7 ms·

Bertrand Serlet to leave Apple

97 points by cstuder 16y ago

jballanc 16y ago
Well...I can't say I didn't see it coming (recent ex-Apple engineer here), and I'm happy for Bertrand, but Apple is loosing an extremely valuable asset. Bertrand is a truly amazing and, I feel, wholly under-appreciated engineer and manager. He knew the technology better than pretty much anyone at Apple, and he stayed involved in all of the nitty-gritty details including participating in some of the internal engineer mailing list discussions. One story I can relate that I think illustrates the point: Inside Apple there is a system to search the source code for every product they ship. The idea is that when you need to track down the definition of that primitive method that keeps crashing on you, you just go to this site, type in the function name, and get the source laid out in front of you (nicely syntax highlighted, of course). Well, one day I got the idea to use this tool to search for people, instead of functions. For a while now the policy at Apple has been that engineer's names don't go in the public headers that ship...but there's no rule about internal code that the outside world will never see. So I typed in "Bertrand Serlet" into the search, and the first thing that popped up? malloc.c Seriously! The rest of the list was equally impressive including the original implementation of NSObject, a bunch of CoreFoundation, and on, and on. Avi Tevanian often gets credit for the work that he did on Mach, but Bertrand was most of the brains behind Cocoa. Anyway, I could go on, but I'll just say that if I could have one wish as a programmer it would be to get to work with Bertrand Serlet again.
- nupark 16y ago
  Speaking as a former Apple engineer in Core OS, this is a bit too glowing. Serlet wrote quite a bit of code in the NeXT days, much of which does not meet what you would call modern best practices, and even when written was fairly unusual. However, Serlet, despite no longer writing code, was incredibly stubborn about any changes to his pet implementations, even 10-20 years later. This included large changes, such as updating malloc to a more modern implementation (see Jason Evan's later work on jemalloc), and small changes, such as updating top(1) to better match its Linux and BSD counterparts and implement a standardized library (libtop) for accessing process/host statistics (he wrote top, too). Serlet was like many technical individuals that graduated into fulltime management; stuck with the last technology they'd worked on, as it was when they last worked on it. Avie was the same with his fixation on Mach, and Mac OS X was honestly poorer for it.
  - nikster 16y ago
    Interesting - in that case I cheer his departure. One of the most important abilities of a great engineer is to be able to throw away his own code (so it can be replaced by something better).
    - svlla 16y ago
      thank you so much for weighing in.
  - jballanc 16y ago
    Heh, ok…I'll take that. I find your perspective a bit entertaining coming from Core OS (I was on Server, as it so happens). At least, when I was there Core OS had a reputation as being the more "academic" and "by the book" group. That's compared to Frameworks, which was much more pragmatic than dogmatic. One of the things I admired was how Bertrand managed those conflicting viewpoints with some grace. Of course, things being what they were, I'd expect someone from Core OS to blame Bertrand for being too "old fashioned". At the same time I know plenty of people from Frameworks who were upset that he "adopted new technology too soon"…there was especially a lot of that with respect to libdispatch. As for malloc, I find it hard to believe that he was stubborn about changes. The one chance I had to sit and have coffee with Bertrand, we discussed what API's we'd most like to rewrite given infinite time/resources. His answer was "malloc". I think rather than being stuck with the last technology, he had a difficult time balancing the pressures of change with the need for consistence, and did so admirably. Oh, and as for top…when they did change it in early SnowLeopard builds, it broke a whole host of tooling, etc., and they had to revert some changes...
    - nupark 16y ago
      Given where Core OS sits in the software stack (kernel, libc, file systems, etc), being "academic" and "by the book" shouldn't be surprising. :) As to the rest; my point was that Bertrand was very opposed to change in 'his' code, not that he wasn't open to any change. Regarding malloc, I think Bertrand still thought he'd be best suited to do it, and he has always objected strenuously to others approaching his problems. Oh, and as for top…when they did change it in early SnowLeopard builds, it broke a whole host of tooling, etc., and they had to revert some changes... That's pretty normal when tools depend on text output of commands (something Core OS has told everyone not to do, and then they do anyway). The initial conversion to modern top/libtop actually occurred back in the 10.{1,2,3} release cycles, and was subject to a very heavy amount of push-back and compromise with Bertrand about "his" top(1) :)
- npalli 16y ago
  He seemed pretty proud of malloc being around for forty years! Bertrand Serlet on private API's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd97us27eSg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd97us27eSg
- cpr 16y ago
  I'm sure there are many brains behind Cocoa, but Ali Ozer has to be the most unsung hero at Apple. Seems like it's been his core vision for all these years that has kept things coherent.
- Volt 16y ago
  Potentially dumb question (I haven't checked myself), but does this mean that Apple removes the names from the open source Darwin releases?
- HSO 16y ago
  FYI, you are the lead-in to an article at All Things D --> http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20110323/mac-daddy-serlets-surprise-departure-more-of-a-planned-transition/ http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20110323/mac-daddy-serlet...
glhaynes 16y ago
For those who've never seen him: a funny clip of Serlet dissing Vista at the 2006 developer conference: http://tumblr.frijole.info/post/4044018611/bertrand-wwdc-06 http://tumblr.frijole.info/post/4044018611/bertrand-wwdc-06
- nikster 16y ago
  Nice one! Ever since the port of Mac OS X to the iPhone - the iOS - I am in awe of Apple engineering. They are Gods. I mean - imagine Vista, or Win 7 going on the phone, just with a new touch UI framework added. It simply wouldn't work, couldn't work, would be impossible, beyond the reach of the richest software company in the world. Sometimes, good engineering does pay off, and ultimately one could say that iOS is a direct result of good engineering. Every time the iOS wins it's a win for good design, and for object oriented programming. That said, the dark side of being so far ahead of everyone for so long is a severe case of NIH syndrome at Apple. Those times when others surprisingly better Apple, Apple takes a very long time to catch up. Dev tools are the best example with XCode 10 years behind Eclipse. MobileMe Mail is perhaps another one: MobileMe Mail is similar to Mail.app on OS X - but Gmail is way better than that, and has been pretty much from the beginning.
  - runjake 16y ago
    I'm not sure why you're getting upvoted. The NT base OS already runs on embedded platforms with equal or lesser power than that of any of the iOS platforms. Are you trying to imply that the base OS is bloated? Or, are you trying to imply that the UI frameworks are bloated? Apple didn't just port Mac OS X to the iOS platform, they more accurately ported the underlying Darwin OS to it, and added UIKit and other specialized frameworks.
    - lurch_mojoff 16y ago
      The thing is those "other specialized frameworks" are mostly the exact same ones you get on the Mac. So the accurate description would be: "Apple ported the major parts of Mac OS X to ARM and exchanged UIKit for AppKit".
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
npalli 16y ago
Looks like lot of top level changes at apple. If rumors/reports are to be believed, just this year -- 1. Steve Jobs out of action for a while 2. Jonny Ive not wanting to extend his stay in the US and going back to England 3. Oppenheimer out, looking for a new CFO with deal making capabilities 4. Bertrand Serlet out and an internet veteran taking his place [2] http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/27/ive-due-30m-stock-windfall-may-seek-relocation-back-to-uk/ http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/27/ive-due-30m-stock-windfall-ma... [3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-07/apple-s-overture-to-blackstone-s-cfo-may-signal-desire-for-more-dealmaking.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-07/apple-s-overture-to...
- runjake 16y ago
  #2 may have been shot down by Apple this week. I'd assume if he were going to leave Apple, they'd keep mum. Or maybe he was going to bail but they offered him more money. Or offered to let him work from the UK. Also: TUAW rivals the National Inquirer on reliability of their news. You shouldn't cite them if you want your points taken seriously.
  - rimantas 16y ago
    Regarding #2 — when I first saw that rumor my thought was: where would he go? My take is that Ive is in some kind of lock-in — nowhere else would he get the culture, resources, help, anything he needs to be what he is.
    - Hov 16y ago
      Alternatively, he could start his own company.
    - Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
      The Ive thing is / was apparently about wanting to move back the UK and have his children educated here rather than work. I'm guessing that he's set for life financially and that he'd basically have his pick of jobs or freelance work so while it might not be Apple, he's going to do fine. But a recent newspaper article (it was the Daily Mail so I use the term newspaper loosely) said he wasn't looking to move back here and there was no truth to the rumour. No idea what their source but probably about as reliable / unreliable as the source of the original rumour which was pretty speculative to say the least.
wtn 16y ago
They need to replace the Apple Developer Tools lead next. He's been at Apple forever—around 30 years now—and he's gone insane. The Xcode 4 interface should not imitate iTunes.
- dot 16y ago
  i'm still hoping i'll get used to it. i can't believe steve doesnt make the xcode team take on an interface designer.
  - stevejohnson 16y ago
    You really think the developer tools team doesn't have a UI designer?
    - leon_ 16y ago
      At least the one they've got got pretty disconnected from the developer's point of view. When I want to build my project I do not want to press a play button.
      - YooLi 16y ago
        Me thinks you haven't been programming long if you don't know what the green triangle does. It's been a "play button" for over a decade.
        ForensicPics 16y ago
        The green button RUNS the program, building it first if necessary. Where did he say he wants to run the program?
      - pennig 16y ago
        What kind of button would you want to press?
        16y ago
sgt 16y ago
Good to see that a NeXT guy is taking over from him. I wish Bertrand the best of luck in his new ventures.
dcreemer 16y ago
I will say this about Bertrand -- the guy works all the time. It's become a running joke with my wife... Every single time we go out to dinner & coffee in downtown Palo Alto, we wonder which coffee shop we'll see him in, working away on his laptop.
vertr 16y ago
There's science to be done!
moblivu 16y ago
That's a great part of the business; ideas and people travels! Look at Matias Duarte -the designer of WebOS- he moved to the Android team and made (made is technically speaking) the Honeycomb we now know. Designers and coders moves and makes the industry moving in a great way because it creates diversity and changes!
glhaynes 16y ago
Wil Shipley (longtime NeXT and Mac OS X programmer) posted a few thoughts on Serlet and his replacement Federighi. Well worth a read, he clearly has enormous respect for both of them. http://blog.wilshipley.com/2011/03/celebrating-betrand-serlet-and-craig.html http://blog.wilshipley.com/2011/03/celebrating-betrand-serle...
bambax 16y ago
Well it’s a sad day for all of us here in Cupertino. Bertrand Serlet, the friendly cyborg from the future who has lived among us and helped guide our software development efforts with such skill, has been recalled back to his home planet. We’ll have a little announcement at town hall this Friday with a cake and ice cream. Bertrand has been instrumental in guiding our OS X development and now that Leopard is out the door Bertrand (real name: Belar) felt this was a good time to heed the call of his people on Gallifrey One, who need him to help fight off some invaders in the future or something. [...] Much love, Bertrand. O traveler of time, you have brought a vision of peace to our galaxy, not to mention a great deal of truly sweet software. For your countless contributions to our company and to our planet, we thank you. From Fake Steeve Jobs, Nov. 2007 http://www.fakesteve.net/2007/11/bertrand-serlet-recalled-to-his-home.html http://www.fakesteve.net/2007/11/bertrand-serlet-recalled-to...
joeybaker 16y ago
Not to take anything away from Bertrand and go back to the normal tea leaf reading we so enjoy to do with Apple, but … here goes :] Did anyone else notice how the press release was so heavily focused on Steve Jobs? It could almost be read as: Jobs is at the helm, and don't worry, he'll be okay.

97 points by cstuder 16y ago

Well...I can't say I didn't see it coming (recent ex-Apple engineer here), and I'm happy for Bertrand, but Apple is loosing an extremely valuable asset. Bertrand is a truly amazing and, I feel, wholly under-appreciated engineer and manager. He knew the technology better than pretty much anyone at Apple, and he stayed involved in all of the nitty-gritty details including participating in some of the internal engineer mailing list discussions. One story I can relate that I think illustrates the point: Inside Apple there is a system to search the source code for every product they ship. The idea is that when you need to track down the definition of that primitive method that keeps crashing on you, you just go to this site, type in the function name, and get the source laid out in front of you (nicely syntax highlighted, of course). Well, one day I got the idea to use this tool to search for people, instead of functions. For a while now the policy at Apple has been that engineer's names don't go in the public headers that ship...but there's no rule about internal code that the outside world will never see. So I typed in "Bertrand Serlet" into the search, and the first thing that popped up? malloc.c Seriously! The rest of the list was equally impressive including the original implementation of NSObject, a bunch of CoreFoundation, and on, and on. Avi Tevanian often gets credit for the work that he did on Mach, but Bertrand was most of the brains behind Cocoa. Anyway, I could go on, but I'll just say that if I could have one wish as a programmer it would be to get to work with Bertrand Serlet again.

nupark 16y ago
Speaking as a former Apple engineer in Core OS, this is a bit too glowing. Serlet wrote quite a bit of code in the NeXT days, much of which does not meet what you would call modern best practices, and even when written was fairly unusual. However, Serlet, despite no longer writing code, was incredibly stubborn about any changes to his pet implementations, even 10-20 years later. This included large changes, such as updating malloc to a more modern implementation (see Jason Evan's later work on jemalloc), and small changes, such as updating top(1) to better match its Linux and BSD counterparts and implement a standardized library (libtop) for accessing process/host statistics (he wrote top, too). Serlet was like many technical individuals that graduated into fulltime management; stuck with the last technology they'd worked on, as it was when they last worked on it. Avie was the same with his fixation on Mach, and Mac OS X was honestly poorer for it.
- nikster 16y ago
  Interesting - in that case I cheer his departure. One of the most important abilities of a great engineer is to be able to throw away his own code (so it can be replaced by something better).
  - svlla 16y ago
    thank you so much for weighing in.
- jballanc 16y ago
  Heh, ok…I'll take that. I find your perspective a bit entertaining coming from Core OS (I was on Server, as it so happens). At least, when I was there Core OS had a reputation as being the more "academic" and "by the book" group. That's compared to Frameworks, which was much more pragmatic than dogmatic. One of the things I admired was how Bertrand managed those conflicting viewpoints with some grace. Of course, things being what they were, I'd expect someone from Core OS to blame Bertrand for being too "old fashioned". At the same time I know plenty of people from Frameworks who were upset that he "adopted new technology too soon"…there was especially a lot of that with respect to libdispatch. As for malloc, I find it hard to believe that he was stubborn about changes. The one chance I had to sit and have coffee with Bertrand, we discussed what API's we'd most like to rewrite given infinite time/resources. His answer was "malloc". I think rather than being stuck with the last technology, he had a difficult time balancing the pressures of change with the need for consistence, and did so admirably. Oh, and as for top…when they did change it in early SnowLeopard builds, it broke a whole host of tooling, etc., and they had to revert some changes...
  - nupark 16y ago
    Given where Core OS sits in the software stack (kernel, libc, file systems, etc), being "academic" and "by the book" shouldn't be surprising. :) As to the rest; my point was that Bertrand was very opposed to change in 'his' code, not that he wasn't open to any change. Regarding malloc, I think Bertrand still thought he'd be best suited to do it, and he has always objected strenuously to others approaching his problems. Oh, and as for top…when they did change it in early SnowLeopard builds, it broke a whole host of tooling, etc., and they had to revert some changes... That's pretty normal when tools depend on text output of commands (something Core OS has told everyone not to do, and then they do anyway). The initial conversion to modern top/libtop actually occurred back in the 10.{1,2,3} release cycles, and was subject to a very heavy amount of push-back and compromise with Bertrand about "his" top(1) :)
npalli 16y ago
He seemed pretty proud of malloc being around for forty years! Bertrand Serlet on private API's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd97us27eSg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd97us27eSg
cpr 16y ago
I'm sure there are many brains behind Cocoa, but Ali Ozer has to be the most unsung hero at Apple. Seems like it's been his core vision for all these years that has kept things coherent.
Volt 16y ago
Potentially dumb question (I haven't checked myself), but does this mean that Apple removes the names from the open source Darwin releases?
HSO 16y ago
FYI, you are the lead-in to an article at All Things D --> http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20110323/mac-daddy-serlets-surprise-departure-more-of-a-planned-transition/ http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20110323/mac-daddy-serlet...

glhaynes 16y ago

For those who've never seen him: a funny clip of Serlet dissing Vista at the 2006 developer conference: http://tumblr.frijole.info/post/4044018611/bertrand-wwdc-06 http://tumblr.frijole.info/post/4044018611/bertrand-wwdc-06

nikster 16y ago
Nice one! Ever since the port of Mac OS X to the iPhone - the iOS - I am in awe of Apple engineering. They are Gods. I mean - imagine Vista, or Win 7 going on the phone, just with a new touch UI framework added. It simply wouldn't work, couldn't work, would be impossible, beyond the reach of the richest software company in the world. Sometimes, good engineering does pay off, and ultimately one could say that iOS is a direct result of good engineering. Every time the iOS wins it's a win for good design, and for object oriented programming. That said, the dark side of being so far ahead of everyone for so long is a severe case of NIH syndrome at Apple. Those times when others surprisingly better Apple, Apple takes a very long time to catch up. Dev tools are the best example with XCode 10 years behind Eclipse. MobileMe Mail is perhaps another one: MobileMe Mail is similar to Mail.app on OS X - but Gmail is way better than that, and has been pretty much from the beginning.
- runjake 16y ago
  I'm not sure why you're getting upvoted. The NT base OS already runs on embedded platforms with equal or lesser power than that of any of the iOS platforms. Are you trying to imply that the base OS is bloated? Or, are you trying to imply that the UI frameworks are bloated? Apple didn't just port Mac OS X to the iOS platform, they more accurately ported the underlying Darwin OS to it, and added UIKit and other specialized frameworks.
  - lurch_mojoff 16y ago
    The thing is those "other specialized frameworks" are mostly the exact same ones you get on the Mac. So the accurate description would be: "Apple ported the major parts of Mac OS X to ARM and exchanged UIKit for AppKit".

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

npalli 16y ago

Looks like lot of top level changes at apple. If rumors/reports are to be believed, just this year -- 1. Steve Jobs out of action for a while 2. Jonny Ive not wanting to extend his stay in the US and going back to England 3. Oppenheimer out, looking for a new CFO with deal making capabilities 4. Bertrand Serlet out and an internet veteran taking his place [2] http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/27/ive-due-30m-stock-windfall-may-seek-relocation-back-to-uk/ http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/27/ive-due-30m-stock-windfall-ma... [3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-07/apple-s-overture-to-blackstone-s-cfo-may-signal-desire-for-more-dealmaking.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-07/apple-s-overture-to...

runjake 16y ago
#2 may have been shot down by Apple this week. I'd assume if he were going to leave Apple, they'd keep mum. Or maybe he was going to bail but they offered him more money. Or offered to let him work from the UK. Also: TUAW rivals the National Inquirer on reliability of their news. You shouldn't cite them if you want your points taken seriously.
- rimantas 16y ago
  Regarding #2 — when I first saw that rumor my thought was: where would he go? My take is that Ive is in some kind of lock-in — nowhere else would he get the culture, resources, help, anything he needs to be what he is.
  - Hov 16y ago
    Alternatively, he could start his own company.
  - Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
    The Ive thing is / was apparently about wanting to move back the UK and have his children educated here rather than work. I'm guessing that he's set for life financially and that he'd basically have his pick of jobs or freelance work so while it might not be Apple, he's going to do fine. But a recent newspaper article (it was the Daily Mail so I use the term newspaper loosely) said he wasn't looking to move back here and there was no truth to the rumour. No idea what their source but probably about as reliable / unreliable as the source of the original rumour which was pretty speculative to say the least.

wtn 16y ago

They need to replace the Apple Developer Tools lead next. He's been at Apple forever—around 30 years now—and he's gone insane. The Xcode 4 interface should not imitate iTunes.

dot 16y ago
i'm still hoping i'll get used to it. i can't believe steve doesnt make the xcode team take on an interface designer.
- stevejohnson 16y ago
  You really think the developer tools team doesn't have a UI designer?
  - leon_ 16y ago
    At least the one they've got got pretty disconnected from the developer's point of view. When I want to build my project I do not want to press a play button.
    - YooLi 16y ago
      Me thinks you haven't been programming long if you don't know what the green triangle does. It's been a "play button" for over a decade.
      - ForensicPics 16y ago
        The green button RUNS the program, building it first if necessary. Where did he say he wants to run the program?
    - pennig 16y ago
      What kind of button would you want to press?
      - 16y ago

sgt 16y ago

Good to see that a NeXT guy is taking over from him. I wish Bertrand the best of luck in his new ventures.

dcreemer 16y ago

I will say this about Bertrand -- the guy works all the time. It's become a running joke with my wife... Every single time we go out to dinner & coffee in downtown Palo Alto, we wonder which coffee shop we'll see him in, working away on his laptop.

vertr 16y ago

There's science to be done!

moblivu 16y ago

That's a great part of the business; ideas and people travels! Look at Matias Duarte -the designer of WebOS- he moved to the Android team and made (made is technically speaking) the Honeycomb we now know. Designers and coders moves and makes the industry moving in a great way because it creates diversity and changes!

glhaynes 16y ago

Wil Shipley (longtime NeXT and Mac OS X programmer) posted a few thoughts on Serlet and his replacement Federighi. Well worth a read, he clearly has enormous respect for both of them. http://blog.wilshipley.com/2011/03/celebrating-betrand-serlet-and-craig.html http://blog.wilshipley.com/2011/03/celebrating-betrand-serle...

bambax 16y ago

Well it’s a sad day for all of us here in Cupertino. Bertrand Serlet, the friendly cyborg from the future who has lived among us and helped guide our software development efforts with such skill, has been recalled back to his home planet. We’ll have a little announcement at town hall this Friday with a cake and ice cream. Bertrand has been instrumental in guiding our OS X development and now that Leopard is out the door Bertrand (real name: Belar) felt this was a good time to heed the call of his people on Gallifrey One, who need him to help fight off some invaders in the future or something. [...] Much love, Bertrand. O traveler of time, you have brought a vision of peace to our galaxy, not to mention a great deal of truly sweet software. For your countless contributions to our company and to our planet, we thank you. From Fake Steeve Jobs, Nov. 2007 http://www.fakesteve.net/2007/11/bertrand-serlet-recalled-to-his-home.html http://www.fakesteve.net/2007/11/bertrand-serlet-recalled-to...

joeybaker 16y ago

Not to take anything away from Bertrand and go back to the normal tea leaf reading we so enjoy to do with Apple, but … here goes :] Did anyone else notice how the press release was so heavily focused on Steve Jobs? It could almost be read as: Jobs is at the helm, and don't worry, he'll be okay.