We have been reporting on Pepper, the programmer’s text editor, several times, so this is a follow up on what really made Maarten Hekkelman to stop development of his multi-platform product (Mac/OSX/Win/FreeBSD/Linux). Even Slashdot noticed his interview at DaringFireball. “Programming for BeOS was simple when you just started. But it became quite messy quickly. The problem is the multi-threading.” […] “MacOSX, however, loses on all fronts. It claims to be a Unix but it doesn’t support much of the more advanced Unix features, since it is using such an old kernel. It claims to be user friendly, but I find it more obscure and difficult to use than my Win2k box. And then, it is dog slow.” Very good (and long) read about the troubles of an independent developer in today’s computing market, who’s trying to make a difference with his product. Today, Maarten is trying to find companies or other devs that might be interested in purchasing the source code and rights to Pepper.
Pepper Author Maarten Hekkelman Says it All
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
This fella has no clue what an UI should act like. He can’t even give some arguments why OS X isn’t that good. admit that OS X is buggy but in the UI department it’s KING!
> but in the UI department it’s KING!
Looks different. I will give you that.
But that doesn’t mean that its UI is perfect. I am talking about the way it acts, not the way it looks. In some areas, it has better UI than Windows, in some others, Windows is better IMO. (But under no circumstances KDE/Gnome are better than either XP or OSX.)
BeOS had a good UI, it really made sense most of the time, however there were a couple of areas that I would prefer a more Window-ish behavior. For me, a mix of XP and BeOS, and only a bit of OSX (mostly in the looks), would make my perfect UI. 😉
When will mac people realise that UI, does not make good programs. And that the underlying framework is pivotal to accomplishing a good application.
From what I have read and understood – Mac Os X is for people who like a ‘nice’ looking interface and are not at all concerned with the underlying framework.
Stop flagging the Dead Donkey, and make a valid point other than mac OS X UI is the Best. Who &&*$^^*(* cares…
> admit that OS X is buggy but in the UI department it’s KING!
Unclear. All the good UI guys at Apple no doubt got Steved at some point, like Jef Raskin.
Insane problems like pulling off stuff from the Dock evaporating in a puff of smoke. (Why not drag to Trash? Perhaps you could visit Ask Tog for other gripes.
Some things are decent though, like having .app directories treated like individual files. Windows is fucked up in this regard, especially since directories in reality are just files. And internationalization is also something Windows should be ashamed for.
> From what I have read and understood – Mac Os X is for people who like a ‘nice’ looking interface and are not at
> all concerned with the underlying framework.
OK here are 10 things about the frameworks that have nothing to do with “pretty”
1) The backward compatability / easy migration API (Carbon+Classic) are kept seperate from the brand new libraries (Cocoa). Thus:
a) pollution doesn’t occur
b) at the same time backward compatability and easy migration are maintained
c) The GUI logically connects to the APIs
2) The framework is built on top of Unix and thus can support X and fully network transparent applications
3) Java has its own API and thus Java apps can run with the performance of native apps
4) Programming tools are included free with the OS and these tools support the interface guidelines. So the interface guidelines are actually followed.
5) The system has native pdf support and thus WYSIWYG is actually possible
6) The system has a built in 3D library which is industry standard and thus on the higher end hardware (and all the hardware in about 2 years ) a 3D environment can be integrated fully with the GUI
7) The system provides an open music and video standard as part of the gui for all multimedia applications
8) The Kernal is fully modular so it can support an infinite number of GUIs if needed (it currently supports 3)
9) Because of resource forks and more static linking programs can be moved by moving their executable unlike in other GUIs.
10) Files can mount like devices and devices can be copied to files; fully abstracting hardware.
Eugenia, are you talking about usability or visual design? Some certain examples would be nice for discussion. For example I don’t really know what’s bad about the OS X GUI as I don’t know it and just constantly hear how good it would be. I would be also interested in examples why the new GNOME UI is bad (usability POV), as I believe that they got it right this time. If there is something obviously wrong with it, then it should be talked about. Of course I know your latest mockups
but they didn’t show actual problems.
It might not be the nicest looking UI though (yet).
Probably one of the best interviews I’ve read in a long time. Kudos to th interviewer and interviewee. I only wish we didn’t have to read the interview, though
“You can buy bonus points and they will be added to your product’s rating. So yes, you have to buy your listing.”
After reading that quote, I’m glad that I don’t depend on Tucows for anything.
I said the best as in undisputed champion as of 3 septembre 2002. I never said OS X had the perfect UI.
I miss the UI responsiveness of BeOS. Mac OS X is still too slow and XP is closer second behind BeOS.
But under no circumstances KDE/Gnome are better than either XP or OSX.)
Agree 100% with you there.
NOTHING comes close to Mac consumer apps. Get over it. iMovie, iPhoto and iTunes are the best of breed.
I really, really am truly sorry that Maarten did have all those problems causing him to discontinue Pepper. Pepper was truly (and is!) one of the finest text editors. BBEdit never was much in my eyes, Pepper was just the right thing ™.
Yes, it have improvement potential, I’ve had some emails with Maarten about some, but all in all it was the finest, and still is, that OS X have to offer.
I am using Pepper now on Jaguar (which works brilliantly by the way), and will continue using it for my prime editor a loooong long time. My hat off to Maarten – I really hope you reenter with Pepper under your arm again. I will watch for it!
well, it’s funny….
looks like the author of a shareware geek editor has problems programming for OS X?!.
What I can accept is, that he don’t like OS X for what ever personal reason. It is his right to like things or to like things not. But – look at the big guys in OS X development:
for example: MS (Office), Adobe (Photoshop, Acrobat, etc, etc…), Maxon (Cinema 4D Suite), AliasWavefront (Maya), Orace (Oracle 9i) or even Apple (Final Cut Pro or all the other soft the companys make they have bought in the last 12 months. It is funny that none of them gets in touble because of the missing /proc filesystem or missing or faulty gui or kernel functions.
So what is his real problem here? He likes BeOS? Sure, no problem, I like(d) it too, even I don’t use it anymore. But fact is that it isn’t really comparable with OS X. In many ways BeOS uses very different and simpler (=faster) techniques than OS X (GUI composing, for example). And even there where never that large apps for it as they are for OS X today. BeOS never showed that it was able to run that big things. I remember that even the BeZilla crew at first ran into problems when they start the port. In my eyes BeOS was like a rough diamond. It had a nice api but it needed 2-3 reworks to come to perfection. It nerver really left the geek-state.
If the author of pepper stopped its development ? OK – its not a big deal. I beleave many such projects stop every day. But don’t blame the death of Be, the threading in BeOS or the missing /proc filesystem in OS X for it.
Ralf.
While I don’t agree with XP being the successor of the classic MacOS (there is nothing like MacOS 9 out there – OpenBeOS will be the closest IMHO once it’s finished), he does have quite some valid points on the problems of OS X. However, I expect him to get mad at the Win32 API some day too
I could almost slap myself for not registering Pepper when it was available. While I was not fully ready to buy it, knowing that I’ll be forced to BBEdit (which I refuse to buy) or very bare-bones editors (I will never use Emacs) makes me sad.
>Pepper was truly (and is!) one of the finest text editors.
Agreed. I hope that someone will be able to pick it up and continue developing it for all these platforms.
>Eugenia, are you talking about usability or visual design?
Certainly usability POV. But this Gnome discussion is off topic here… 😮
But – look at the big guys in OS X development:
Ever since Windows 95 we all know that the amount of available applications doesn’t say anything about the quality of an OS or its API. In fact, that vendors like Steinberg, Maxon and whoever owned Bryce back then (was it before or after the MetaCreations->Corel sale?) had their applications in Beta or Alpha state on BeOS and were even demoing them on trade shows despite BeOS’ market share indicates that BeOS or it’s API must have something appealing. At least, I haven’t seen any signs of Nuendo, Cinema4D or Bryce ever being ported to Linux, which does have a larger market share than BeOS.
the problem with commercial development under Linux is that Linux is mostly used by a community of users that isn’t wonted to pay for things. Most commercial users of Linux are corporate customers and they use Linux as a server system and not on workstations. It is simply a fact that Linux isn’t really used by pro users that buys their software. That’s the reason why there isn’t a real market for commercial desktop apps on Linux. Some companys tried to enter the commercial Linus-Deskop-Application business but never made a real profit in it. Most of them soon left that market.
Ralf.
I rather think it’s just the fact that Linux will not offer any advantage for those apps over Windows, where BeOS would. In both cases, one could just say “you have an x86, why don’t you just run it in Windows?” but from what I heard, especially Nuendo could have been notably better on BeOS than on Windows.
Oh well … he was never going to get the respect from the OSX community that he had in the BeOS community. He should have continued to work on the BeOS version – we would have supported him.
I loved Pepper, but Maarten really didn’t have much of a sense of marketing or documentation and frequently came across as being mildly irritated with the whole endeavor. This long predated the MacOS version: back with the Intel version of Pe, I remember him complaining that Intel users weren’t buying it as much and didn’t seem to be “exploring” the way Mac people did to find out features. I pointed out (on BeNews, I think) that this might just be because Pe was “heavily inspired by” BBEdit and MPW, two Mac-only editing environments–users coming to BeOS from the Mac environment didn’t suffer nearly as much from Pe’s haphazard documentation.
Pepper (on OS X) seemed to suffer continually from Maarten’s lack of understanding how to program under the operating system. I hate to put it that way, but there was more than one rant about how it was “apparently impossible” to do something under the OS that BBEdit 6 was very plainly doing, usually followed by a sudden insight. Even so, relatively simple things like scrolling (and, yes, window resizing, OS X’s UI nemesis!) are noticeably faster and smoother.
I’m not going to say Maarten was wrong–if he says his experience programming under OS X was bad, it was bad. I will say that there are others who don’t have that experience. I’ve bluntly never heard good things about programming under previous editions under Mac OS–one developer I know described System 7 programming as the only thing more painful than Microsoft Foundation Classes he’d ever done–and I expect that’s also reasonably true of Carbon, no matter how much Project Builder or CodeWarrior does to try and hide that. But so far the only complaints I’ve heard about Cocoa have been from people who can’t (or don’t want to) wrap their heads around Objective-C.
NeXT survived–and achieved a cult following in some major enterprises–chiefly on the strength of their amazing IDE, and that IDE is given away for free by Apple now. While I don’t want to overemphasize Cocoa’s value, I think right now its value is being underemphasized by people. Maarten chose not to develop in Cocoa (I know he had his reasons, although I disagree with them), and he chose not to use any of Apple’s development tools.
It’s interesting that the only applications I had that broke under Jaguar were ones that heavily relied on the BSD subsystem. Full Carbon or Cocoa apps were fine–with the apparent exception of Pepper. I have to wonder if Maarten was doing something “funny” with the BSD system in a way that BBEdit doesn’t.
At any rate, I’m sorry to see Pepper go and wish Maarten luck in future endeavors. For the nonce I’m going to be using GVim as an editor, since despite that “old and slow” kernel, it’s modern enough for other Unix programmers to port to it without so many problems.
“Some things are decent though, like having .app directories treated like individual files”
I believe that this was a NeXT thing, if memory serves.
I really enjoyed this article. Great insight from a developer with an enlightening prospective. He’s right, OS X has a few more revisions to go before its as polished as ahem… OS 9. As a user I prefer it over OS 9 though. Even in its current state it has several improvements, such as preemptive multitasking and protected memory.<p>
His problems are slightly different because he is creating a text editor which has different needs than a drawing program. I know that 10.2 does a better job at supporting more advanced Unix functionality, and 10.2 probably scrolls faster also. But it came down to his refusal to buy into the cocoa frameworks, which I respect. But, if he wants a superior text editor to BBEdit he’d probably have to take a good long look at the framework and loose the powerplant framework.
<p>
I have never used pepper because I am an emacs user, but I must admit that I am getting tired of not having syntax coloring available in terminal.app.
-b
@Ralf
“the problem with commercial development under Linux is that Linux is mostly used by a community of users that isn’t wonted to pay for things.”
This is uncertain yet as there are no good examples. Pepper isn’t an example at all. When I heard about it (here on OSNews) I was looking for a browser that would be very usable and could do things like FTP saving to replace the Boxer Text Editor which I buyed for Windows so I considered buying this one until a free GUI editor would catch up eventually. Unfortunatly this first Linux release was and is (I don’t know about a new version) awefull. The interface wasn’t exactly intuitive, everything (most importantly the GUI fonts) was way too small so using it was a pain. It rendered a weird char behind most of the menu items, making them even more difficult to read. And it just wasn’t as convenient and efficient as Boxer (which is not even a very well known text editor).
This was justified by it beeing the first release for Linux/FreeBSD and that is fine, but you can’t really expect people to pay for a software that is basically an alpha test. Especially if the future of such a project is _always_ uncertain as this example shows perfectly. If I would have buyed the first release in the hopes of a better version in the future, this money would be lost now.
I am interested in programming in a new framework (not that I have much previous experience, but…). Anyway, currently the choices are:
– Java (cross-platform)
– Qt (cross-platform)
– GTK (somewhat cross-platform)
– .NET (somewhat cross-platform)
– Cocoa (somewhat cross-platform)
I think this list covers the most popular systems around (Linux, Windows, Mac). Personally, I don’t want to do much in the first three because I don’t like C/C++ too much. And Java with its Swing stuff is not the best to develop GUI applications.
That leaves .NET, that I am sure will replace Win32 sooner or later, and Cocoa. Both come with C-based languages (C# and Objective-C). What I am interested in is how are they from a developer’s point of view? I know this is a very generic question but I would be interested in the opinions of people who have actually used it. How are they to develop command line based applications and GUI applications? Tools? Etc?
Cocoa (somewhat cross-platform)
Cocoa is “somewhat cross-platform”?
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/9/1/01920/06001
And Java with its Swing stuff is not the best to develop GUI applications.
If you write Java on OS X, it’s translated into Cocoa graphics widgets for the most part.
Java & Swing can sometimes bite. But Jython rocks, and so does Eclipse from what I hear.
Pardon my ignorance of Pepper and BBedit…but what can they do that Vim cannot? i’ve tried all of the major open-source editors and several commercial IDEs and I keep coming back to Vim…somehow I’m just faster with Vim than with anything else.
what’s up?
are you arguin about the WM or the widgetset?
the default theme/style or the commonly used one?
I simply hate XP (I tried it fet time and all I can say is that is ugly)
I find interesting Aqua and MacOSX
I feel confortable with mozilla modern-2 metatheme or the kde .NET-style+default-border+slick-icons.
I’m still looking for a good theme for e17 (probably a good brushed metal+the new brushed metal gtk1+2 theme will do)
Cocoa is “somewhat cross-platform”?
Yes, it is only somewhat cross-platform. Even though OpenStep used to work on quite a number of platforms, Cocoa is only available on Macs. And as far as I can tell things don’t look too good. Just read the WebObjects mailing lists. It is a source of constant gripe about Apple’s commitment to other platforms (mostly Windows) and its willingness to market a top-of-the-line application server. I think the move from Objective-C to Java caused a few things to die, including the ability to develop cross-platform.
Anyway, Cocoa is interesting but I still wonder how it compares to “something newer” like the .NET and Java frameworks.
I’ll never understand the obsession with Platinum as the ultimate UI from a usability standpoint. The only thing I’ve ever seen Platinum as being is ugly. The small details of platinum I actually liked were preserved in OS X (distinctions between focus/unfocused windows, for one)
Furthermore, he’s ridiculing OS X’s kernel from his experiences with 10.0, then downplays the fact the issues were fixed in 10.1? Who really gives about SVR4 IPC (he said SVR3. for whatever reason) on a platform with Mach messaging? His argument is totally moot. SVR4 IPC isn’t good for anything, especially from the angle he’s arguing which is a portability standpoint, as SVR4 IPC isn’t even consistently available on a number of platforms.
>am interested in programming in a new framework (not that
>I have much previous experience, but…). Anyway,
>currently the choices are:
> – Java (cross-platform)
> – Qt (cross-platform)
> – GTK (somewhat cross-platform)
> – .NET (somewhat cross-platform)
> – Cocoa (somewhat cross-platform)
There’s also wxWindows and Tk (while Tk technically works and is very cross platform, it’s ugly as sin and consistent with no platform on the planet).
Tk? As in Tcl/Tk. No thank you
> Cocoa is “somewhat cross-platform”?
Is’nt Cocoa the NeXT API inwhich case it is xp, I have it installed on the Windows Box I’m sitting at, and played with it on a Linux box.
Actually, there’s not a lot that most commercial editors can do that Vim can’t. I say this as somebody who registered Pe 2.0 on BeOS and kept with Pepper through its last release on MacOS, and someone who’s also been an avid Vim user for about the same time.
Pepper, BBEdit and Homesite have some advantages for “code-centric” web developers–they’re HTML-aware above and beyond syntax highlighting. BBEdit and HomeSite in particular are “smart” this way: drag and drop an HTML file from an OS directory window into the editing screen, and it creates an anchor element with the appropriate HREF; drag and drop an image file and it creates an image element with the height and width tags filled in. (Pepper takes an extra step to do both of those but it’s not horrendous.) There are a fair number of other little things that can add up as time-savers.
Having said that, the biggest difference is ultimately the interface. If you’re used to “standard GUI” behavior in the way most Mac and Windows people are, Vim could drive you nuts. It actually took me a Windows port with the menu bar to get used to Vim–when I was first trying to use it on a Linux console I had no clue what I was doing with it. (Now I’m keyboard-only with it, but it’s been a few years.)
For some people that difference in usability–and maybe the extra HTML-specific features–are worth the price. When I started in BeOS, Pe was there and GVim wasn’t, and I really liked the HTML stuff. Now that Pepper has entered the realm of the living dead, I’m back to running GVim on Mac OS X. Maybe one day I’ll get BBEdit, but currently I’m more interested in learning Java than doing web development, and so far it’s been my experience that for actual programming BBEdit and Pepper don’t offer anything that Vim (as well as Apple’s free-as-in-beer Project Builder IDE) doesn’t.
I hated doing html in vim until I found two scripts from
http://vim.sourceforge.net/scripts.php
specifically closetag.vim and matchit.vim. Much sanity was saved. There’s also a filetype for html/xml stuff which I used to run which was quite nice, mostly redundant with the above two, and I never got around to learning it’s other features and eventually turned it off since it was getting in the way. I still use it for new xml/html files.
I think pepper was a decent editor, but it wasn’t enough to pull me from Microedge’s editor, even though it isn’t free. In spite of my preferences, I hope somebody will buy pepper and make it available.
This part is offtopic, but since the author of the article posted it, it must be okay. Eugenia said, “But under no circumstances KDE/Gnome are better than either XP or OSX.”
I agree with you with regards to OS X. But how is Windows XP’s interface better than KDE’s? XP wins on copy/paste functionality, but KDE’s launcher is far superior to Windows taskbar in its customizability and functionality. XP gets bogged down during screen repaints, but I’ve never had that problem with KDE or OS X. I’m just curious what it is about KDE that you don’t like.
Also, I’ve observed, not only referring to posts in this article, that many people verbally flog KDE for “copying” the Windows taskbar, even though KDE has definitely improved upon the idea, if it was indeed copied. It seems this alone is reason enough to hate KDE.
On the other hand, when Microsoft releases something like C#, whose IDE in VisualStudio has many components from Borland’s IDEs and which was copied from Java and purportedly improved upon, people praise them. And this is not the only thing they have copied.
I just wanted to ask, why the hypocrisy?
This fella has no clue what an UI should act like. He can’t even give some arguments why OS X isn’t that good. admit that OS X is buggy but in the UI department it’s KING!
I wouldn’t exactly say that. OS X is a mish mash of OpenStep’s UI and Platinum, completely different UIs.
OpenStep is Dock-based, while Platinum is desktop based. OpenStep relies on context menus instead of menu bars, Platinum pushes developers to include context menu options in the menu bar. Finder and Workspace Manager are also two different beast.
Now, while OpenStep and Platinum was really good UIs (may not win any cosmetics competition), but OS X isn’t. Within the two hours I have use it, i have found inconsitencies. I found OS X may more confusing than OpenStep or OS 9. In fact, I learnt OS 9 in ten minutes, an hour for OS X. OS X may look nice for many people, but its UI isn’t the best.
Apple not only fired its HI team in 1997, they completely threw away one of its greatest assets: OS 9’s UI.
He should have continued to work on the BeOS version – we would have supported him.
We, meaning you and the other BeOS user? Give me a break, the BeOS community was never able to sustain any company, not even Be itself.
-fooks
Ronald: NOTHING comes close to Mac consumer apps. Get over it. iMovie, iPhoto and iTunes are the best of breed.
You obviously never tried SoundPlay for BeOS and CompuPic for Windows.
lu_zero: I simply hate XP (I tried it fet time and all I can say is that is ugly)
I love Windows XP’s UI, though the default UI can be ugly. Most people (including me) that had an opinion that XP was ugly immediately liked XP after using the Silver colour scheme.
Bascule: The only thing I’ve ever seen Platinum as being is ugly.
It *is* possible the retain the UI of Platinum while adopting the *look* of Aqua. My gripe is the UI, not the looks, and I’m guessing, that’s the gripe of the interviewee.
Another complaint about OS 9’s UI is the clutter – something that could be remove. Just rearranging stuff in Platinum (like having *one* central preferences panel).
ラクダ: XP gets bogged down during screen repaints, but I’ve never had that problem with KDE or OS X. I’m just curious what it is about KDE that you don’t like.
She made an artilce about UI suggestions for KDE. Besides, your only example on how XP’s UI sucks is actually a technical issue, not an issue with how the UI is designed. Also, most users don’t customize their desktops much, the most they would go is changing the wallpaper, and perhaps sometimes the colour scheme.
OK here are 10 things about the frameworks that have nothing to do with “pretty”
>1) The backward compatability / easy migration API >(Carbon+Classic) are kept seperate from the brand new >libraries (Cocoa). Thus:
>a) pollution doesn’t occur
>b) at the same time backward compatability and easy >migration are maintained
>c) The GUI logically connects to the APIs
And Carbon is in C/C++ where Cocoa in in Objective C .. not pretty at all
Why apple didnt decide to go with C/C++ for Cocoa is a mistery to me.. of course it might have something to do with the inventor of Objective C.
>2) The framework is built on top of Unix and thus can >support X and fully network transparent applications
A shame they didnt use a real Unix kernel.
>8) The Kernal is fully modular so it can support an >infinite number of GUIs if needed (it currently supports 3)
fully modular and filled with bugs! On my B/W G3 it crashes every 10-20 mins. with a kernel panic. AND NO.. i dont have any 3. party hardware in it!
>9) Because of resource forks and more static linking >programs can be moved by moving their executable unlike in >other GUIs.
Which is also the cause of the huge binaries we see on OS X.
>10) Files can mount like devices and devices can be copied >to files; fully abstracting hardware.
yup.. another benefit of the unix OS
Use wxWindows, IMSO the best cross-platform framework. Qt has much more restricting licencing terms – either you pay or you have to use the GPL. On MacOS X, there’s only the commercial version of Qt. wxWindows leaves you a lot more freedom in that.
Use wxWindows, IMSO the best cross-platform framework. Qt has much more restricting licencing terms – either you pay or you have to use the GPL. On MacOS X, there’s only the commercial version of Qt. wxWindows leaves you a lot more freedom in that.
So, I’m suppose to choose something that is cheaper over something that is better? Those who can’t afford $2000 don’t deserve to start a multi-platform company 😛
Don’t get me wrong, from what I see, exWindows has a bright future, brighter than Qt (look at how fast it is being developed), but as of now… wxWindows is quite basic.
I was a little suprised to read Maarten’s comments about TUCOWS. Back when I was a BeOS developer I managed to get my BeOS app listed. (I think it had a 3 or 4 cow rating IIRC.) Maybe it was a lot easier to get a BeOS app listed since there weren’t very many BeOS apps available. Not that it did me any good.
Maarten, like myself, was another developer who bought into the BeOS and ended up losing. I thought about porting to the MacOS but decided I’d stolen enough time from my family and decided to just bail on the whole mess.
I think Maarten is giving up on Pepper too early. I remember how BBEdit started. It was just a little shareware editor. You could tell the developer really loved it and didn’t really care how many copies it sold. He just kept working on it and it got better and better. It just grew into being the best developer’s editor on the Mac by sheer force of will. Although, I was a little dismayed to see the move towards html editing in BBEdit. But I guess Web Developers are more willing to pay for their tools than software developers. Software developers expect their tools for free…
The one thing that I loved about Pe, (and BBEdit), was “Find Differences…”.
Oh, the people who like vim over Pe/Pepper/BBEdit are joking. Right?
I love MacOS X not because of the UI but because the MacOS works correctly. I find Windows the most frustrating OS I’ve ever used. Nothing works they way you expect it. Almost everything on the MacOS does. The fact that MacOS X’s UI is pretty is just a bonus.
MacOS X rules over older versions of the MacOS because of STABILITY. I had to reformat my hard disk once a month because it was SOOOO,/b> easy to smash the filesystem under MacOS 6/7/8/9. Now it’s much harder. (Yes, I’m one of the few long time MacOS users who think MacOS X is WAY better than MacOS 9.)
Yes, Linux is stable but it is a complete pain in the a$$ to setup, maintain, and use. Here’s the current example that caused me fits. Upgrade a working RedHat 7.1 installation on a Dell Inspiron 7500 to RedHat 7.2. Insert a CompactFlash adapter with CF card into the PCMCIA slot. Mount the CF card, copy files, sync, and unmount. Now you should be able to eject the CF adapter right? Wrong! You must enter “sudo /sbin/cardctl eject 0” and your password or your system will freeze. If you forget you’ve just smashed your ATA bus and will need to remove and replace the battery from the system to get it going again. Arrrrggghhh! I hate Linux!
Posted from MacOS X. B-)
, != <
Hehehe. You typing dvorak too?
the problem with commercial development under Linux is that Linux is mostly used by a community of users that isn’t wonted to pay for things. Most commercial users of Linux are corporate customers and they use Linux as a server system and not on workstations. It is simply a fact that Linux isn’t really used by pro users that buys their software. That’s the reason why there isn’t a real market for commercial desktop apps on Linux. Some companys tried to enter the commercial Linus-Deskop-Application business but never made a real profit in it. Most of them soon left that market.
Ralf.
Ever heard of Industrial Light & Magic? They are the guys that did the 3D creatures in the more recent Star Wars movies. From start to finish, modeling to rendering, all done on Linux x86 machines. The graphics in Lords Of The Rings was rendered on a farm of 400+ dual Pentium 4 2 GHz machines, again running Linux.
A lof of the big guys in film making develop their own softwarer tools. Originally, those tools were written for Irix, and porting them to Linux was a piece of cake so they say. Correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is that the GPL only governs the source code, not what you do with the program. For example, Apache is GPL, but we can use it to host commercial web sites, we can run Linux servers and host for other people and charge them a fee. The same concept exists in digital content creation. You can use open source GPL software to make your movie.
Well, what i can see behind this interview is a tired guy. I really think this is not a GUI or API problem. It’s a problem of time and competition.
What are the choices for small developers ?
– It’s impossible to sell softwares on Lunix because of the free/open source religion.
– You have to choose a long time supported OS. BeOS wasn’t a good idea for making money. MacOS X ? You have to develop a new kind of software because the OS comes with quite a lot of free (and good) applications (Mail, iPhoto, iMovie, iCal, iChat and so on).
– Then, in mind you have to deal with your preferences and the market : i love MacOS but i could have more purchases on Windows plateforme.
As independant dev. i’ll never write software for Windows, because there are too much informations (patches, hardware compatibility and so on…) around this plateforme ; it’s not compatible – for me – for building good software (it means with : support, documentation, tests…).
BeOS had nice APIs. Cocoa APIs are nice too. This is not the same language, that’s all.
Under OS X you can mix C++ and Objectif C. The first could be dedicated to your engine, the second to the UI.
Chris.
And Carbon is in C/C++ where Cocoa in in Objective C .. not pretty at all
Why apple didnt decide to go with C/C++ for Cocoa is a mystery to me.. of course it might have something to do with the inventor of Objective C.
Cocoa can be programmed with Obj-C and Obj-C++. Obj-C is a superset of C and Obj-C++ is a superset of C++. So I really don’t understand why you’re complaining. Do you want less choice?
A shame they didnt use a real Unix kernel.
That’s not much of a comment. What are you missing?
On my B/W G3 it crashes every 10-20 mins. with a kernel panic. AND NO.. i dont have any 3. party hardware in it!
Did you erase the HD before installing? Did you install Jaguar over a previous version? Did you install something that screws it up on a low-level (or did it crash from the beginning after you installed it)?
Which is also the cause of the huge binaries we see on OS X.
So? I’d rather have bigger apps that are simple to install than a mess of registries, dll hell and installers. How many cents of harddisk space does it really cost to have packaged apps? How many dollars of time do you save when you want to install, move, remove, backup and restore software? Of course, I guess that you are a Linux-user so your time is free
Honestly, most of these are entirely unimpressive.
1) The backward compatability / easy migration API (Carbon+Classic) are kept seperate from the brand new libraries (Cocoa). Thus:
a) pollution doesn’t occur
>>>>>>
What exactly is “pollution” in the context of APIs? On Windows NT, the Win32 API is entirely seperate from the Win16 API as well.
b) at the same time backward compatability and easy migration are maintained
>>>
Kinda like between Win16 and Win32 (which was mostly just a recompile and some checking of data type assumptions).
c) The GUI logically connects to the APIs
>>>>>>>
And in Win32 or Qt or GTK, they don’t?
2) The framework is built on top of Unix and thus can support X and fully network transparent applications
>>>>>>>>
Being built on top of UNIX isn’t a necessity for remote network apps. And supporting X does you absolutely no good if native MacOS apps can’t use it to do remote GUI. On WinXP, on the other hand, native apps work perfectly remotely.
3) Java has its own API and thus Java apps can run with the performance of native apps
>>>>>>>>>
Ok, actual advancement, I’ll give you that. But it also makes Java apps non-cross-platform, and because of the JVM, they still run slower than native apps.
4) Programming tools are included free with the OS and these tools support the interface guidelines. So the interface guidelines are actually followed.
>>>>>>>
Kinda like with Linux and *BSD and BeOS?
5) The system has native pdf support and thus WYSIWYG is actually possible
>>>>>>>>>
Native PDF support is not a prequisite for WYSIWYG. Windows and MacOS 9 have been doing WYSIWYG for years.
6) The system has a built in 3D library which is industry standard and thus on the higher end hardware (and all the hardware in about 2 years ) a 3D environment can be integrated fully with the GUI
>>>>>>
You mean it has OpenGL? Like Windows and Linux and BeOS? As for the 3D environment integrated with the GUI:
Quartz Extreme doesn’t accelerate drawing, just window effects and compositing. That makes it second rate compared to stuff like Longhorn and EVAS.
7) The system provides an open music and video standard as part of the gui for all multimedia applications
>>>>>>>>
You mean like OpenML? Or aRts?
8) The Kernal is fully modular so it can support an infinite number of GUIs if needed (it currently supports 3)
>>>>>>>>>
What does the kernel being modular have to do with supporting lots of GUIs? Linux (even when it wasn’t modular back around 2.0) supported a theoretically infinite number of GUIs as well!
9) Because of resource forks and more static linking programs can be moved by moving their executable unlike in other GUIs.
>>>>>>
BeOS had attributes, NTFS has file streams, and XFS has attributes. Nothing new. And more static linking is bad, its just a cop-out because it is too hard to design a comprehensive application management solution. Just to note, I can move apps all over my Linux system and they still work.
10) Files can mount like devices and devices can be copied to files; fully abstracting hardware.
>>>>>>>
Which has been doable in UNIX for how many decades now? Its called a loopback device, its as old as the fricking hills.
Apache is not GPL…in fact it has its own license, which is a slightly modified BSD license (with advertising clause intact)
Commercial companies can and do release their own modified versions of Apache without releasing the source code…they just have to call it something other than apache
-bytes256
Thanks for the correction. I was just reaching too far for an example.
But would you agree that we can use Open Source software, like GIMP, to create artwork and sell the art?
Oh yeah, I get what you were saying…absolutely you can use Free/Open Source software like GIMP to create artwrk and sell the art. You can also use GCC and glibc and create commercial applications with them.
-bytes256
Because of resource forks and more static linking programs can be moved by moving their executable unlike in other GUIs.
BeOS had attributes, NTFS has file streams, and XFS has attributes. Nothing new. And more static linking is bad, its just a cop-out because it is too hard to design a comprehensive application management solution. Just to note, I can move apps all over my Linux system and they still work.
I think he meant the move from resource forks to packages and to more dynamic linking. He’s describing the old OS 9 mechanisms which have been replaced in OS X with more modern alternatives (or, in the case of forks, with more compatible ones).
BTW, can you move an applications directory to a different computer and have it work? Can you fully uninstall it by deleting just one dir/file?
BTW, can you move an applications directory to a different computer and have it work? Can you fully uninstall it by deleting just one dir/file?
In the months that I spent on OSX:
– A whole program in one package sounds like a good idea, but some developers go ahead and create extra directories in ../Users/you/Library or the System Library folder. It’s not as messy as Windows with orphaned DLLs and uninst.exe’s staying behind, but it’s enough to make an argument against that packaging system. For me at least
– As for moving apps to a different computer, some kid was caught at a CompUSA or some store, “stealing” Office X by copying the app folder onto his iPod. It really is that simple. I’ve seen some software (download and retail ones sold on CD) with install instructions as simple as “To install, drag <whatever> folder onto your Mac HD”
I’m a registered user of Pe and it’s wonderful to use in Be. I think that Maarten was in a bad position when Be folded. How can a person, whose work was inspired by BBEdit, then go to the platform where BBEdit is king and succeed, even if it surpassed BBEdit? When Mac users think of Mac text editors, they only think of one program. And if it isn’t BBEdit, then it’s BBEit Lite (which some light programmers use as their editor). And, beyond that, the third choice is, of all things, SimpleText. So, it would have been a hard, hard job being really successful there. The Windows situation was unfortunate, but I too, all other things being equal (meaning personal considerations especially) think he gave up too soon – Windows is a big, big market. And, in time, may have had an impact on Linux.
Up above, someone wrote, “I am using Pepper now on Jaguar (which works brilliantly by the way), and will continue using it for my prime editor a loooong long time. My hat off to Maarten – I really hope you reenter with Pepper under your arm again. I will watch for it!”. How is this? I may have missed something in the interview, but I thought Pepper would not run under Jaguar and that was one of the reasons he gave up? LOL, I did read it too, but maybe I should go back and re-read it.
I think it is true that Classic Mac OS was/is the easiest UI to learn. Someone spoke of “clutter” and I understand what they were saying but, actually, that is another part of OS 9 that is pretty much by itself in terms of UI – the System Folder. It is the only OS/UI I’ve ever known where even ordinary users, once they learned a few tricks, had no fear of going into the System Folder and working. Not just the Control Panels either, but weeding out conflicting extensions, going into the Preferences Folder and trashing corrupt preferences, etc. I don’t know if we’ll ever see that ease of use again. If you want to uninstall an application in Classic Mac OS, all you have to know to do is trash the application, look in the Extensions Folder and trash any extensions associated with it, same in the Control Panels and same in Preferences. And that’s it. That is/was the greatest beauty of the “old” Mac OS.
We Mac users screamed for a “modern” OS with true multitasking and pre-emptive memory. So, as a result, we got Steve back and Unix. I think Apple’s done a really good job overall with both the OS and the iApps, digital hub, style, trying to build a solid niche for itself to expand from. They’ve just got to get things sped up more!And it’s in the Finder, the windows, etc. where the problem is. Anyway, we asked for it and now we have it. But, until there is some sort of uI breakthrough I can’t think pf right now, it will never approach Classic Mac OS in the ways described above. Unix is just not like that. But, learning OS X is not difficult and I like it it very much – more speed though please – and lots of it!
A whole program in one package sounds like a good idea, but some developers go ahead and create extra directories in ../Users/you/Library or the System Library folder. It’s not as messy as Windows with orphaned DLLs and uninst.exe’s staying behind, but it’s enough to make an argument against that packaging system. For me at least.
It’s not perfect and there should be a facility to uninstall apps that need an uninstaller*. But in general it works very well and has saved me some time when I went to Jaguar (and decided to install it cleanly because of past experiments).
*There should be a indicator inside the package that is checked when you try to delete it. At that point a uninstaller can automatically kick in (if the software needs one). That would integrate the uninstaller almost seemlessly with the package system.
As for moving apps to a different computer, some kid was caught at a CompUSA or some store, “stealing” Office X by copying the app folder onto his iPod. It really is that simple. I’ve seen some software (download and retail ones sold on CD) with install instructions as simple as “To install, drag <whatever> folder onto your Mac HD”
I don’t believe in crippling the computer to make copyright infringement difficult. In the end you will be harmed even when you want to do legitimate things. Examples:
– WMA -> You can’t upgrade your computer or buy a new one without having to rip your songs again.
– Encrypted eBooks -> Can’t have the book be read to you or shown in a special reader. Too bad if your handicapped.
– CD-check -> Can’t play a game without having the CD in the drive (especially bad for laptop-users that want to leave the CD-drive at home and use an extra battery instead). Can’t make a (working) backup. If your kids break the CD, you have to buy the game again.
– DRM-enabled hardware -> you’ll be unable to get your own creations played. Only if you buy a license, the hardware will play the song you created yourself. Same will go for movies, software, ebooks, etc. You will have to pay before you can use or distribute the things you create yourself. The big corporations will probably control the licensing, so the only way to success is through them. They will decide what software you may use, the songs you may hear, what books you may read and what movies you may see.
So disappointed to hear Pepper is out of development. It’s Unicode support, support for plugins, simple UI were very cool. Best of luck to its developer.