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Mountain Lion focuses on Cocoa, drops X11 and deprecates Carbon Core - Page 3

post #81 of 99
2/20/12 at 1:12am
I come from the commercial UNIX workstation market, so I've a lot of software which runs with X11 (both own code and third-party code). I've always liked OSX because it's the kind of rock-solid OS I've always used to with UNIX workstations.

However, I've seen a direction change in Apple for the last year. They want to change OSX in a way opposite to its natural evolution. First it was Lion, introducing broken behavior that you can't customize (Autosave and Versions), and now it's X11. While the bundled X11 version is outdated, I firmly believe Apple should have invested in X11, developing in it a way that X11 software could be made Aqua-friendly if you wish so.

Well, it's now nonsense to argue an Aqua-friendly X11 development, since they're getting rid of Aqua anyway.

I'm not against merging iOS and OSX. Please merge them, but do it in the right way.

Anyway, this is no longer Apple. This is Microsoft with a fruit logo.

I've serious doubts I'll be using OSX two years from now.

Sad because it was a great OS, but if they trash it I'm not going to use a trashed OS, of course.
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post #82 of 99
2/20/12 at 1:37am
I guess this isn't important and is just a quibble, but it just annoys me to see Carbon conflated with Classic, especially regarding the term "Blue Box". The article doesn't come right out and equate them, but seems to imply that one morphed into the other, which isn't accurate. And, there are plenty of places on the web that simply assert that Blue Box refers to Carbon.

To set the record straight: Blue Box referred to Classic, i.e. the OS 9 emulation layer. It was basically OS 9 ported to a kind of virtual machine environment. It did not refer to Carbon, there were no plans for Carbon in the original conception of OS X.

Carbon was added later, after protestations from third party software vendors (in particular, Microsoft and Adobe made it clear to Apple that if the old API was only supported in an emulation environment, they wouldn't be doing any further upgrades of their Mac software).

Carbon was never any color "box" because they weren't really using the box terminology any longer at that point.

BTW, it is not a trivial distinction. Classic was pretty easy to do, but Carbon (a native implantation of the OS 9 API) basically required Apple to finish the Rhapsody project that NeXTStep was supposed to supplant, and delayed the introduction of OS X (I'm thinking it added almost a year to the development time, but I can't actually remember the exact figure).

And just to comment on the main topic, yeah, it kinda sucks that they are dropping X11. I guess I'm not surprised, but would it be that much effort to bring it along?
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post #83 of 99
2/20/12 at 2:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by lightknight View Post

I don't know if that is good or bad, but anyway I'm not getting ML.

I can't tolerate to have a world where computer makers decide if I may, or not, install stuff on my machine as is the case on the iPhone. If Apple starts doing that, how long will it be before Microsoft and friends do it? Yeah right.

I'm really scared that people go "oh, security is so much better like that, let's go walled garden as with the iPhone". Wake up call, this is computing. This is BAD. Yeah, Big Brother's seems a great world to live in. Secure and all. It's still BAD.

And please people, don't go "it's optional". It's optional IN ML. Next release, it might not be. Worse, it's the STANDARD setting! I hope Apple changes their mind. If they don't, I'll have to go back to Microsoft when ML is standard on Apple machines (I dare not call them "computers"... if they're not anymore).

Apple, think different? They're turning into a worse IBM than IBM ever was, a more controlling Google than Google ever was.

This is scary.

That is hilarious. X11 becomes an optional download for those that need it, and you call it scary?

Perspective.
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post #84 of 99
2/20/12 at 2:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by nkhm View Post

That is hilarious. X11 becomes an optional download for those that need it, and you call it scary?

Perspective.

Yes, it's scary because he also knows what Mountain Lion is. The whole ML stuff is pretty scary.
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post #85 of 99
2/20/12 at 4:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ecs View Post

Yes, it's scary because he also knows what Mountain Lion is. The whole ML stuff is pretty scary.

Scary only if you are chicken little.

There was a lot of sky is falling when they deprecated java. Except it's now with oracle who is more likely to maintain it on some reasonable timeframe. Same with X11.

Frankly anyone needing X11 as a dev and can't download it is trolling or not a dev.

Wahhhh...ML has no dev friendly features! It's dumbing down OSX!

Bullshit. Code signing built into the OS means it will be one of the most secure desktops AND increase enterprise usage without CPU hogging crap like bit9. Meaning more potential enterprise customers. They also gave us the Mac App store with Lion and improved features with ML increasing our potential reach with consumers and revenue stream without having to eff around with our own storefront. A huge assed boon for most indy devs.

Folks whining about OSX changes aren't devs making product people are buying or using.
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post #86 of 99
2/20/12 at 4:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by nht View Post

Scary only if you are chicken little.

ML (as a whole, not just this X11 subject) is scary because it confirms that what we saw in Lion (Apple deciding you don't need to have total control of your files nor your machine) wasn't an accident, but the new Apple direction.

Of course, it's scary only if you're chicken little, because fortunately there're OS that are not going this way, and we can move if we want a true OS. I said "scary" because it's scary to lose the OS you loved, but it seems the Mac is dead. Period. Go use another OS without the Lion/ML wrong direction.

Btw, the App Store concept is scary as well.
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post #87 of 99
2/20/12 at 6:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ecs View Post

ML (as a whole, not just this X11 subject) is scary because it confirms that what we saw in Lion (Apple deciding you don't need to have total control of your files nor your machine) wasn't an accident, but the new Apple direction.

Explain in what way you're pretending you don't have total control over your files.
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post #88 of 99
2/20/12 at 8:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

Explain in what way you're pretending you don't have total control over your files.

They changed the file I/O paradigm, and now a file is always open. There's no such thing as a closed file. Did you install Lion, right?
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post #89 of 99
2/20/12 at 11:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by nagromme View Post

I have old Carbon games I still like to play!

And I also have an old Mac that plays them just great So I’ll hang on to a legacy machine, if legacy apps are important to me. While I’d love the “idea” of having every app I ever owned still run on a new machine I purchase in 2014, reality is that things move forward! And I reap the benefits when they do.

(I hope—someday—that Classic/Rosetta/Carbon/etc. are possible and legal in some kind of emulator or 3rd-party environment, the way I can run Amiga apps on my Mac today.)

The generally accepted meaning of the term "deprecated", with respect to a programming API, is that the API is not recommended for incorporation in any new software going forward because it is slated to be removed in some future release.

If the word "deprecated" has been used correctly in this article, then it stands to reason that the APIs have been duly marked as off-limits for developers writing new code, but the binary entry points themselves are still present and accessible to any old software that happens to depend upon them.

Translation: Provided the article is using accurate language, there is no need to panic just yet - your old Carbon games (compiled for 32-bit x86) will still run for the time being.
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post #90 of 99
2/20/12 at 12:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ecs View Post

They changed the file I/O paradigm, and now a file is always open. There's no such thing as a closed file. Did you install Lion, right?

No, a file is not "always open".
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post #91 of 99
2/20/12 at 2:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ecs View Post

ML (as a whole, not just this X11 subject) is scary because it confirms that what we saw in Lion (Apple deciding you don't need to have total control of your files nor your machine) wasn't an accident, but the new Apple direction.

ML doesn't add any restrictions to what you can do with your files or your machine, and neither did Lion for that matter.
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post #92 of 99
2/21/12 at 12:16am
Quote:
They changed the file I/O paradigm, and now a file is always open. There's no such thing as a closed file. Did you install Lion, right?

Really? Try using lsof command in Terminal (you know what is it, right?) and then come back here and repeat what you've said.
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post #93 of 99
2/21/12 at 3:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dcorby23 View Post

Really? Try using lsof command in Terminal (you know what is it, right?) and then come back here and repeat what you've said.

Ok, you know what I'm saying but you pretend you didn't understand. Beginning with Lion, a file is "always open" in the sense that there's no longer a difference between a file in the disk and a file mapped in memory: Everything you modify in an app is saved in the disk file even if you don't save it, because there's no longer a separation between these two representations.

Such approach is very convenient for phones and tablets, because you're taking notes in a quick way and you want to have a backup of everything you did even if you didn't save it (somebody might call you while you were writing a note, and you don't want to lose that).

However, it's a severe annoyance when using a computer. When I work with a spreadsheet and I'm testing how it works, I don't want to save the modifications I did, because I was just testing it. When I'm viewing a file with Preview, and I rotate the orientation, I don't want to modify the file, because I was just viewing it --but I want to be able to save it if (and only if) I wish so. When I'm taking draft notes over a text document, and at the end I realize I want to discard the notes, I want to close the app without saving the changes, etc, etc, etc...

You can say it's easy to lock the file, or to duplicate it, or whatever... No, that's not easy, because it requires you to change your mind: In iOS, the system decides you want to save the file even if you don't want to. You can use a non-intuitive way for avoiding saving it, but it's not straightforward.

If all computer vendors, and all operating systems in the world adopted this new file I/O paradigm from today, it would be reasonable to learn it. But I'm using computers of different vendors everyday, and I'm not going to risk losing a file or modifying a file I don't want to modify, just because I forgot to have the "iPhone mindset" when using the Mac, or the "UNIX mindset" when using Linux. Sorry, I'm not going to risk my files.

Sorry, have a nice time with (Mountain) Lion, but I'm enough with Apple
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post #94 of 99
2/21/12 at 6:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tinman0 View Post

Consumers don't use X11, nor do businesses for that matter. I'm struggling to think what app other than Gimp uses X11 and frankly the Gimp developers have had long enough to port it properly to the Mac.

X11 is quite widespread in academia and the scientific world with a plethora of applications written specifically for it. The Macintosh presence in those areas has increased considerably during the last years, from what my own and other colleagues' personal experience can tell. I have no idea though about actual numbers and I believe that proportionally we (X11 users) are still a niche.

I use XQuartz since many years ago and in some way I am glad that Apple decided to abandon their own X11 in favor of XQuartz. Their coexistence caused some smaller or bigger annoyances in the past. However, I agree with this strategy as long as Apple lets anyone to install at will the community-maintained XQuartz. This is the case as of now, but locking down OS X in future major releases to prevent X11 installation will be a deal breaker for me. I will certainly miss the Mac and I will keep one or two old machines around, but I will definitely jump to Linux since I depend critically on X11.
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post #95 of 99
2/21/12 at 6:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ecs View Post

Ok, you know what I'm saying but you pretend you didn't understand. Beginning with Lion, a file is "always open" in the sense that there's no longer a difference between a file in the disk and a file mapped in memory: Everything you modify in an app is saved in the disk file even if you don't save it, because there's no longer a separation between these two representations.

Such approach is very convenient for phones and tablets, because you're taking notes in a quick way and you want to have a backup of everything you did even if you didn't save it (somebody might call you while you were writing a note, and you don't want to lose that).

However, it's a severe annoyance when using a computer. When I work with a spreadsheet and I'm testing how it works, I don't want to save the modifications I did, because I was just testing it. When I'm viewing a file with Preview, and I rotate the orientation, I don't want to modify the file, because I was just viewing it --but I want to be able to save it if (and only if) I wish so. When I'm taking draft notes over a text document, and at the end I realize I want to discard the notes, I want to close the app without saving the changes, etc, etc, etc...

You can say it's easy to lock the file, or to duplicate it, or whatever... No, that's not easy, because it requires you to change your mind: In iOS, the system decides you want to save the file even if you don't want to. You can use a non-intuitive way for avoiding saving it, but it's not straightforward.

If all computer vendors, and all operating systems in the world adopted this new file I/O paradigm from today, it would be reasonable to learn it. But I'm using computers of different vendors everyday, and I'm not going to risk losing a file or modifying a file I don't want to modify, just because I forgot to have the "iPhone mindset" when using the Mac, or the "UNIX mindset" when using Linux. Sorry, I'm not going to risk my files.

Sorry, have a nice time with (Mountain) Lion, but I'm enough with Apple

Thanks for the informative post. I had no idea that Lion handles files like that. Although I cannot assess it right away without using it for some time first, it looks worrisome.
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post #96 of 99
2/21/12 at 6:23am
By the way, here are the XQuartz mailing lists, for anyone interested to join.
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post #97 of 99
2/21/12 at 8:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ecs View Post

Ok, you know what I'm saying but you pretend you didn't understand. Beginning with Lion, a file is "always open" in the sense that there's no longer a difference between a file in the disk and a file mapped in memory: Everything you modify in an app is saved in the disk file even if you don't save it, because there's no longer a separation between these two representations
...
You can say it's easy to lock the file, or to duplicate it, or whatever... No, that's not easy, because it requires you to change your mind: In iOS, the system decides you want to save the file even if you don't want to. You can use a non-intuitive way for avoiding saving it, but it's not straightforward.

Any app that implements the Auto Save API (it is an opt-in feature -- the app developer must explicitly enable it), really ought to implement the Versioning API as well. You don't need to worry about blocking the system from auto-saving, because the most recent version to have been DELIBERATELY saved will always be preserved, with a single-click menu option allowing you to revert directly back to it, if the need ever arises.

In Lion, an auto-saved "document" isn't really just a file with a static snapshot of the document at a single point in time. Instead, such a "document" is inherently a versioned history, with the ability to revert back to previous versions at any time.

(If your App does not implement the Auto-Save and Versioning APIs, then its documents will be treated exactly the same in Lion as they always had been treated in older versions of OS X.)
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post #98 of 99
2/22/12 at 4:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by lfmorrison View Post

Any app that implements the Auto Save API (it is an opt-in feature -- the app developer must explicitly enable it), really ought to implement the Versioning API as well. You don't need to worry about blocking the system from auto-saving, because the most recent version to have been DELIBERATELY saved will always be preserved, with a single-click menu option allowing you to revert directly back to it, if the need ever arises.

In Lion, an auto-saved "document" isn't really just a file with a static snapshot of the document at a single point in time. Instead, such a "document" is inherently a versioned history, with the ability to revert back to previous versions at any time.

(If your App does not implement the Auto-Save and Versioning APIs, then its documents will be treated exactly the same in Lion as they always had been treated in older versions of OS X.)

Yes, and some software vendors implement Autosave+Versions as an optional preference. However, this is not true for Apple software: All Apple software, including Preview, TextEdit, iWork, and all their apps, have AutoSave+Versions enabled and you cannot disable it.

Sure, you can revert to an old version, but when you copy a file to a pendrive, to an internet server, to an external disk, or whatever, the version history is not copied with the file. Only the most recent content of the file is copied, so you're not always "safe" with the modifications you did on a file.

Also, even if you keep all versions, it's an annoyance. Most of the times that I use Preview, I use some of its tools just for viewing, and I don't want to save them. It's an annoyance to have to go to a previous version.

The same applies when you're testing an spreadsheet, or playing around with a text document.
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post #99 of 99
2/22/12 at 4:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ecs View Post

Yes, and some software vendors implement Autosave+Versions as an optional preference. However, this is not true for Apple software: All Apple software, including Preview, TextEdit, iWork, and all their apps, have AutoSave+Versions enabled and you cannot disable it.

Sure, you can revert to an old version, but when you copy a file to a pendrive, to an internet server, to an external disk, or whatever, the version history is not copied with the file. Only the most recent content of the file is copied, so you're not always "safe" with the modifications you did on a file.

Also, even if you keep all versions, it's an annoyance. Most of the times that I use Preview, I use some of its tools just for viewing, and I don't want to save them. It's an annoyance to have to go to a previous version.

The same applies when you're testing an spreadsheet, or playing around with a text document.

I have to admit: The notion of Preview *writing* anything to a file seems like the most counter-intuitive example of bad software design I've ever heard of.
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