[geeks] Leopard, was: find - having a senior moment

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Tue, 15 Jan 2008, Mark wrote:

>> Given that my job involves writing a large amount of Unix software, I
>> rather expect and need Unix software (X11) to work on a certified
>> Unix OS.  So, it's either Apple's Unix[1] or someone else's.
>
> They could staple the certificate to my face and I'd still not take it
> that seriously. If I need to work in true UNIX environment I'd work in
> something like Solaris, either in a VM (if it works - I haven't had
> much trouble using S10 in Parallels under Leopard) or native if it
> doesn't (which also works AFAIK on Intel).

I've been doing Unix development primarily under OS X since 10.2,
targeting everything[0] from HP-UX 10.20 to AIX 5.x to OpenBSD and just
about every release of Solaris since 2.5.1.  10.2 was pretty painful,
but 10.3 and 10.4 where just about all I could ask for.  I came to OSX
from IRIX and Solaris because I wanted a platform I could have on a
laptop (and Solaris/x86 prior to 9 -sucked-) that wouldn't require me to
reboot when switching between MS Office and my development work; I found
that I liked it enough to replace my Octane with a Quicksilver.  X11
under 10.2 was tolerable, even when using XDarwin or the beta X11.app.
Under 10.3 and 10.4 it was as usable as any other X11 environment except
for a couple of cut-and-paste bugs.

I will state, unequivocally, that OS X 10.4.11 is the finest Unix
development platform I've ever used, because it's fast, it gets out of
my way, it runs all the not-quite-development programs I need to deliver
software (Office for the inevitable business-overhead-type crap, and
Photoshop/Illustrator for icons and other elements), and it Just Works.
If I could deal with not running commercial desktop apps, my next pick
would be one of the BSDs, because they meet the other requirements.

I'll put it this way:  10.4.11 is as great for development as classic
Mac OS was awful.

>> Apple recommends the upgrade by virtue of it being an available
>> option, and it being the default option.
>
> So does Windows Vista... need I say anymore?

Bear in mind, again, that most of my problems are not due to an upgrade.
I run exactly the same set of software on my laptop (modulo VMware)
which saw 10.5 both as an upgrade and a clean install.  The laptop is
nearly useless under 10.5 and bulletproof under 10.4.  SMB is still
shaky on a new install because of the way it tries to use ACLs instead
of POSIX permissions, although I will admit that shares don't vanish on
a fresh install.

>> The upgrade to 10.5 was the first one that didn't work well.
>
> See, this is what I mean. 10.1 to 10.2 screwed up on me.

10.1 -> 10.2 was the only way to get 10.2 on the first Apple laptop I
had because it shipped prior to Apple pressing 10.2 System Restore DVDs
for it.  It went so well that I upgraded all the way to 10.4, with two
Migrations along the way as I upgraded hardware.  My sole problems
consisted of incompatible kexts, all of which were Microsoft software.

> It may have escaped your notice but Apple are pretty good at coddling
> idiots.

They're great at it.  However, it's been a long time (OS 8.0 or so)
since they did that at the expense of professional and technical users.
I daresay that their increase in marketshare over the last six years has
been at least as much due to professional and technical users getting
fed up with Microsoft's hubris and the gnome/kde/Linux folks'
incompetence.

> That said WTF is your problem with a calender icon that actually shows
> the right date?

Adding the smarts to an icon for a non-running program so that it
changes in response to the date should be about 3,000 notches below
making sure -advertised features- (X11, SMB, printing) work out-of-the-
box flawlessly.  Sure, if everything else works well, burn some time on
that.  If not, there are more important things to do.

> It's semantics, man, you glance at a calendar and expect it to say the
> right date, if it doesn't then it's no use...

Except that it's not a calendar; the calendar is in the upper-right
corner of the screen, or on the dashboard.  It's an icon--a picture of a
calendar!  I don't expect it to do anything other than sit there
(especially while the app is closed), just as I don't expect the Camino
and Firefox icons to reflect my current locale on their globes or iPhoto
to use a thumbnail of a photo from my last set in its icon or the prompt
decoration on Terminal.app's icon to reflect my $PS1.

It's a fine piece of candy, and I'm only complaining about it in light
of the things left unfinished.

>> CS2 was released in Q2 2005.  That's not even three years of service
>> for a $600 application; not "ancient history" by any reasonable
>> definition.
>
> You seem to have missed the point that it's an Adobe product, as soon
> as it's superseded it becomes 'ancient history' as far as they are
> concerned. The blame falls with Adobe for not adopting XCode sooner,

Yes, well, Adobe sucks.  This is definitely Not News.

However, if you mention "Macintosh" to someone above the age of 23, the
immediate assumption is that you do graphics stuff, probably with
kilobucks of Adobe software.  Surely this has not slipped past Apple.  I
would have expected that compatibility testing with Adobe's flagship
products (even a version or three back) would be part of OS X's release
process.  This is definitely one of those "more equal than others" sort
of things.

> there was a period when Apple transitioned to Intel when it looked
> like Adobe would pull the plug on the Mac because they didn't want to
> move to XCode, but I think Apple talked them round and provided
> training for their programmers to get em on a head start. I have to
> say the results, in CS3 are mighty impressive too, and the speed of
> the Apps is unreal (although I may be biased as I have a Mac Pro).

I suspect the majority of the speedup is due to not emulating a
processor.  CS3 isn't appreciably faster on my PowerBook, but it is tons
faster on my Mac Pro.

> I can understand your frustrations, but really there's not a hell of a
> lot of an answer to that other than being an apologist for Apple,

And I'm not asking for that.  Nadine asked how we liked Leopard.  So
far, I'm not impressed.  It came out significantly later than announced,
and it falls flat on its face for workflows that Tiger had no trouble
handling.  I'm sure it works great for lots of people, but it doesn't
have nearly the seamless fit-and-finish that 10.2 and later had, and it
looks like the things Apple spent more time with are gee-whiz type
things and making sure 'du' is Knuth-compliant rather than the
fundamental things that have made OS X such an excellent platform.

To reiterate:  I'm not beating up on Apple because their software sucks.
If it did, I'd use something else.  I'm beating up on Apple because
they're veering towards the same sort of things that made Windows NT
suck around v4 or so and have put MS Office in a continual state of
decline since Office 97:

   1) Screwed up priorities (features and flash vs. stability and
      thoughtfulness).
   2) Decrease in polish to decrease (or not) time-to-market.
   3) Appealing to newcomers at the expense of alienating long-time
      professional users.

And I'm also beating up on them because this is a radical departure from
the continuous improvement in every way (except for, perhaps, the
Finder) from 10.0 through 10.4.


[0] Including Windows!
-- 
Jonathan Patschke
Elgin, TX
USA