Re: Why has the Metrowerks sign been taken down?

In article <ejalbert-1DFB97.10410308072005@localhost>, Eric Albert
<ejalbert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I was trying to guess how many menus File Buddy has. I'm sorry to say
> that I haven't run File Buddy in a few years, so I didn't have much to
> go on there. Converting 80-100 menus is probably a day or two (maybe
> three) of work.

Right, but I beleive Larry's point is still very valid looking forward.
I don't want to to put words in his mouth, but I think the logic goes
like this:

1. Let's say it did take 2-3 days to covert those menus.

2. There were literally thousands of OS apps moving to OS X over the
period of time Larry was was referring. Some much larger than File
Buddy, others smaller. For the sake of argument, let's say it took an
average of one full work day to convert an app's menu resources to the
nib format.

3. 1000 dev apps * 1 man-day to convert the menu resources = 1000
man-days of effort.

4. Apple could have invested, let's err on the side against Larry's,
30 man-days to properly implement a menu rsrs importer.

5. Had Apple done 4., the Macintosh developer ecosystem would have had
970 man-days of additional effort available for other things to make
apps better and/or releasing apps faster.

And we're jsut talking menus here.

This is an anecdote, but the generalization is that there is a massive
leveraging effect wrt Apple documentation, dev tools and OS bug fixes.
Any time Apple can spend X man-hours to improve any of those 3 things,
it provides additionaly productivity to Mac Dev universe many orders of
magnitude greater than Apple's effort.

Eric, no complaints wrt Universal Binary pdf - timely, and addressed
all of my questions - so good job with that. Can you write all new
Apple documentation? :)
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why has the Metrowerks sign been taken down?
    ... >> I was trying to guess how many menus File Buddy has. ... Let's say it did take 2-3 days to covert those menus. ... Apple could have invested, let's err on the side against Larry's, ... For some feature wouldn't have been released, ...
    (comp.sys.mac.programmer.codewarrior)
  • Re: Why has the Metrowerks sign been taken down?
    ... > I was trying to guess how many menus File Buddy has. ... Converting 80-100 menus is probably a day or two (maybe ... menus (and to be clear, I'm talking about menus not in a menu bar, as ... So Apple saved a few days of on ...
    (comp.sys.mac.programmer.codewarrior)
  • Re: Why has the Metrowerks sign been taken down?
    ... >> to read 'MENU' resources and convert them into menus in a nib. ... >> Sure, there are other areas where IB could stand improvement, but Apple ... - And as I understand it, if you're porting an application to Cocoa, ... >> hired another engineer, and done both. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.programmer.codewarrior)
  • Re: CSS drop-down menus
    ... Perhaps someone should remind everyone here that drop down menus are often a bloody nuisance to make and maintain, ... Or, more correctly, Apple stole it from PARC, MS stole it from Apple ... ... Should we make a Web site that deviates from the most-commonly used menu structure in the most-common OS? ... I don't know about you, dorayme, but I enjoy not having to guess what human interface I need to employ. ...
    (comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets)
  • Re: Why has the Metrowerks sign been taken down?
    ... >>> Sure, there are other areas where IB could stand improvement, but Apple ... >>> should have provided robust importing of dialogs and menus in the early ... > - And as I understand it, if you're porting an application to Cocoa, ... > lame, buggy IB for Carbon developers, who--last time I ...
    (comp.sys.mac.programmer.codewarrior)