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The same thing happened when we were working on Leopard under Bertrand. Because the developer toolchain switched to Objective C 2.0 with garbage collection ena

The same thing happened when we were working on Leopard under Bertrand. Because the developer toolchain switched to Objective C 2.0 with garbage collection enabled, the OS was unusable for development for months at a time. Development took twice as long as planned, the release was fairly bloated, and required 2 or 3 updates in the first month or two. When Craig took over he introduced a sprint model so that there were periodic relatively stable releases. If something wasn't ready and there were still sprints left, you could push it back. But it sounds like there has been milestone creep causing those sprints to either become more heavy or less missable. And I'm guessing the consequences for missing a sprint are more career limiting than they were when the methodology was still new. It's like Rich Hickey said, we're smarter than runners, we just fire a new starting pistol every 100 yards and call it a new sprint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPT-DuG0UjU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPT-DuG0UjU

tosh 7y ago
Snow Leopard was one of the best releases I remember. I'm hoping for a Snow Leopard-ish update for iOS 13 so it has a fair shot at getting the attention and praise it deserves.
- galad87 7y ago
  Snow Leopard was one of the best after two years of bug fixes.
  - yankcrime 7y ago
    Yup, this. Funny how quickly everyone forgets the serious data loss bugged that plagued the release of Snow Leopard.
    - toyg 7y ago
      A lot of people switched to macs when Snow Leopard and Lion were current, so they got their first laptops with them preinstalled -- and obviously, they worked swimmingly (fresh installs, on the configurations Apple devs likely targeted during development). Nowadays, thanks to Apple effectively deserting Macs for long stretches, less and less new people move into the ecosystem, which means the bulk of users are now upgraders -- who are bound to have more issues.
LgWoodenBadger 7y ago
I hate that Rich Hickey quote. Sprints are just the classic computer science "divide and conquer" strategy applied to development.
- GuiA 7y ago
  That’s quite the leaky metaphor. If you split a list in half to sort it, the computer doesn’t inherit the backlog of punted features/bugs/stress/frustration/etc from the previous half.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ken 7y ago
  The why not use a word that doesn’t imply “go at an unsustainable pace”? There are plenty of good ones to choose from.
- AgloeDreams 7y ago
  The problem with divide and conquer is that the finished product has to be back in one piece that makes sense. Often times the act of `divide` also reduces context for what conquer actually is. Plus `divide and conquer` is used like a task you need to do with the goal of finishing, but Sprints never quite get to the end of the conquer phase, generally it's divide, and conquer...some tasks, and then divide in some more... and more... and more. You end up losing all sight of what you are actually trying to do or make. The only way to fix sprints in a small to medium size company that exists and is shipping products is to realize that they should be tied to a set series of tasks and that every now and then you really need a stop point where you can take a week or two, define what your goals, needs, and issues are for the next 6 weeks or so, and then start anew with a clean backlog and roadmap with full buy in from the developers of what they are making. Otherwise you just turn developers into ticket pushers for tickets that they themselves do not understand, or have any context to understand why they are doing them. It's depressing and causes burnout and bad products. It's a symptom of the hustle culture bleeding into development and a lack of understanding that having long term end goals and sustainable pace is healthy to good products rather than `move fast and break things`.
333c 7y ago
I haven't seen that video before. Thank you for sharing it. The term "sprint" has always confused me a little bit.
jarjoura 7y ago
Leopard was severely hamstrung by the fact that Scott Forstall abruptly "stole" all the leads from all of the various OS teams to work on the iPhone. Various projects went unfinished because they no longer had the bandwidth or knowledge to finish them. Likewise, Bertrand was super pissed about the failure in quality and Snow Leopard was the direct result of that.

tosh 7y ago

Snow Leopard was one of the best releases I remember. I'm hoping for a Snow Leopard-ish update for iOS 13 so it has a fair shot at getting the attention and praise it deserves.

galad87 7y ago
Snow Leopard was one of the best after two years of bug fixes.
- yankcrime 7y ago
  Yup, this. Funny how quickly everyone forgets the serious data loss bugged that plagued the release of Snow Leopard.
  - toyg 7y ago
    A lot of people switched to macs when Snow Leopard and Lion were current, so they got their first laptops with them preinstalled -- and obviously, they worked swimmingly (fresh installs, on the configurations Apple devs likely targeted during development). Nowadays, thanks to Apple effectively deserting Macs for long stretches, less and less new people move into the ecosystem, which means the bulk of users are now upgraders -- who are bound to have more issues.

LgWoodenBadger 7y ago

I hate that Rich Hickey quote. Sprints are just the classic computer science "divide and conquer" strategy applied to development.

GuiA 7y ago
That’s quite the leaky metaphor. If you split a list in half to sort it, the computer doesn’t inherit the backlog of punted features/bugs/stress/frustration/etc from the previous half.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ken 7y ago
The why not use a word that doesn’t imply “go at an unsustainable pace”? There are plenty of good ones to choose from.
AgloeDreams 7y ago
The problem with divide and conquer is that the finished product has to be back in one piece that makes sense. Often times the act of `divide` also reduces context for what conquer actually is. Plus `divide and conquer` is used like a task you need to do with the goal of finishing, but Sprints never quite get to the end of the conquer phase, generally it's divide, and conquer...some tasks, and then divide in some more... and more... and more. You end up losing all sight of what you are actually trying to do or make. The only way to fix sprints in a small to medium size company that exists and is shipping products is to realize that they should be tied to a set series of tasks and that every now and then you really need a stop point where you can take a week or two, define what your goals, needs, and issues are for the next 6 weeks or so, and then start anew with a clean backlog and roadmap with full buy in from the developers of what they are making. Otherwise you just turn developers into ticket pushers for tickets that they themselves do not understand, or have any context to understand why they are doing them. It's depressing and causes burnout and bad products. It's a symptom of the hustle culture bleeding into development and a lack of understanding that having long term end goals and sustainable pace is healthy to good products rather than `move fast and break things`.

333c 7y ago

I haven't seen that video before. Thank you for sharing it. The term "sprint" has always confused me a little bit.

jarjoura 7y ago

Leopard was severely hamstrung by the fact that Scott Forstall abruptly "stole" all the leads from all of the various OS teams to work on the iPhone. Various projects went unfinished because they no longer had the bandwidth or knowledge to finish them. Likewise, Bertrand was super pissed about the failure in quality and Snow Leopard was the direct result of that.