13 ms·

It's really funny to think about cyclical stuff and see how Blackberry used to treat their developers like shit (with stupid signing keys and stuff) and just lo

It's really funny to think about cyclical stuff and see how Blackberry used to treat their developers like shit (with stupid signing keys and stuff) and just look at Apple falling into the same trap.

craydandy 7y ago
And this reminds me of the documentation quality of Symbian around 2005-2007. I would highly recommend the author of the article the check it out, before lamenting Apple's documentation.
- nullandvoid 7y ago
  I mean it's a discounted OS is it really a comparison? We're talking about one of the biggest platforms in the world here with unlimited money to throw at this problem there is no excuse
  - moron4hire 7y ago
    Seriously, Apple is one of the richest companies in the world (I don't remember if it's still The Richest or not). Similarly, Google's documentation is pretty bad, considering just how ludicrously rich they are. They could afford to hire entire teams whose only jobs were to write documentation and it would barely make a blip in their bottom lines. In contrast, I've always found Microsoft's documentation to be incredible. It can often be hard to find the right thing (though that has getting better, though that might be just my growing experience on how to find things), but they put real, actual effort into documentation. Also, Microsoft has a very strong "corporate style guide" for API design. Every MS API within their major silos is built exactly the same way as every other API. Once you've had some experience with them, it's easy to figure out the others. I find Android to be down-right schizophrenic in comparison. It's one of the many reasons I continue to focus on MS platforms for my work. It's been 20 years since they were the hostile "kill everything that moves" company that people lament.
    - mikestew 7y ago
      hire entire teams whose only jobs were to write documentation In contrast, I've always found Microsoft's documentation to be incredible. I don't know how Apple and Google work, but as a long-time-ago MSFT employee, I can tell you it is because they have entire teams. Chain-of-command, senior-level, leads, managers (don't know if there's such a thing as User Ed VP/Director, though) the whole works, like Microsoft kinda took it seriously or something. Hence my ranking of docs: 1. Microsoft: could be better, but you're going to have an easy time finding worse. No, they're actually pretty damned good. When I worked there, for instance, there was a big push that example code will be secure. The mantra was "sample code becomes production code". APIs have close-to-real-world examples of usage. "Could be better"? Eh, I don't know what I'd improve, frankly. 2. Back before they got really big, I'd say about Apple's docs, "does the job; it's not Microsoft-quality, but they don't have Microsoft resources, now do they?" Umm, that's not true anymore, and I think the quality has gone down since. 3. Google: just use Stack Overflow. The docs are just going to frustrate you with their incompleteness and outdateness.
      - moron4hire 7y ago
        Definitely. Good documentation is hard work, a full-time project all on its own. It drives me nuts how many "hackers" think of it as an afterthought.
      - kbenson 7y ago
        I winder how much of Microsoft's focus on documentation and having full teams to produce it was also spurred by the nature of their enterprise business and the whose ecosystem of certification and training it supported (which in turn supported Microsoft in a cyclical nature). Microsoft has a whole set of of official test prep and training material, certified trainers, etc. Even if the documentation department never made a profit themselves, I imagine being able to point to some revenue and it being an important part of the overall business strategy kept it as feeling fairly important to most execs.
        ethbro 7y ago
        It also likely traces back to support. In that Microsoft has it, Google doesn't, and Apple... magic? But if you're going to run a competent support org, you need to have high-quality, easily-accessible documentation. Because you're not going to know anything about {insert random thing support ticket is asking about}. And if you've already created those docs for internal use, why not simply make them public?
  - heisenbit 7y ago
    Symbian was at one time the number one mobile platform for apps.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Symbian was plain horrible. I tried a project but gave up quickly.
- throwaway_symb 7y ago
  The Symbian documentation team was tiny, perhaps 20 people at most. At an offsite we would pretty much fit round two tables at most. As always you get what you pay for. Even so the Symbian team did some pretty cool things such as creating open source documentation standards for C++ and the tools to support that. Source: I was there.
  - kbenson 7y ago
    Honest question: What's the purpose of the throwaway account for this? Is there some blow-back that you expect from this? Is there some NDA that precludes you from even talking about it years later? Do you think it reflects negatively on your years later?
    - CharlesColeman 7y ago
      >> The Symbian documentation team was tiny, perhaps 20 people at most. At an offsite we would pretty much fit round two tables at most. ... Source: I was there. > What's the purpose of the throwaway account for this? My guess is they want keep their other account pseudonymous, and admitting that they were one of a specific team of 20 people at a specific company goes a long way towards unambiguously identifying them. At a minimum, one of their teammates could probably ID them.
      - kbenson 7y ago
        Ah, that's true, good point. As someone that has mentioned more than enough information to definitively identify myself online with this account, I guess I've adjusted enough that I didn't even consider that.
      - x0x0 7y ago
        I'm not the person, but I had an HN leaderboard member pitch a tantrum at me about a programming opinion on here, and imply that my opinions were representative of my employer. It's a good reason to stay pseudonymous.
canada_dry 7y ago
When speaking to Blackberry execs (10+ yrs ago) about their abysmal developer support I pointed to apple.com/developer as an example of how it should be done. Blackberry's lack of developer support was surely one of the key reasons for its failure. Apple seriously needs to re-focus.
- jariel 7y ago
  As someone with 'insider' insight into BlackBerry ... I would say the issue is complicated: 1) BlackBerry was never thought of internally as a 'platform' more of a 'solution' (i.e. you get what you get out of the box) - apps were a little secondary. That perspective was too slow to evolve. 2) The original Java APIs were not very well thought out - part of the problem in 'great docs' was that the underlying platform wasn't very good to begin with. 3) BlackBerry was a tiny company compared to Apple and Google. When BB launched maps, there was no 'mapping team'. There were 0 people dedicated to mapping. G had I think more than 100 at the time, just dedicated to that. BB was growing rapidly, but had found itself jammed between Apple and Google - two of the most magnificent and well capitalised companies in the world. I'm still amazed that BB had all the features it did given how small the teams were. Most of the handheld - hardware and software - was developed in one little building - you could literally know everyone working on it personally if you worked there. 3) All of that said - the docs were not that bad. Everything was technically documented. The support teams were decent, just small.
  - dillonmckay 7y ago
    Wasn’t there also an issue of allowing foreign governments to MitM their service? All the data was routed through Canada, right?
    - jariel 7y ago
      Yes, but that's an entirely different and complicated can of worms. Due to its 'highly secure nature' it was sought after by individuals within regimes that had known surveillance and BB was way ahead of FB/Google in terms of attention by national powers around the world and having to 'deal with them' - at very least because it was actually used by entities in the first place! One of the drawbacks of Barack Obama using your device is that it's 'front and centre' and 'widely used' by every relevant 'agency' in the world. It was a hugely difficult issue; hackernews tends to be 'anti state surveillance' in all forms - personally, I'm not as long as there's judicial oversight/applied properly (though sometimes it's not the case even in 'good' regimes) - the fact is basically every country you can think of wanted some type of special deal, the details of which I'm not at liberty to go into sufficed to say it was complicated on every level. I can say however that Venezuela specifically was never going to get any help from us, and that BB was huge in that country due to it's effective protection from federal sources. Several countries like this were 'big blips' in sales due to the networking effects of this and other things. Penetration of BlackBerry around the world was very irregular, not like other platforms.

It's really funny to think about cyclical stuff and see how Blackberry used to treat their developers like shit (with stupid signing keys and stuff) and just look at Apple falling into the same trap.

craydandy 7y ago

And this reminds me of the documentation quality of Symbian around 2005-2007. I would highly recommend the author of the article the check it out, before lamenting Apple's documentation.

nullandvoid 7y ago
I mean it's a discounted OS is it really a comparison? We're talking about one of the biggest platforms in the world here with unlimited money to throw at this problem there is no excuse
- moron4hire 7y ago
  Seriously, Apple is one of the richest companies in the world (I don't remember if it's still The Richest or not). Similarly, Google's documentation is pretty bad, considering just how ludicrously rich they are. They could afford to hire entire teams whose only jobs were to write documentation and it would barely make a blip in their bottom lines. In contrast, I've always found Microsoft's documentation to be incredible. It can often be hard to find the right thing (though that has getting better, though that might be just my growing experience on how to find things), but they put real, actual effort into documentation. Also, Microsoft has a very strong "corporate style guide" for API design. Every MS API within their major silos is built exactly the same way as every other API. Once you've had some experience with them, it's easy to figure out the others. I find Android to be down-right schizophrenic in comparison. It's one of the many reasons I continue to focus on MS platforms for my work. It's been 20 years since they were the hostile "kill everything that moves" company that people lament.
  - mikestew 7y ago
    hire entire teams whose only jobs were to write documentation In contrast, I've always found Microsoft's documentation to be incredible. I don't know how Apple and Google work, but as a long-time-ago MSFT employee, I can tell you it is because they have entire teams. Chain-of-command, senior-level, leads, managers (don't know if there's such a thing as User Ed VP/Director, though) the whole works, like Microsoft kinda took it seriously or something. Hence my ranking of docs: 1. Microsoft: could be better, but you're going to have an easy time finding worse. No, they're actually pretty damned good. When I worked there, for instance, there was a big push that example code will be secure. The mantra was "sample code becomes production code". APIs have close-to-real-world examples of usage. "Could be better"? Eh, I don't know what I'd improve, frankly. 2. Back before they got really big, I'd say about Apple's docs, "does the job; it's not Microsoft-quality, but they don't have Microsoft resources, now do they?" Umm, that's not true anymore, and I think the quality has gone down since. 3. Google: just use Stack Overflow. The docs are just going to frustrate you with their incompleteness and outdateness.
    - moron4hire 7y ago
      Definitely. Good documentation is hard work, a full-time project all on its own. It drives me nuts how many "hackers" think of it as an afterthought.
    - kbenson 7y ago
      I winder how much of Microsoft's focus on documentation and having full teams to produce it was also spurred by the nature of their enterprise business and the whose ecosystem of certification and training it supported (which in turn supported Microsoft in a cyclical nature). Microsoft has a whole set of of official test prep and training material, certified trainers, etc. Even if the documentation department never made a profit themselves, I imagine being able to point to some revenue and it being an important part of the overall business strategy kept it as feeling fairly important to most execs.
      - ethbro 7y ago
        It also likely traces back to support. In that Microsoft has it, Google doesn't, and Apple... magic? But if you're going to run a competent support org, you need to have high-quality, easily-accessible documentation. Because you're not going to know anything about {insert random thing support ticket is asking about}. And if you've already created those docs for internal use, why not simply make them public?
- heisenbit 7y ago
  Symbian was at one time the number one mobile platform for apps.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
Symbian was plain horrible. I tried a project but gave up quickly.
throwaway_symb 7y ago
The Symbian documentation team was tiny, perhaps 20 people at most. At an offsite we would pretty much fit round two tables at most. As always you get what you pay for. Even so the Symbian team did some pretty cool things such as creating open source documentation standards for C++ and the tools to support that. Source: I was there.
- kbenson 7y ago
  Honest question: What's the purpose of the throwaway account for this? Is there some blow-back that you expect from this? Is there some NDA that precludes you from even talking about it years later? Do you think it reflects negatively on your years later?
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    >> The Symbian documentation team was tiny, perhaps 20 people at most. At an offsite we would pretty much fit round two tables at most. ... Source: I was there. > What's the purpose of the throwaway account for this? My guess is they want keep their other account pseudonymous, and admitting that they were one of a specific team of 20 people at a specific company goes a long way towards unambiguously identifying them. At a minimum, one of their teammates could probably ID them.
    - kbenson 7y ago
      Ah, that's true, good point. As someone that has mentioned more than enough information to definitively identify myself online with this account, I guess I've adjusted enough that I didn't even consider that.
    - x0x0 7y ago
      I'm not the person, but I had an HN leaderboard member pitch a tantrum at me about a programming opinion on here, and imply that my opinions were representative of my employer. It's a good reason to stay pseudonymous.

canada_dry 7y ago

When speaking to Blackberry execs (10+ yrs ago) about their abysmal developer support I pointed to apple.com/developer as an example of how it should be done. Blackberry's lack of developer support was surely one of the key reasons for its failure. Apple seriously needs to re-focus.

jariel 7y ago
As someone with 'insider' insight into BlackBerry ... I would say the issue is complicated: 1) BlackBerry was never thought of internally as a 'platform' more of a 'solution' (i.e. you get what you get out of the box) - apps were a little secondary. That perspective was too slow to evolve. 2) The original Java APIs were not very well thought out - part of the problem in 'great docs' was that the underlying platform wasn't very good to begin with. 3) BlackBerry was a tiny company compared to Apple and Google. When BB launched maps, there was no 'mapping team'. There were 0 people dedicated to mapping. G had I think more than 100 at the time, just dedicated to that. BB was growing rapidly, but had found itself jammed between Apple and Google - two of the most magnificent and well capitalised companies in the world. I'm still amazed that BB had all the features it did given how small the teams were. Most of the handheld - hardware and software - was developed in one little building - you could literally know everyone working on it personally if you worked there. 3) All of that said - the docs were not that bad. Everything was technically documented. The support teams were decent, just small.
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  Wasn’t there also an issue of allowing foreign governments to MitM their service? All the data was routed through Canada, right?
  - jariel 7y ago
    Yes, but that's an entirely different and complicated can of worms. Due to its 'highly secure nature' it was sought after by individuals within regimes that had known surveillance and BB was way ahead of FB/Google in terms of attention by national powers around the world and having to 'deal with them' - at very least because it was actually used by entities in the first place! One of the drawbacks of Barack Obama using your device is that it's 'front and centre' and 'widely used' by every relevant 'agency' in the world. It was a hugely difficult issue; hackernews tends to be 'anti state surveillance' in all forms - personally, I'm not as long as there's judicial oversight/applied properly (though sometimes it's not the case even in 'good' regimes) - the fact is basically every country you can think of wanted some type of special deal, the details of which I'm not at liberty to go into sufficed to say it was complicated on every level. I can say however that Venezuela specifically was never going to get any help from us, and that BB was huge in that country due to it's effective protection from federal sources. Several countries like this were 'big blips' in sales due to the networking effects of this and other things. Penetration of BlackBerry around the world was very irregular, not like other platforms.