Red Hat Diaries/006e

New Subtotals

It's time for the Christmas roundup. It's time to look back at the year gone by and add up the postive and subtract the negative. It's also time for the New Year's resolutions.

A lot of people have been following these Red Hat Diaries for the year they've been going on, and a lot of people have written to explain that they too, inspired by my enthusiasm, are planning to migrate to the Mac. I suppose most of them will think twice now.

Yet I would not directly discourage them. Macs are fun as toys - expensive toys to be sure, but at least to a certain extent they can be fun. A lot depends on where you go with your toy. I went into a bad neighbourhood; others might never wander off and get lost like that. I wish them well. I tell them to be careful with their money, and I wish them well.

I've spent around US$7000 on Macs and assorted Mac stuff in the past year. Most people can't see their way to such wanton expenditures. I could - but it still hurts. It still hurts because there was more than financial expenditure: there was a spiritual expense too - something that today definitely looks more like a spiritual waste.

I posed a question on Apple's own developers mailing list on 18 November.

The table view is, in my humble opinion, one of the most important of all GUI controls. When you start interfacing with databases, its use becomes vital. But there seems to be a lack of flexibility with regard to the Apple table view.

And I went on to explain what I was after and exactly what I meant. I benchmarked the Apple GUI with the Windows one - under conditions very favorable to Apple.

To make matters even more impartial, I used not my own code, but that of what is supposed to be an Apple programming guru - Aaron Hillegass. The benchmark showed that his programming and the Apple API left a lot to be desired, to say the least.

Naturally, with all the time, money, blood, sweat, and tears I'd blindly invested in this platform, I was distressed. And yet the shock I had felt up to this point was nothing like the one waiting around the corner. To my posting I got replies like the following.

I'd be glad to help if you paid me.

You probably rigged the tests to make Microsoft look good.

You must be a very sloppy programmer. You can't blame Apple for that.

(Note: I specifically did not even use my own code, and the fellow who made that crude remark knew that, and was a friend of the author of the code. He was just being 'irrationally nasty' - it's an 'Apple' thing.)

'I have never in my life...' And I think most of my colleagues haven't either. Strange how the Lilliputian kingdom that is Apple should engender such tyranny at the top; yet, knowing what one does about human nature, it should not be surprising. Small towns are cruel; big cities offer freedom; flies cultivate lords. Microsoft users don't rally around a flag - they just shrug, curse their screens, and move on. Apple people walk around with sunburned noses and claim they are the abused underdog.

Quite a posture.

OK, time to tally.

• Syd's iBook. She'll keep that - she likes it. She doesn't do more than play this balloon game to wind down after a day at the office. Occasionally she'll take the box on trips with her, and then the people in the conference room will go 'ahhhhhhhh!' when she takes it out of her attache, and she'll take a few notes on it. And she'll do a bit of e-mail on it, but that's all. She doesn't have sophisticated needs, and the little her iBook can do suits her fine.
• My TiBook. At worst it's an expensive DVD player. With a very noisy fan. I can watch the lifelike icons bounce up and down in the dock; I can get stoned on the Steve Jobs Summer of Love light show in iTunes; I can listen to music; I can do a bit of e-mail too; but I cannot do my work on that machine. It's not flexible enough. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, it's way too clumsy a machine.
• The Apple Care program. Extends your warranty for another two years. No point in it. I will get one for Syd if she wants it, but I could care less. Syd's box is a toy, she knows it, and she doesn't want more. My box is of course a toy too, but I don't want a toy - I want a workhorse. But all I got for my money was an expensive toy. If it fails and breaks down, if the screen gets funny red lines; if the keyboard starts ruining the screen as many users have noted; if the graphite covering the fabulous titanium starts to wear off and the box starts looking really ugly; I don't care. I won't be using it that much anyway, and as it is incapable of doing my day-to-day business, I will hardly miss it. I simply don't have the time.
• Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, Aaron Hillegass, $50. Toilet paper.
• Building Cocoa Applications, Garfinkel & Mahoney, $50. Not good enough for toilet paper.
• Cocoa Programming, Raymond Anguish, $50. Not a bad book, but the author is an insufferable twit.
• Vervante's documentation of the Apple API, $340. Still haven't opened them. Somebody want them cheap?

The turds on Apple's mailing list are probably hoping I will go away. I won't. I'll be here to spank their insignificant behinds into oblivion. It doesn't matter if I am developing for the Apple platform or not - I call them as I see them, and I will be doing a lot of calling where they are concerned. And I know they don't realize what they've got themselves into.

The girl in the picture on this page has the right attitude. Find a secluded beach on an ocean, sit down in the sand and meditate. Close your eyes and listen to the rush of the sea, the sighs of mother earth. Focus on the eternal, and in so doing, shut out the fabulous follies of humankind.

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