Re: WWDC2k5 and ROI
Re: WWDC2k5 and ROI
- Subject: Re: WWDC2k5 and ROI
- From: Scott Ellsworth <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 17:59:01 -0700
On Apr 11, 2005, at 10:33 AM, Joseph Graham wrote:
I am only going to respond to the actual Cocoa development component
of this question. I choose to interpret it as "what is the business
case for Cocoa?"
Well, I am going to WWDC to stump for my favorite technologies, to
ask the engineers a bucket of questions, and to learn new stuff.
We do biotech work, primarily, and thus we primarily do Java and
Perl. Both of those are well supported on MacOS X, especially if you
are running Tiger such that you have Java 1.5. <http://
developer.apple.com/java/faq/#anchor2>. The Mac is a keen platform
for these, but I have some requests of the engineers. This justifies
the WWDC trip. (This is, of course, tangential to Cocoa.)
Some of my projects need the fastest turnaround I can get, and Cocoa
solves that problem elegantly. I can write a UI in Java, and make it
look pretty good. I can write it in Cocoa, and have it look pretty
good with less effort. If my desired end result is a gui app to run
on a Linux or Windows box, then I rarely start with Cocoa. On the
other hand, if the purpose is to wrap a gui around a command line
tool that might be MATLAB, FORTRAN, Java, Perl, or whatever, Cocoa is
not a bad way to do it.
So, for those projects, Cocoa is pretty keen. It is also a good way
to write productivity enhancers for my workflow.
But I think that Cocoa is a steep learning curve to many veteran IT
developers who are not versed in ObjC.
True. On the other hand, it lets you push out apps very fast. This
was one of the key bennies for WO in years past, and is one of the
cookies of Cocoa today.
I know [PHP, J2SE, Mono, Ruby, ...] are mostly available
for OSX and they are not mutually exclusive.
In point of fact, we develop a lot in Java, my last contract was in
PHP, and a prior one was in Perl. In the main, I get more paying
work in Java than anything else, but things do change with time.
Further, if I can deliver a proof of concept through the magic of IB
in a day, then I can turn it into a real app later. Cocoa excels at
this.
I think that by adopting these technologies for development
projects have relatively massive ROI because of deployment
scenarios available.
Frankly, you pick the technology based on what the client needs and
what they expect to use it for. If they want more than just the Mac,
then Cocoa is a non starter, but Java might not be. If they are a
windows only shop, then C# might be the language of choice. Given
that Cocoa gets functional apps out the door very quickly, and with
full access to the latest Apple features, it has substantial ROI.
So, if your clients do not want the extra deployment scenarios, you
are not getting any extra ROI.
So my main question is what is Apple's ROI plan for Cocoa? Why
would anyone put forth a huge investment in Cocoa such as massive
Cocoa-Native projects?
Speed of development and power of resulting tools. Cocoa lets you
write useful apps very quickly, and upcoming Tiger technologies make
that happen faster. Frankly, if Core Data also had Extra EOF
Sprinkles, then I would have everything I need to prototype in Cocoa,
curate with custom Cocoa apps, then implement web and desktop front
ends in Java or PHP. Even as it is, I can do a prototype fast, then
get the client's feedback on where they want to take that prototype.
Neat.
Scott
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Cocoa-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden