convenient that Apple dropped
technology you don't depend on.
[... <snip> a great history of CodeFab and their strategic choices ...]
Why do you justify Apple's position? Is it some great reaffirmation that
CodeFab is doing the right thing ? That everyone who trusted Apple about
YB/Windows and EOF/ObjC are idiots who deserve to crash&burn? I don't get
it. Yea, you can justify anything, but that doesn't stop reality, and
reality is that Apple is burning bridges.
Frankly, we would rather build desktop applications, have the skills
necessary for doing so, and are actively investigating whether or not a
market exists for such skills.
What's the matter? Java not up to the task? Apple's "consumer and education
markets" a scary place ? It's always easier to take the consulting route
because there are always projects that need to be done and you typically
don't have a long API commitment. It's much harder to stick with API's and
Apple/NeXT makes it more difficult than it should be. I can't blame you for
not doing applications on Apple technology!
(no longer speaking for CodeFab)
I heard all these Apple apologist arguments when Apple dropped
YellowBox/Windows, it is horribly sad they have to be used again. Apple
is screwing over some of their best developers and advocates, shame on
them, and shame on you for defending them.
And, yet, at the same time, they have produced and are continuing to
evolve a really amazing computing platform.
I just ain't dying to commit to any of their new API's, so what good is it
to me?
By staying focused on what contributes value to that platform-- even
when it means screwing over developers that have latched on to
technologies that no longer make sense or that have become unbearably
expensive to maintain-- they have continued to increase profitability and
market share. I.e. they have continued to generally increase the value
of Apple Computer, Inc.
All of the Java and Objective-C technology changes have little or nothing
to do with Apple's recent upswing. They've managed to regain their
foothold in hardware and have some good MacOS based apps. It will be a
while before anyone can comment on whether Cocoa, Carbon, WOF or anything
else proves to pull Apple up. They are dropping EOF/ObjC before it has even
had a chance to move.
[ ...<snip> the Apple/NeXT merger and why it justify's them alienating
developers...]
That's the nature of the beast.
It sucks when you are on the wrong side of the fence when the a technology
is dropped, but that is always going to be a risk when aligning onself
with an API or technology.
Most companies have a better plan for keeping old API's around. Dropping
support for a big API in a core OS language seems incredibly shortsighted
to me. I'm happy for you and all the other Java developers that get a lot
of new food to feast on, but Apple is not throwing a bone to the
Objective-C developers and it is disturbing.
It is part of the great adventure of working within the computing industry....
If you make your living charging people a lot of money to jump onto the
latest bandwagon, yea, I can see how it would be fun.
I learned my lesson when Apple dropped YB/Windows, I really feel sorry for
all the EOF/ObjC guys. They can't even rewrite EOF due to the stupid patent
enforcement.
Chris