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Calum Tsang wrote:
> It's easy to create software, it's hard to support it ongoing. Both from a
> development standpoint as well as actual product support. I've seen it from
> personal experience.
I've also seen it from personal experience. We support software on not
1 or 2 different platforms, but 10-15 different platforms.
> Two architectures is not just the obvious stuff like CPU and OS but issues that
> really there's no cross platform abstraction for.
There are fewer and fewer of this difference these days. It's aways
getting better.
> First, there's the easy stuff: Like that Java timer you wrote that wouldn't run
> on my two laptops, but would on your desktop. That's just simple stuff like
> driving a serial device. And that was between two Win32 machines!
None of those laptops even met the minimum requirements of Java, and
don't come close to meeting the minimum requirements of the majority of
software these days. Both you and I knew it was a crap shoot going in
that they would work. Plus who uses serial ports anymore. We were
trying to make an antiquated piece of hardware work on antiquated
computers with modern software. Sorry but far from a valid example.
> But then there's items that will really screw you: Infrastructure that plain
> doesn't exist between systems. Like video device support: There's no capture
> infrastructure on QuickTime on PC at all, it's all Video for Windows. And
> similarly, if you align to Windows, there's no capture infrastructure on the
> Mac. So, the core part of a product like VisionCommand is going to be
> completely different between the Macintosh and the PC.
I would not consider the capture interface the core of VisionCommand.
It's only a small aspect of that piece of software. In my experience
the UI is often the most complex and time consuming piece of a project
to produce. Especially when they make it all flashy like Lego likes to
do. This stuff is easily made cross platform. Having to create
separate interfaces to the video capture infrastructure would be no big
deal by comparison.
The only time you need to interface with the hardware for this product
is capture and playback. Everything in the middle is easily made cross
platform.
> Or on a video game, where all your stuff is in DirectX, because OpenGL is ages
> behind DX.
This is one area I'm quite willing to except. A large number of Games
require very tight integration with hardware to run effectively. And
your point about graphics is very true. However it not that games
aren't written to be cross platform. The number of linux servers that
are produced counters this point. But as you say the one thing they are
missing is the graphics engine.
> Sure there's some porting tools out there, but it's by no means easy. You may
> have automated SCM tools to help you make multiple platform builds. But it
> means every new feature has to be checked against each platform before it's
> developed. And of course, that means even more variants for your test team to
> verify.
The great thing about supporting Macs is there isn't the hardware or OS
diversity there is with Windows.
> Then you've got to support the thing once it hits market. Which means call
> centers which have Mac AND PC experience. Maintaining a pool of Macintosh
> support operators with additional training.
Separate training, not additional training.
> All this for 5% of the market? That makes no business sense at all.
Think about it 5% of the market is a hell of a lot of people. There is
money out there to be had.
But ultimately you missed the :-) I placed on the original comment which
as Chris is contently pointing out takes back everything you've said.
So I was only kidding about complaining about Lego software.
However I did manage to get you to wine about how hard cross platform
development is. :-)
Derek
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: iMac
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| (...) The two laptops I brought over were Thinkpad T23's which are 1.14Ghz P3Mobiles with 256MB of RAM each. If that's not enough for Java, I don't know what is. In case my memory serves me incorrectly, at worst, they were T21's, which are 800Mhz P3 (...) (20 years ago, 20-Oct-04, to lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: iMac
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| (...) It's easy to create software, it's hard to support it ongoing. Both from a development standpoint as well as actual product support. I've seen it from personal experience. Two architectures is not just the obvious stuff like CPU and OS but (...) (20 years ago, 19-Oct-04, to lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto)
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