Weblog Archive June 2008

WWDC Thoughts 2


Many bloggers have been commenting on one of the more subtle announcements at WWDC: Apple's adoption of SproutCore.  I had never heard of this technology before and decided to take a look.

As an embedded/real time programmer, the prospect of web-apps never really excited me.  I just did not consider web technologies mature enough to make web-apps a good replacement for native apps.  Java tried to make web-apps possible, but in my opinion, failed miserably (in a future posting I'll get into more detail of why I am so hard on Java).  Everything else I have tried left me feeling like I was dealing with a patchwork "Frankenstein" rather than a well-crafted native app.

Recently, two technologies have come to my attention which are attempting to make web-apps more native-like: Microsoft's Silverlight, and Adobe's AIR.  I took a look at these and found Silverlight to be confusing and not that useful to anyone but die-hard .NET programmers; it is not a platform-independent open standard.  I do not like closed standards.  Adobe's AIR feels clunky to me and way over-engineered.  There is no elegance or craftsmanship to what they pulled together bringing us back to the whole "Frankenstein" feel for an application.

When it was pointed out to me at the WWDC that SproutCore is in competition with Silverlight and Adobe's AIR, I got very interested.  What I found was a good evolution to accepted standard technologies done as an open source project.  So far, so good.  I was impressed with the new MobileMe apps which were demonstrated and someone said they were built with SproutCore.  Wow, now I am impressed.  These apps have a true native feel and deal with much of the ugliness of pass endeavors (i.e. Java).  My thinking on web-apps has changed thanks to SproutCore.

The 3G iPhone may have been the announcement getting all of the attention, but the technology which has the potential of changing the nature of apps, in my opinion, is SproutCore making it the most important of all the announcements.


29-Jun-08

WWDC Thoughts 1


After taking a couple of days to digest the Apple WWDC keynote, I have some initial thoughts I would like to share:

  • The iPhone is exciting if not overhyped.  It is estimated that over 50% of the 5200 attendees are here to learn about the iPhone.
  • The dev environment for the iPhone is "elegant".


I'm going to throw a quote I got here in one of the sessions: "We want to make sharp scalpels rather than rusty Swiss Army knifes".  This, in my opinion, is what separates the Apple products from all others.  Yes, Google's Android can have the same look and feel as the iPhone (and is open source), but the tools for developers to get to that look and feel are primitive compared to what Apple is offering.  Apple's dev environment is that precise, sharp scalpel.  The open source equivalent is more akin to the rusty Swiss Army knife: what will take me 2 months to do with open source would only take me 2 weeks using Apple's toolset.

To the end users, the results are the same so many will argue that I should go with open source to avoiding being locked in.  Well, as a craftsman I can't agree to this argument.  Consider: wood artisans like good tools.  Given a choice between Lee Valley and Wallmart, they will call the choice a no-brainer: Lee Valley all the way.  It is true that Wallmart's generic tools are cheaper, but that is of little importance to the true craftsman.  I doubt that wood artisans would call themselves "locked in" to Lee Valley.  They just really like to use what Lee Valley has to offer.

I see programming much like this: yes, I can go with free, but would rather go with the higher quality dev environment which enables me to get my job done faster, easier, and with better quality.  It makes me shine as a contractor and reduces the costs to my customers.

With the iPhone SDK, I do not have to spend weeks investigating all of the options available to me and can instead focus in on the product I am trying to produce.  I have one place to get support from without all of the abuse the open source forums garner (I've given up on using forums because of this).  Apple's App Store means I also don't have to spend a couple of weeks working out an ecommerce, packaging, and licensing solution (assuming I am trying to actually make money rather than just working for free).  Now, if I am working for free or doing something to educate, them it is open source all the way.

Yup, Apple has won me over as a fan of their new iPhone SDK.  Does it show?


11-Jun-08

iPhone Mad Rush


As the WWDC approaches, the hype-machine surrounding the iPhone SDK seems to be ramping up.  I am looking forward to attending the WWDC to see what innovative additions are being made to the MacOS X operating system and development tools.  However, the big push of the iPhone SDK has me wondering if that topic will dominate the week.

Don't get me wrong, I see the iPhone as a fantastic device (even though I cannot get one in Canada) and was planning to write a couple of little utilities for it.  But the number of people rushing to the iPhone product "trough" is overwhelming.  I remember reading somewhere than over 100,000 SDK downloads have happened already.

My question is this: with so many people developing for the iPhone, and many of those probably charging very little or nothing for their work, is there any value in joining the rush and taking the time to figure the SDK out and do some development?  I'm beginning to believe the answer is no.  Perhaps attending WWDC will change my mind.


5-Jun-08

Copyright © 1997-2009 Cadent Computing Inc.

All rights reserved