Damn! I might have to buy an Ipad

originally posted by Peter Creasey:
originally posted by MLipton: does anyone remember EBCDIC?
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Mark, Wow! A term from the past for this former IBM programmer/analyst on the NASA Apollo and Space Shuttle programs.

What fun to reminisce about those days (especially the splash-down parties after a successful mission)!

. . . . . . Pete
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Cool, Pete! My IBM experience was a lot more prosaic, sadly, though I did have the distinction of working with an IBM 360 (Serial No. 3) at a time when Serial Nos. 1 and 2 were in the IBM museum and the Smithsonian, respectively. I also got to see the legendary "Emergency Shutoff" switch that, if pulled, would burn out magnetic core to stop an infinite loop. Ah, those were the days...

Mark Lipton
 
I think you mistake the availability of open source contributions to iOS as an indication that they have an open ecosystem. Across hardware as well as the development and distribution of software, Apple remains remarkably closed.

In contrast, while the core libraries for Windows are proprietary (although becoming more open over the past few years), they are also prolific, and hardware and software developers have long had significantly more freedom within the ecosystem relative to Apple. As an example, I've been involved with developing UI testing and automation software since the mid-90s. The ability to set low level system hooks to monitor events and system messaging have been available to DOS and Windows developers for 20 to 25 years. On iOS, you simply can't do this, since the libraries aren't published by Apple. Perhaps that's fine when considering iOS as a web-surfing, music and game-playing toy for consumers, but the relative lack of testability in combination with the relatively low-productivity IDE and weak ALM platform for iOS means it's painful to repeatably deliver high-quality, mission-critical software on that platform.

Changes in the market may have certainly forced Microsoft's hand in the direction of openness. Regardless of the reason, when you consider the breadth of the published APIs and the move towards move openness as exemplified by things like Codeplex, to Hadoop, and Azure support for other technologies, I see Microsoft as taking a credible third way between the quality control of the closed iOS system and the innovative but quality and consistency challenged Android approach.

Not that I'm a fan of the rigidity (and the focus on revenue opportunity) of app stores, but even comparing Microsoft and Apple here, the licensing terms for Microsoft's Windows Store relative to open source software distribution are notably more liberal than Apple's terms.

PS - It's also worth noting that the basic developers kit from Microsoft (Visual Studio Express) is free.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Peter Creasey:
originally posted by MLipton: does anyone remember EBCDIC?
Click to expand...

Mark, Wow! A term from the past for this former IBM programmer/analyst on the NASA Apollo and Space Shuttle programs.

What fun to reminisce about those days (especially the splash-down parties after a successful mission)!

. . . . . . Pete
Click to expand...

Cool, Pete! My IBM experience was a lot more prosaic, sadly, though I did have the distinction of working with an IBM 360 (Serial No. 3)
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Mark, I spent MANY hours in Building 30 at NASA running programs/systems on IBM 360s, including Models 45, 60, and 75.

As I often look back, those were some of the most rewarding times in my work history. (I left that business in late 1974.)

. . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by JBrennan:
Ian, clearly you aren't in the computer biz, as your statement indicates a lack of familiarity with Apple's history. They have long been one of the most control oriented, closed, proprietary platforms around. You can thank them for eBook price fixing as well.

Microsoft is practically open source in comparison, with a wide range of hardware vendors, open SDKs for development, etc.
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I'm clearly not, and I've been using Apple devices at scale for only a year and a half, or so.

Interesting discussion; I'm a fan the term 'ecosystem' in this context - is that common parlance itb these days?

Cheers.
 
While far from being in the space program I wrote a fair amount of 370 assembly language back in the dark ages so yes I know (knew) EBCDIC well. I also wrote quite a bit of LU6.2/SNA software back before gateways and messaging systems were invented so I lived IBM finally succumbing to TCP/IP as well. And lets not even get started on Token Ring vs Ethernet. Especially in the olden days of computing we can find many examples of attempted de facto standardization and of course it continues today.

I was certainly not trying to defend Microsoft. I remember Gates fighting bitterly against C ANSI standardization back in the 90s. And I was at a MSFT developers conference in the latter 90s where they proudly demonstrated their essentially complete Java implementation just prior to shelving it a couple months later. But I believe you can still develop on windows using a standard C++ compiler just as you do on Apple, though of course most have moved on to C#.

But i'm still not sure how Apple is any more open. These days there are many essentially proprietary systems and applications written on top of linux. I am no longer a kernel developer so i'm not sure how developers other than close Apple partners would be extending the platform for their profit via that mechanism. But in any event I don't believe it would run on anything other than a MAC.

Of course Apple supports iTunes on Windows, it is their commerce platform for media sales.

Is MSFT still the largest 3rd party software vendor for the Mac? There is certainly an ecosystem of development around the Office suite. Of course MSFT has screwed many with their windows specific extensions so that even today I get 3rd party spreadsheets that will not run on my Mac version of Excel.

I see no end in sight to any of this nonsense, not even with the proliferation of Android i'm afraid.
 
originally posted by Jim Diven:
While far from being in the space program I wrote a fair amount of 370 assembly language back in the dark ages so yes I know (knew) EBCDIC well. I also wrote quite a bit of LU6.2/SNA software back before gateways and messaging systems were invented so I lived IBM finally succumbing to TCP/IP as well. And lets not even get started on Token Ring vs Ethernet. Especially in the olden days of computing we can find many examples of attempted de facto standardization and of course it continues today.
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My greatest sympathies, Jim. I still occasionally have nightmares about having to write JCL scripts for the 360. Even writing in TECO-11 was comparatively sane and readable (for the younger amongst us, it makes PERL scripts look readable and straightforward).

Just as an amusing aside, the 360 was, along with the PDP 10, the most amusing computer I ever worked with. In addition that infamous emergency stop switch it also had a handful of unidentified opcodes: the guy who'd designed the 360 instruction set died before documenting it, so they'd had to go back and reverse engineer what the various instructions did. They managed to establish the function of all but a small number, the remainder of which they officially labeled "unknown opcode." We spent many a dull Sunday afternoon in the machine room writing small assembly language routines to try and ferret out of the function of those mysterious instructions, to no avail.

Mark Lipton
 
Well, per Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, Rosa Luxembourg, and Vito Corleone, monopoly is the highest stage of capitalism, offering optimal market efficiencies, from the seller's point of view. So it's natural that each of these companies defines and pursues a pathway thence, especially once they've crossed the behemoth threshold.

The only difficulty is that they sow the seeds of their own destruction in the process: after crowding out the competition, the quality of their products invariably degrades.
 
originally posted by JBrennan:
Perhaps that's fine when considering iOS as a web-surfing, music and game-playing toy for consumers, but the relative lack of testability in combination with the relatively low-productivity IDE and weak ALM platform for iOS means it's painful to repeatably deliver high-quality, mission-critical software on that platform.
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Agreed. The only thing we ever promise is that we'll test Safari when we test all the other browsers. But an iOS deliverable... nope.
 
Well, in all fairness Jeff, although I previously worked for other ISVs, I now work for MSFT, so I've probably been brainwashed. :)

Still, while I've long been impressed with their some of their visionary work, ergonomics, and hardware design, I don't think there's ever been a day where I've been a fan of Apple. That's probably, as someone mentioned previously, due to the fact that they're a hardware company that does some software stuff, whereas MSFT is about software and developers. The hardware platform is totally closed, and the software only opened in so far as it supports selling the hardware.

I can see why some, particularly those with a background in non-MSFT technologies, aren't fans of the proprietary nature of much of what MSFT has done in the past. Personally, I've always fallen on the side of the fence that believed the proprietary approach was appropriate to ensure a payoff for the massive and well coordinated investment into libraries, interfaces, development environment, etc.

It might be more shameless promotion, but here's a cool article on some of the research investments going on: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2020268/meet-microsoft-the-worlds-best-kept-randd-secret.html
 
originally posted by JBrennan:
Well, in all fairness Jeff, although I previously worked for other ISVs, I now work for MSFT, so I've probably been brainwashed. :)
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Presumably.

I work for an end-to-end systems integrator, with a strong specialty in IBM software. I'm still happy to tell you which are crap and which aren't.

I own several Apple devices (ipod, ipad) and I am perfectly happy with them-- as a consumer. But the thought of actually working on one is pretty laughable.
 
not that the topic hasn't wandered pretty far from the reason for my post but ...

I had my trainer download the book on her ipad at the gym saturday so I could look at Jasper's notes on the annual "10 years on" tasting at Wasserman's place that is usually reported by Clive Coates. As it happens, it seems that they tasted very few wines that I own - as I recall, mostly only Bachelet (i.e., of wines I own).

Would still love to see Clive report on it.
 
Maureen- I like the JM book - had not seen these publications...cool post - thanks!

Pete, Mark, interesting reading...I'm in the industry and have never heard those stories about the 360s. Microprocessor development has come a long way.

Re: Apple. The reason they are so successful today is that they are a full vertical solution -- they control the H/W, the O/S, the S/W, the apps, and they co-optimize all of these to improve the user experience...that is critical. I see MSFT doing some of this with the recent tablet they released - but they are also now competing with their customers, which is awkward. I'd like to see both companies continue to innovate and thrive...times are changing.

-mark
 
originally posted by Mark Davis:
Maureen- I like the JM book - had not seen these publications...cool post - thanks!

Pete, Mark, interesting reading...I'm in the industry and have never heard those stories about the 360s. Microprocessor development has come a long way.

Re: Apple. The reason they are so successful today is that they are a full vertical solution -- they control the H/W, the O/S, the S/W, the apps, and they co-optimize all of these to improve the user experience...that is critical. I see MSFT doing some of this with the recent tablet they released - but they are also now competing with their customers, which is awkward. I'd like to see both companies continue to innovate and thrive...times are changing.

-mark
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The conventional wisdom is that MSFT is building hardware (Surface) to prod its hardware vendors into being more innovative with their design and development. We shall see.

Fwiw, while there definitely needs to be a fair amount of rough-edge polishing, I found the Win 8 experience on a touch-enabled tablet, notebook, all-in-one to be fairly positive. I'm less of a fan on a non-touch system (lots of "how do I do x?" moments).
 
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