Doom-and-Gloom (was Re: Jobs)
Doom-and-Gloom (was Re: Jobs)
- Subject: Doom-and-Gloom (was Re: Jobs)
- From: Buzz Andersen <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 16:51:31 -0700
My point: that there is reason to feel optimism. And now, having said
that, I suggest we all wind down to the pub on the corner for a pint.
Mr. R.:
I couldn't agree more! All of this defeatist "the tech job market
sucks/Cocoa jobs don't exist/Dan Woods' success is an
aberration/Objective-C is a dead language/Apple must embrace the x86 or
die" talk was really beginning to get me down :-).
Here is my take on each of those issues (apologies in advance for the
length):
1. THE JOB MARKET:
Yes it does suck. I spent a significant portion of 2001 as an
unemployed new graduate, having gotten out of school just in time to
miss the wondrous dot-com boom (although I did have a cool job working
on the Road Runner cable modem service during my last two years of
college--God I miss that :-). Still, I don't think the current
downturn is entirely a bad thing--it may have put a lot of talented
people out of work, but it is also (at least hopefully) is flushing out
a lot of the hacks who have no business calling themselves programmers
in the first place (NOTE: I don't consider anyone I've met on this list
to be in that category, otherwise I wouldn't have said that :-). I see
things only getting better, and when they finally recover, hopefully
the job market will be better for having all the dot-com gold diggers
cleared out.
2. COCOA JOBS DON'T EXIST/CORPORATE AMERICA DOESN'T USE COCOA:
Well, no, they don't at least not outside of Apple (which reminds me:
Mr. Jobs, if you're reading: I'm ready to make the move to Cupertino
any time--just give me 24 hours :-).
But personally, I'm actually kind of glad that Objective-C/Cocoa isn't
another overhyped and overheated development framework like Java/J2EE
or C#/.NET (full disclosure: I am a professional Java programmer by
day, and I *do* like Java). If you look at what has happened with both
of those technologies, you can see a pattern of unbelievable hype,
followed by bitter disappointment, widespread reports of failed
implementations (up to 70% with Java, according to one recent account I
read!), etc. I guess what I'm saying is, let corporate America have
their fads--Cocoa has been around for over 10 year, and it perseveres
year after year in much the same way Apple itself does: by quietly and
unassumingly being better than everything else out there.
That said, I'd *love* to be able to make a living doing Cocoa someday.
I do, in all seriousness, believe that Apple's profile is going to
continue to grow in the coming years, and as it does, hopefully it will
be us--the few, the proud, the Cocoa developers--who will reap the
benefits.
3. DAN WOODS: SUPERSTAR
I am *firmly* in the camp that believes that Mac users are, on the
whole, a more sophisticated and discerning lot than their Windows
counterparts, and that they are far more likely to be paying shareware
consumers. To me, these two things account for Watson's success.
Woods had a great idea, he implemented it beautifully, and the Mac
community supported him for it. Maybe I'm naive, but I believe that
the same would be true of any good idea implemented well (I guess I'll
find out, at any rate--I plan to release my first shareware application
next week!).
4. OBJECTIVE-C GOES THE WAY OF LATIN
I won't say much about this, other than that I don't see it happening.
Look at the Objective-C Rendezvous and CD burning APIs that came out in
Jaguar (the latter well before its Carbon counterpart). Look at the
more recent iApps. If Apple is going to kill Objective-C, they had
better think about ratcheting down their internal use of it soon!
If they ever do talk about canceling it, though, I think we should
apply for a federal grant to start a program of the kind they have in
Wales and Ireland to keep Gaelic and Welsh alive :-).
5. APPLE MUST EMBRACE x86
To me, the people calling for this are just like the people who used to
castigate Apple for not licensing their OS. People have to remember
that Apple is very unique in that they make their money off both
hardware and software (although mostly hardware). In my opinion, there
is simply no benefit to allowing OS X to be run on a commodity platform
that Apple has no control over, aside from the fact that it would allow
them to jump on Intel's megahertz treadmill. And the latter objection
is going to cease to be a concern when Apple ends their partnership
with the intransigent Motorola and begins to use the IBM Power4+
processors they purchased at the last Microprocessor Forum (as I'm sure
they will).
--
Buzz Andersen
email: email@hidden
web:
http://www.scifihifi.com
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