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: Bill Bumgarner <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 08:54:29 -0400
On Friday, June 15, 2001, at 12:03 AM, Christopher Lloyd wrote:
At 10:51 AM 6/14/2001 -0400, bbum wrote:
Is it really difficult for you and a bunch of others to
understand that Apple maybe didn't decide to KILL EOF/ObjC? .... that
EOF/ObjC isn't even on the radar in terms of the issues that Apple is
dealing with in their efforts to augment and extend the Macintosh
markets?
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;
- to keep options open
- to take advantage of the value of open source both in a marketing
and community sense
- because it requires a comparatively trivial quantity of resources
when measured against maintaining/releasing a product that has to be
fully qualified, packaged, etc... Darwin/x86 is mostly just a proof that
the foundation of X remains portable-- the expensive/hard stuff like
easy installation, booting across many BIOS, and any kind of a range of
drivers isn't there.
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.
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.
Why does Apple sell OS X server? Why does Apple sell server machines?
Because it sells Hardware.
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.
For CodeFab's purposes, the directions that Apple have chosen are not
the directions ideal to out business. We understand that and we
actively pursue and leverage technologies from many companies or
organizations. At the moment, we continue to use WebObjects and
EOF/Java because we feel strongly that the ROI for doing so is great
enough to accept the [hopefully minor] risk that the APIs will be gone.
When Apple announce a pure Java WebObjects, we reevaluated our use of
ObjC vs. Java and focused development on Java as soon as 4.5 was
available. It was painful at first, but it paid off because-- at the
same time-- our customer base began to demand interoperability with
numerous third party products and random standards and most of those
products/standards had APIs available in Java. They were easily
leveraged and we were able to stay on or ahead of the curve without
having to constantly reinvent the wheel.
Somewhere around three years ago, we passed up oppurtunities for working
on Yellow/Windows based code because the risk was too high. Given that
Apple is a hardware company, was in the process of eliminating Display
PostScript (and otherwise completely changing the imaging/UI model on
the platform), and the monumental effort it would take to port Quartz
and the rest of the tools to Yellow/Windows, we decided that focusing
development on any of the NeXT APIs save for those used by WebObjects
would be a lose. There wasn't any money in non-Windows GUI programming
outside of the various banks and other institutions that are continuing
to maintain 3.3 and 4.2 apps.
So we focused on WebObjects. Not because we liked web development
better or were trying to cash in on the Internet Boom, but because it
was possible to generate enough revenues to grow a business while still
working with some great technologies.
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.
(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. 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.
When Apple bought NeXT (and NeXT took over?), the company was in dire
straights. The hardware was uncompelling and the operating system was a
mess. NeXT was also in dire straights-- the original point of the
company was to produce an operating system. They did. It was great.
The market didn't care.
In the process of merging Apple and NeXT, a lot of stuff had to change.
Technology was dropped. Focuses changed. Considering the
size/complexity of merging the two companies and coming up with a fairly
focused technology story, there was bound to be fallout-- things
dropped, things changed in ways that are incompatible.
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.
It is part of the great adventure of working within the computing
industry....
b.bum