“… the goal here is to eliminate 80% of the code you have to write for your app” … That’s why he chose Objective C over C++

Would this be a good time to point out that the C++ to Objective C conversion in your earlier edenx update post somehow managed to produce more than double the amount of code, in both line and character counts?

If this is the video I’m thinking of — and I admit I haven’t re-watched it — then one thing I thought was interesting was the question and response about OpenDoc, which he had just effectively canned. (If you remember OpenDoc, it was a fairly complex, open-standard component embedding protocol developed by Apple with IBM as an alternative to Microsoft’s COM.)

A questioner asked about OpenDoc, and his reply said two things: it had some technological flannel about how one might be able to do similar things with other technologies such as Java; and it suggested that OpenDoc was largely irrelevant to users anyway.

What I found interesting and typical about this was the way the broad statement could be spot on (OpenDoc was indeed largely irrelevant to users and a technical distraction rather than a desirable goal for a company in Apple’s position) at the same time as the detail being so wrong: his answer about Java made no sense at all. (Of course there was probably a third aspect not mentioned, which was that working with IBM and open standards bodies didn’t appear to be a productive use of the company’s time.)

We see this in hindsight as cutting through the detail, getting to the point, envisioning the future, understanding the things that really mattered, etc.

But how would you tell the difference at the time between Jobs and some equally charismatic but essentially clueless leader? I know I have listened to many business leaders produce compelling, but difficult to substantiate, talk about the future and how to get there, while misunderstanding or misrepresenting technical details in a way that infuriated me as a developer and made it very hard to trust any of the broader things they said. What would I have thought of Jobs, if I had been there as an Apple developer?

http://beust.com/weblog/2010/07/26/local-message-bus/

However — it’s a pretty hopeless article. It’s all very well as a rant, but it’s basically an extremely personal rant against a group of people who, the article hints, are in fact some of the likely readers of the blog — but whose existence is not actually supported in the article. The response to it is pretty much as you’d expect if you posted the typical diatribe against smug clueless Apple users (or whatever) in an Apple-friendly blog: of course there is some truth in the complaints, but much of the article is a long way from being indisputable and the manner is pure provocation. Was it actually intended to achieve anything positive?

I think the essence of the outrage in the comments can be summarised as: You seem to be criticising people like me, in ways that are really kind of personal, just because we don’t show much interest in the things you think are most important.

In that xkcd article, the Linux guy is shown as out of touch with what the typical consumer user wants — but so what? He’s getting what _he_ wants, and he’s happy.

I do agree however that platforms on which it’s easy to sell software are more successful. Example : Windows. Counter example : Linux.

Regarding Apple imposing more and more tech restrictions, well, I obviously really hope it won’t happen. The backlash would quickly reach huge proportions. Just yesterday a rumor circulated that OS X 10.7 would only run Apple signed binaries. The comments were telling enough, even if few bought it at first.

About the software quality control issue, I disagree with you. Apple can much more easily audit a binary compiled in XCode, knowing then that it will only use permitted APIs. That falls more under the “security control” category though, but it’s a valid possibility nonetheless.

Let’s wait and see what happens next with the download pages . May be it’s just a temporary glitch.