Re: The mac for Java programmers
On Wed, 20 Aug 2008, Steve W. Jackson wrote:
In article <fvcoa41plrfjmb4cvi9nsmq9bjd97bdh98@4ax.com>,
Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> wrote:
On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:38:42 -0500, "Steve W. Jackson"
<stevewjackson@knology.net> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
who said :
Frankly, this sounds a lot like something put together by a person who's
not only relatively Mac-illiterate but also anti-Mac.
I don't own a Mac. I have only got to play with my sister's for short
periods of time. She can't answer any of my technical questions.
All I could do in repeat what others have told me. That is why I
asked for people like you to review it.
I have rewritten the entry. You might have another look.
My biases? I used to be president of Apples BC. I headed the team
that wrote the first Mac application in Canada, the CSL Stock Charter.
Back in the days when installing a LAN was a big deal, a guy hired me
to install his Mac LAN. I was very reluctant. But it was a piece of
cake. I was impressed with how Apple had got serious about making
computers usable.
I did take another look, and it's considerably better now. I'm still
not sure why you wish to address what you call the "quirky" spelling, as
I don't think it's any more quirky than the choice of "Vista" by M$ or
Ubuntu or other names.
I also think the explanation is half duff. I have heard the story about
needing to avoid using McIntosh because of the powerful California fruit
lobby (no, not that kind of fruit), but i don't think avoiding Mackintosh
was an issue - Macintosh, the spelling used, is just as much of a real
surname as Mackintosh.
Incidentally, for early Apple history, this is a fascinating site:
http://www.folklore.org/
Although it is silent on the question of the name!
I'm not 100% certain, but I don't think it's true that Macs still use
the \r line terminator -- at least not in Java, where they behave like
any other *nix implementation.
The unixy bits use LF (\n), the traditional-Mac bits use CR (\r). This
occasionally causes irritation when trying to use unixy tools and
traditional Mac apps together. I think almost everything from Apple itself
now uses LF, though, and modern apps seem fine too. Mostly i have trouble
when running really old bits of software.
And you'll find that fewer and fewer Mac users have a single button
mouse these days. It's all Apple sells, but many of us (especially
techies) have been using a multi-button for years.
The laptops are still single-button (AFAIK). Although they do have
multi-touch trackpads, which is yet another dimension of variation.
tom
--
Infantry err, infantry die. Artillery err, infantry die. -- IDF proverb