on 2/12/01 2:40 PM, Erik J. Barzeski at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Millions of lines of code don't rewrite themselves, and developers will
> continue to use Carbon.
This is true. The issue has been faced by all programming languages and
systems. The economic, technological and other factors that keep one
language or programming system alive and prevent another from becoming
popular are complex and, I'm sure, unpredictable.
Apple has done a magnificent job of maintaining backwards compatibility over
the years. The whole Carbon project came out of the same motivation: make it
as easy and inexpensive as possible for developers to move their legacy code
forward, so that the new hardware and operating system features will
continue to be supported by a large body of applications. The old systems
eventually die out because it's too expensive to adapt them to new
conditions and markets, but not every new system survives the pressure
exerted by the momentum of the old system.
In the long run, I think Apple has a strong reason to urge developers to
move toward Cocoa, however slowly. Namely, the dramatic cost savings and
improved time-to-market when developing new applications in Cocoa, compared
to Carbon. Apple can look forward to seeing a larger body of applications
that run on Macs if cocoa is available and promoted as the development
vehicle of choice.
I guess this is a little off-topic for the Entourage list. Sorry.
-
Bill Cheeseman, Quechee, Vermont <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The AppleScript Sourcebook
<http://www.AppleScriptSourcebook.com/>
Vermont Recipes-A Cocoa Cookbook
<http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/VermontRecipes/>
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