Re: NTLK Re: MacOS X?

From: Laurent Daudelin (laurent_daudelin@fanniemae.com)
Date: Fri Sep 08 2000 - 09:17:18 CDT


"Jason M. Smith" wrote:
>
[snip!]
>
> So, to access the Newton over AppleTalk on Ethernet... it
> looks like the Carbon app would be able to *see* the Newton, but not
> establish a connection to it through AppleTalk. Am I correct in
> this? Any OT gurus out there?

Not an OT guru, but without going into any NDA violation, I can testify
that NCU sees and connects to my 2100 on AppleTalk over Ethernet.

>
> Since NIE is available on the NewtonOS 2.x units, would it be
> possible to roll a new Docking solution on both ends from scratch,
> bypassing the Dock protocol that seems to give everyone fits?

Probably.

[snip!]
>
> >> This reminds me very much of the claims that the move to PPC
> >>was going to kill Apple, since there was no way they could possibly
> >>make 68K emulation work, and if they did, it wouldn't work well
> >>enough to make a difference.
> >
> >It was much easier that time, since the OS philosophy didn't change.
>
> No, just all the implementation...

The little problem here with OS X is that not only they change the core
OS, but they also decided to revamp the interface. I think we should
keep these 2 things separate, as the GUI doesn't have anything to do
with running a Classic application under OS X. I've been using for
sometime and it's nice. The display is fabulous. The anti-alias text
everywhere is very nice to your eyes.

>
> >> >And remember that making FAT was easy to do so that we, MacOS
> >> >developer, still make FAT programs. But making PPC Carbon/PPC Classic
> >> >[CFM]/68k Classic becomes much harder. The 68k market is currently
> >> >being abandonned, but the classic non carbon PPC market (i.e. before
> >> >OS 8) will be, too.
> >>
> >> Yup, it will.
> >
> >And? Many people are still using old macs. They can't afford new
> >ones. You don't want to develop for them? Sorry, but most
> >developer's market is not Photoshop's.
>
> Agreed, but go back and look at my argument on the shrinking
> of that market over the next few years... it *will* happen. There's
> no way around it. In two to three years, the balance may have
> shifted enough so that you see Cocoa as the proper choice for your
> market. And no, I don't think two to three years is too short a
> time... the benefits to the user are going to make MacOS X the most
> eagerly wanted upgrade ever, IMHO. MacOS 9 migration was a drop in
> the bucket compared to this. :) Let's face it, if you had an older
> machine running System 7, MacOS 9 didn't offer *that* many reasons to
> upgrade. It was a good solid leap, but not compelling. MacOS X will
> be, I believe. It has the stability (I think the record so far on my
> machine at work is 8 months uptime, and that's only because I had to
> move offices...), the power, and the consumer technologies they've
> come to expect from Apple. Plus some new goodies. ;)

Oh yes! Now, whenever I have an application that doesn't behave under OS
X, it just gets ejected, leaving the OS untouched! How nice and how
welcome as a change!

[snip!]
>
> >If they remove the ability to patch, it will be even more weak.
> >Besides, the patch ability is part of the MacOS spirit. People can
> >use third party software to change the appearance/interface with
> >small hacks. Those developers are the strength of Apple. And as I
> >heard it, this is over. Poor choice.
>
> Then you heard wrong. The mechanism has changed, but the
> flexibility is still there... in fact, I'd say it's increased, but in
> an *intelligent* way.
>
> Patching is powerful.
>
> Patching is also an extremely abusable loophole to screw up
> your system. Can you say 'extensions conflict'? Almost impossible
> under the new system... and you can 'patch' nearly anything in the
> blasted system. Networking, file systems, the UI... you name it,
> it's likely patchable.
>
> Also, Objective-C has this nice little thing called 'posing',
> where a subclass can stand in for the superclass, system wide. Want
> all your windows to have a purple border? Subclass NSWindow, add the
> purple border, tell it to pose as NSWindow system-wide. Done. (Oh,
> sorry - that's only for all the Cocoa apps... the Carbon and Classic
> apps can't play there.)

And then you have classes for almost any OS-based functionalities, like
NSThread, NSPipe, NSTask and so on. Very powerful. And since all the GUI
is based on classes, you can always subclass to achieve any kind of
patching. Very elegant and very powerful, indeed.

-Laurent.
=====================================================================
Laurent Daudelin Developer, Adaptive Infrastructure, CIS
Fannie Mae Washington, DC, USA
Phone: 703-833-4266 mailto:Laurent_Daudelin@fanniemae.com
           ********** Usual disclaimers apply **********

***************************************
NewtonTalk brought to you by:

EVOTE.COM -- the ESPN of politics on the Internet! All the players, all the news, and the hottest analysis and features (plus 'toons!) anywhere.... visit http://www.evote.com today!

***************************************
Need Subscribe/Unsubscribe info?

Visit the NewtonTalk section at http://www.planetnewton.com



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Sep 12 2000 - 00:00:07 CDT