Weblog | Cadent Computing Inc.

wineCellar Release 1.0 Available

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 02:50:26 -0800

I cannot believe I have not done a weblog since August!! Wow, has time flew by and have I been busy! I hope, going forward, I will be able to be more diligent in updating this weblog.

In this weblog, I'm proud to announce the full release of the Cadent wineCellar application! This is a unique data storage/browsing application aimed at wine collectors; both serious and amateurs (I put myself in this later group).

I expect I will be creating several weblog entries on this product and its evolution in the months ahead. For now, I just want to invite all Mac users who collect or track wines to download the 30-day trial of this application and give it a try. Also check out the screencasts I have done describing how to use this product (in lieu of a manual) and download the sample wine database to get a quick start at trying out the wine browsing features.

At $20 US we have kept the price of this powerful tool down to a minimum. With Christmas around the corner, this would make a great gift for a wine collecting family member or friend!

Apple and Objective-C

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:34:09 -0700

I have had the opportunity to do a lot of MacOS X development lately using Xcode and the entire Apple Cocoa framework. On the whole, I am impressed and have a great appreciation with what Apple has been able to achieve.

Objective-C is an excellent extension to C striking a good balance between introducing OO programming concepts without loosing the simplicity of raw C. I've many times criticized C++ for adding too much complexity to the task of programming to be useful in the embedded/real-time disciplines. I won't go into a rant of C++ here but rather direct you to a paper by Felix von Leitner which summarizes many problems with C++. And don't get me started on that cursed STL library!!

I'm still getting into the details of Objective-C so I won't say it has avoided all of the issues I see with C++. Time will tell on that front.

A criticism I do have is not with Objective-C, but with how Apple's Cocoa frameworks are using it. A new curse word for me is "late binding". After banging my head against the debugging brick wall with some MacOS X programs, I can say that I absolutely hate the late binding Apple does with their GUI frameworks. These things make testing near impossible. Late binding adds a dynamic aspect to running Cocoa programs making them operate much like interpreted languages. I cannot use interpreted languages for mission critical programming like network devices. They are way to difficult to QA and qualify. As such, I have concluded I can never use Cocoa frameworks in such projects. Objective-C, yes, that I can use, but Cocoa frameworks, no way.

Message to Apple: introducing even more runtime dynamic behaviours like garbage collection and the new Grand Central Station are going to make program more and more difficult to QA.

iPhone 3G: Do I Get One?

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:39:44 -0700

The 3G iPhone is being released tomorrow. I am struggling on whether I plan to get one or not. The big problem for me: I am in Canada and Roger's is just not a good company to have to deal with and the CRTC (our regulatory agency) seems to like the monopoly which, in my opinion, it had a big hand in creating.

For me, this goes beyond a personal toy. I signed Cadent up for the iPhone dev program and was accepted. We are ready to go and have a couple of good ideas we want to develop. I would like an iPhone for development purposes. However, to get locked into a crappy Roger's 3 year contract just to have a development device does not make good business sense. Over three years, such a contract will cost us over $3,000 when taxes come into play (our government is in on this gravy train). As I'm watching iPhone users rush to the trough of free (as in beer), I cannot justify spending $3,000 along with development effort just to make no sales just because I am, gasp, actually expecting to get some sort of return on investment.

I've heard nothing from Apple about the availability of iPhones to developers for dev systems (hello, Apple, where are you?). Perhaps we will hear something tomorrow. Otherwise, I am finding it difficult to justify committing to developing for the iPhone under an oppressive Roger's contract.

WWDC Thoughts 2

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:35:53 -0700

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.

WWDC Thoughts 1

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:50:30 -0700

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?

iPhone Mad Rush

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:23:36 -0700

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.

WWDC Sold Out!

Thu, 15 May 2008 02:15:48 -0700

I signed up to attend the WWDC this year back in March. I'm certainly glad I did as it appears that WWDC has actually sold out (http://www.macworld.com/article/133468/2008/05/wwdcsoldout.html).

Makes one wonder if there will be a market for scalping WWDC tickets.

So far, I've attended two previous WWDC's: 2005 and 2007. The 2005 WWDC was pretty good and manageable with about 3,000 attendees. Last year, however, it was a bit crowded with closer to 5,000 people. It will be interesting to see what numbers "sold out" will translate into. Seriously, Apple needs to consider splitting the WWDC up into multiple conferences for the different areas (i.e. iPhone, IT, and Dev).

And the hotel rates!!! Wow have they gone up since last year! Last year I settled on the Parc 55 at $190US / night. This year I had to scramble to get a hotel for about $340US / night. I'm in a bit of sticker shock on that one. After a bit of investigation, I found that the WWDC is overlapping a diabetes scientific conference by two days (Monday and Tuesday) and for those two days, hotel rates are way up. Way to go Apple.

Interop

Tue, 06 May 2008 01:34:51 -0700

This web blog has been quiet for the past two weeks as I needed to attend the Interop conference in Las Vegas last week. It is always interesting to see what is going on in the wonderful world of networking. I must admit, however, that the Interop show is getting a bit tiresome for me.

My first Interop show was over 10 years ago (either 1995 or 1996...I can't remember which). Back then, I remember there was a lot of excitement and variation in broadband solutions. ATM, Sonet, Frame Relay were all there every bit as strong as Ethernet. Money, as well as optimism, was plentiful.

The Interop of last week seemed to be more raft with pessimism. Shrinking budgets in most IT departments has the show a place for bargain hunting. The IT people I have talked to are trying to do more with less and are all hoping that Open Source solutions will come to their rescue.

Where does this leave the commercial networking solution companies which tend to be my biggest customers? The next few years will certainly be interesting if not challenging.

Cadent monitorLite Released!

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:04:08 -0700

As the Events and News sidebar indicates, this is a significant time for myself and Cadent. It represents a transition from pure contracting to a more product-based focus mixed with professional consulting and training services. I have even changed the company's name from Cadent Computer Consulting Inc. to Cadent Computing Inc. to better reflect this change. This will surely be an interesting, if not exciting, time!

Cadent monitorLite is a system utility for monitoring the processes/applications on your system. It is very much like Apple's Activity Monitor except rather than showing information in a list, the processes are represented in a hierarchical graph. Those experienced in software development know that this is really how processes run and is a more natural way to view what is going on inside of your machine.

I have developed this utility on the Mac to run universal for 10.4 and 10.5. I like using a Mac (even though throughout my consulting career, no one would "allow" me to bring a Mac to their site). I have always used a Mac to do my cross development embedded work and feel it has given me a headache-free workflow. That being said, I appreciate the Mac market is small for a utility like monitorLite and expect I will be converting it to Linux and perhaps Windows later this year.

With regards to the license, I would like to highlight some important points:

You can install monitorLite on as many machines as you own as long as you are only running it on one machine at any given time.
The above point does not apply to businesses: you need to purchase a license per unique user.
Once you buy a license to Cadent monitorLite you won't have to buy an upgrade. Whether it is going to 1.1 or 2.0, your license will be good. I may increase the price if more features are added to 2.0, and new buyers will need to pay the higher price, but an existing owner will not have to pay for the upgrade.
New utilities based on the monitorLite platform may be developed but those will be under a different name and will be a completely new product from a licensing perspective. However, you can purchase a license to these new utilities by only paying the difference between what you paid for monitorLite and the new utility.

I have made the above decisions in hopes of showing my gratitude to those who buy licenses to my software. Many times I hear software buyers complaining about the frequent and high cost of upgrades. Many feel they have become ATM machines to the software vendors. With the above policies, I am hoping to avoid making people feel that way about Cadent.