Yeah, but I remember in 1995 and afterwards where Java products popped up and applets appeared in every webpage, and it was truly slow, particularly for paupers still languishing with small amounts of RAM. Anyone remember JBuilder?
Things have probably changed significantly from then, but I do remember it being slow. Compared to today's generation who get frustrated when a webpage doesn't appear within about 3 seconds, they would lose their mind if they were transported back to 1995 (with the general speed of everything being slower).
Both Kirk and Janeway were much less by-the-book. They had no compunction against violating the prime directive, making unscrupulous alliances, seducing young ensigns, or reading the Constitution to a planet of Nazis (or something like that) if they felt it furthered their (usually noble if misguided) goals.
I don't want to start a Trek debate on HN :) Alliances wrt Janeway are certainly questionable, but for both where they did deviate from the book it was always as you say for noble reasons. Breaking an unjust law is not morally wrong. Snowden broke laws for noble reasons. Is he a moral character? I think so.
At the end of the day, Apple has always delivered far superior tools, frameworks, and ecosystem (development-wise). That to me says a lot more than how friendly the staff is.
Ugh, no. Ask anyone who has used both Xcode and Visual Studio. I used it once for porting a C/C++ project to OS X - it crashed a ton, the debugger integration was sub-par, the new window for everything thing was annoying. It did not really feel like a superior experience. If there's anyone delivering superior tools - it's Microsoft hands down.
I suspect the original post was referring to XCode versus Android tools, given the post context of Google I/O, and if so, the statement that the tools have always been better is definitely correct.
At least on OSX, I doubt anyone would dispute that XCode 4 in 2010 was miles ahead of Eclipse and early versions of the Android SDK, and that arguably holds to today, though less so with Android Studio.
I might be misremembering but the tabs in XCode 4 did not work like tabs in any other IDE - there were some major annoyances around new window/tab open behaviour if I recall it right.
Anecdotally, this is also my experience with using some of the lesser known frameworks in the Android ecosystem - nothing is documented properly or the documentation is years out of date and/or uses long deprecated methods, significant bugs remain open for years without attention, requiring time-consuming workarounds, and everyone just puts up with it, because that's the way things have always been.
An example of problematic documentation is Volley, which is a brilliant and totally needed framework and documentation that exists for it is a 45 minute presentation and a handful of StackOverflow posts.
While I'm not arguing against your overall point, your example is not a good one. Volley was unnecessary. It only got attention because Google did it but the community was already on top of the issue. From shipping their own, newer Apache Client libs, through koush's ion and picasso, to Square's okhttp, networking on Android is full of good libraries to use. Volley didn't anything dramatic to this and, judging by the amount of attention it has received, it was someone's side project.
I take your point, and that's exactly why I'm not using it in production, but it doesn't seem like Google should have drawn as much attention as they did to it, running a session on it within Google I/O, if it was just intended to be a side-project and not for widespread consumption.
I guess I'm just coming at this with a WWDC mentality, where a presentation would be run only on a completely production-ready and documented framework, and perhaps I/O does things differently.
You can get a Mac Mini that more than suffices for around $600-$800. But honestly, if paying $2000 was the only way to get a set of Android SDKs and development tools of the same caliber as Apple's developer offerings, I would immediately do so. I like the idea of the platform and I believe in anything that makes it easier for developers to build better applications.
Excellent. Now I've bought my mac mini, I can plug it in and listen to it consume power. I wonder how I can see what it's doing?
Hrm... well, it can come with a monitor... for an extra thousand. Okay, scratch that, I'll get a cheap DisplayPort monitor... add a couple of hundred (or if I feel like splurging, get two). Oh, and a keyboard, another $50 (apple-branded, of course, because normal keyboards don't have apple keys). Mouse? Apple mouse at $50+? Maybe I'll go with a cheap logitech or something... 4GB memory standard? for a dev machine? OSX has trouble with that little memory. Up to 8GB for another hundred (or 16GB for three hundred). Spinning rust will do, but if you did want an SSD, throw on a couple hundred more.
The idea that mac minis are 'cheap development boxes' is nonsense. It's cheaper than a decent macbook pro, but it's not a cheap workstation.
You can buy the Apple-branded stuff. Or you can buy a KVM switch, a SSD, and two sticks of RAM off Newegg yourself. Monoprice has HDMI to DVI converters for less than $3. Upgrading the internals is about as challenging as upgrading the internals of a non-Apple laptop. It's honestly not that hard.
On the off chance you don't have a mouse, a keyboard, or a display, you can get a decent mouse for around $5, a decent non-mechanical keyboard for $30, and a high-quality display for $150. All three of these will improve your productivity on your laptop if you're not traveling. If you don't have a laptop or a desktop...how are you developing for Android to begin with?
Well, this requirement wasn't in the original brief. And in any case, you're trading your own labour and domain knowledge to shave a few dollars off. The scrounging you've mentioned is only a little cheaper than what I've mentioned - my point is that it costs more to set up a mac mini for a developer (rather than a headless server) than the throwaway line presented. Even with your cheaper, more-effort-given-to-scrounging pricing, the monitor + HIDs alone add 1/3 to 1/4 the price, never mind the ram or ssd.
Fine. Let's say that if you don't have HIDs or a monitor and you want a primary dev box, then it's not worth it. If you have the HIDs and monitor, are willing to do a little bit of third-party work, and want a machine that can competently serve beside whatever non-Apple machine you're currently using, then you can get started for far less than $2000. (I don't think this is a terribly uncommon use case, especially for people already developing for other platforms.) Would you say that is a fair assertion?
I would say that that is a fair assertion, but I would also say that it doesn't really detract from the OP's point: to get started with google, open a browser and start downloading; to get started with apple, first find a non-trivial lump of cash.
It's not like the effort to make a good tool scales proportionally to your user base or anything. Besides, the developer tools for Mac are the same used for iOS, which is a lot more than 5% of it's market. Microsoft could easily put out tools and frameworks on par (and do in some cases, VS is amazing) and would only do better if they'd drop support for OSes that have been obsolete for decades. There's no reason to have 16bit calls available any more.
Based on what I've seen, fellow Googlers use Macs as glorified ssh terminals + chrome machines. Most Google code isn't allowed on laptops per security policy, and most wouldn't build there anyway. I also think lots of people have Macs because, before the Pixel, they were the only laptop offered internally that qualified as a fashion symbol, and the only option with a Retina display.
This is such a weird way to compare the costs. You still need a computer to use the Google tools. Also you can get a MacBook Air for less than half that price.
I would love to get a deal like that. I just looked on craigslist, and can't find any 27" iMacs with an i5 for less than $950. In fact, I can't find anything for $250 that wasn't a piece of junk. In fact, if I could get that iMac for $250, I could turn around and resell it for $1000.
Friend was moving across the country, didn't want the hassle of craigslist. Point is, you can keep your ear to the ground and find some interesting stuff in the Apple space.
Your point that entry into the Apple ecosystem isn't that difficult would be correct when they first opened up the app store, which simplified how app development for phones was done. But today, they seem to have the most friction compared to joining other stores/platforms/ecosystems.
As for the Mac mini that you talked about, that's a far cry from the 27" iMac with the i5 that you originally described.
This. We generally don't send employees to either WWDC or I/O. As a result, the tone, attitude of attendees or company reps don't matter to us much at all.
Our users and testers care about a great software experiences. So what matters most to us are stable, well designed and supported software platforms and ecosystems that let us deliver great experiences.
Yeah, I found that I need to train my body to sleep. If I go for a week or two with little sleep, the body seems to readjust to the pattern and refuses to sleep more.
I don't think general_failure was saying it was a good thing, just that once they're on a short sleep schedule, they find it difficult to get more than that even when they try.
I have for most of my life not been drinking caffeine at all, and I'm never able to sleep whenever I decide to, apart from in the evening. So this is not a pancaea for everyone.
I never had a problem falling asleep but I kicked my daily morning cup of coffee and I can't believe how much energy I have. I used to feel a little fuzzy when I first woke up until I had my coffee but now I wake up so full of energy and feel great. I never realized just how negative caffeine is on your energy level.
Likewise. Stopped drinking it and for a week withdrawal was hard, but after that I would wake up in 3 minutes, rather than snooze for another 20. I do still crave for it, but one hour into the day you forget it and become normal.
Coffee is such a short term fix with implications for the rest of the night.
The best thing is that I actually sleep same amount, but am better rested. Perhaps it's not the same for everyone, but I feel more people should try it. Caffeine is the nicotine of our era.
2) Follow a consistent schedule.
3) Follow a consistent routine to prepare for sleep.
3a) Turn off screens well before bed.
4) Learn and follow relaxation/self-hypnosis scripts.
I've learned a lot about sleep from observing my baby daughter. Good sleep is easiest on top of good sleep; a tired brain usually has more, not less, trouble falling asleep. If my daughter misses her nap, she is more hyper and harder to settle down at bedtime. If she gets a nice long nap, she also is calmer at bedtime and falls asleep more easily.
I've had terrible sleep habits most of my life, and it's only now that I'm a parent that I can appreciate how powerful a consistent schedule and routine can be.
>San Francisco is well known for its transformations, the most recent one fueled by tech money that has seemingly scrubbed much of the city clean.
Well if this is to be taken literally, it's laughable. San Francisco's thoroughfares are littered with garbage, the city smells like piss, and its public transportation is third world at best. I can't imagine what SF was like before the latest "transformation"!
I believe the author meant that a bit more metaphorically than you are taking it. Scrubbed clean in the sense of removing the hard edges and character.. whitewashing so to speak. That said, the tech industry has definitely cleaned up areas of the city. Compare the area around the Twitter office today to how it was even a few years ago.
Also this comment is pretty harsh, and you clearly are not spending time in the right parts of San Francisco if you think its all littered with garbage and smells like piss. I will grant you that muni isnt great compared to cities 10x the size like New York or London.
I think San Francisco's tolerance of diversity and oddity correlates to a greater tolerance of civic disorder than you see in other places. That said, it's often a much different city at the top of the hill than at the bottom.
It compared badly also to cities smaller than it: compare SF (metro population: 4.5m) to Vancouver (2.5m), Vienna (2.4m), Zurich (1.8m) or Prague (1.2m).
The population of San Francisco is 800k, so it is significantly smaller than any of those cities.
If you are talking about the entire Bay Area that is a different thing, but not really a valid comparison. The infrastructure problems in San Francisco tend to be due to it being a small city surrounded by lots of even smaller cities which dont want to play along for the greater good of the region (eg by expanding BART or shouldering the burden of homeless services). If the Bay Area as a whole was governed as a single unit a lot of these problems would be improved. But it's not.
It's a small city in an earthquake area with large hills, and uncooperative neighbors, all of which make it very difficult to build massive subway or streetcar systems.
Well that may be true. Of the cities you list I'm only familiar with the metros in vancouver and vienna, both of which are very nice. My point was not that muni doesn't have issues, but that they mostly stem from regional political problems which presumably those other regions dont have to the same extent. If the whole bay area would get on board with bart, things would be a lot better.
In any case comparing it to a third world country like the parent comment is a bit of a stretch.
>>Also this comment is pretty harsh, and you clearly are not spending time in the right parts of San Francisco if you think its all littered with garbage and smells like piss.
Last time I checked, homeless were pissing and defecating on sidewalks in the heart of SF's financial district, as well as many others.
> its public transportation is third world at best
I come from a country which has a reputation for having top notch public transit, and I have lived in the south of the USA (which does feel like the third world in many ways).
San Francisco's public transit could be better, but it's not that bad ;)
SF tickets for more times than it actually sweeps (i.e., they do not always have a street sweeper come at all the restricted street sweeping times). They will also ticket you even if the street sweeper has already passed. :/
Sure, that link says "Once the street sweeping truck has swept the curbside, you may park your vehicle there, even if the posted sweeping hours have not expired," but I've heard enough differing anecdotes from street parkers to consider that thoroughly debunked (the colloquial plural of 'anecdote' is 'data', after all)
The recourse is taking a picture, noting the time, going to court, and hoping you win. Most people don't even begin to try all that.
There are muni stops within 1 block of 80% of all residences in SF. Having just moved back to SF from LA let me tell you there is no reason to bemoan public transportation here.
When I was in Budapest, I had a metro station, a bus stop, two tram stops and a public bike sharing station within a block from my apartment. The trams run every 4-5 minutes during off-peak, and if they ever stop during the night, we didn't notice, despite arriving at 5am and being awake until 3am.
To be fair, the Public Transport system in the Eastern European states is usually pretty dense.
The downside is that most of the buses and trains seem to be from the soviet era
WTF is up with all the trash on the highway? I heard Brown cut funding to some stuff for budget, but seriously the roads are a horrible mess. It's just setting priorities, I guess. Aesthetics should be #1, because it transmits a message to everyone.
Hate to be a downer, but I wasn't impressed with Star Fox even at the time as an 8 year old boy. Clearly a case where the technology had not yet caught up to the ambition.
That said, I've always been fascinated by the idea of cartridges as expansion cards. When your medium is a bulky plastic box plugging directly into the guts of the machine, you can do some crazy things.
>> Hate to be a downer, but I wasn't impressed with Star Fox even at the time as an 8 year old boy
I had mixed feelings about it. It was a pretty good game.
On the other hand, I wasn't terribly impressed by the visuals (especially the framerate), and I think between StarFox and the coin-op Hard Drivin', a lot of gamers were left with a bad taste in their mouth when it came to polygon graphics.
Remember, at the time on the PC there were games like Doom and X-Wing. Sure, you needed a fully-loaded 486 at the time to play these to the best of their ability, and even a SoundBlaster card was the cost of the SNES console.
> but I wasn't impressed with Star Fox even at the time as an 8 year old boy.
Same here. I was more impressed by the execution than the graphics. Most of Atari or Amiga games could do 3D at least as good as Starfox (and PCs were quickly becoming far superior at that, too), so the SuperFX chip seemed like a nice gimmick that could not really live up to its reputation.
I've always interpreted the quote as meaning that good artists are able to recognize worthy work and imitate it, while great artists take that work and make it their own, improve upon and personalize it.
The Macintosh team "stole" the GUI from PARC, insomuch as they turned an academic experiment into a user-friendly, commercially viable product with its own refined sensibility and personality.
Samsung was a good enough artist to recognize that the iPhone was worth copying slavishly (albeit poorly), but they never turned their imitation into a distinct work unto itself.
Can you tell the difference between a Samsung Galaxy S5 and and iPhone 5? If yes, then why isn't the Galaxy series a distinct work with its own sensibility and personality?
Looking at images on Google ... it just looks like a bigger iPhone with a slightly smooshed home button. Reminds me a lot of all those cheap knock-off things you can buy on random markets in places like Bosnia and Serbia (in my personal experience, I know there's many more out there) where they make it look off just enough to avoid being sued.
Not to say Samsung phones are knock-off iPhones, just that you could easily sell me one as such. Especially if I wasn't a techie. Hell, I'd be surprised if my mum could tell me I'm wrong if I said Apple released a bigger iPhone and showed her a Samsung Galaxy.
So practical things look a lot alike? I don't know. But I'm almost certain you couldn't show a Pollock to a non-painting enthusiast and convince them it was a Picasso.
