20060124,00

Get It Try It

Yes, those are red shoes, but they're sexy and most red hats are dull. Those shoes actually belonged to Jenna Jameson once upon a time. She forgot them here once upon a time, we photographed them, the rest is history.

This is the continuation of the Red Hat Diaries from Radsoft. If you don't know their background, go back there. We won't waste time with them here.

It's been four years working with Objective-C and NeXTSTEP aka OS X/Cocoa. They've been good productive years and the technology we've been working with was once the perfect technology. It's still better than the pack but it's been coming down. Something that's inevitable when Apple run the show.

It makes no sense wasting time studying and researching and working to produce for a measly 5% market. Steve Jobs once dubbed NeXT as either the last company able to market its own hardware and software at once or the first who couldn't. He was right: NeXT couldn't move their futuristic boxes, but the OS did OK. Now back at Apple he seems to think he can reverse his own prophesies. Maybe he's too overwhelmed by his own iPod. Whatever: we aren't.

We've been saying it for years and we'll keep saying it: this technology needs to get out and fast before Apple completely ruin it. It needs to get out so market breadth can take over and bring some heavies into it. Apple's market really suffers from abysmally amateurish developers. People who have absolutely no credentials in the world at large. If any of the biggies who've previously worked in Linux or Windows were to come over, then we might see something.

But they're not about to come over. Why should they come over? So they can read the Daring Fireball blog? Or partake of the kernels of wisdom of John Siracusa? Or use programs like Transmit? Or Cocktail? Who is fucking kidding who?

This is Mattel country. Barbie programs. Work about as well as expected in the real world outside.

It's a kiddie pool. If Apple want to cheat the world (and their shareholders) and hold the company back - fine. But we're not sticking around to listen to the din of ridiculing laughter as Apple once again move from being the darlings to the ultimate fools of the industry. To paraphrase Hal Slocum, iPods only take you so far and your luck always runs out.

Starting now, we don't give a flying fuck what Apple do. We might stick to their hardware - some of it is very good - but that's immaterial. Whatever works across platform borders is where we want to be. Objective-C is beautiful but other issues make what we're wanting and doing appear as a hill of beans in the greater context.