4 ms·

The Macintosh Way (1990) [pdf]

54 points by uniqueid 5y ago

specialist 5y ago
Love this book. Reading this book's depiction of Jean-Louis Gassée was a major deflection point in my life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gassée https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gassée Trying to emulate Gassée, my team and peers, knowing my true nature, thought I had gone insane. I continued to read his opinions. http://www.mondaynote.com http://www.mondaynote.com Agree or disagree, I appreciate his heterodoxy, challenging my own assumptions and views. Guy Kawasaki, not so much.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tambourine_man 5y ago
  Could you expand? You got me curious. What characteristics from Gassée did you try to emulate in vain? What do you dislike about Kawasaki?
  - specialist 5y ago
    Page 165, bullet point 11. Explaining would ruin Kawasaki's story. Rereading just now, I'm amused that was the only Gassée lesson I remembered. I like Kawasaki just fine. The followups I'd read didn't really land like Macintosh Way did. But I see now that he kept writing, all of which are rated highly. So I retract my judgement. YMMV.
smoldesu 5y ago
> Q. How many Macintosh Division employees do you need to change a light bulb? > A. One. He holds the light bulb up and lets the universe revolve around him. How well does that scale to modern Apple? Do they retain 140,000+ employees, each one expecting the world to revolve around them?
- thought_alarm 5y ago
  That's a description of the early Macintosh Division relative to the rest of the company (which at the time was being kept afloat by the Apple II). I'm sure there are groups within Apple that think the rest of the company revolves around them, as there are in most companies.
a4isms 5y ago
My favourite thing in this book is Guy’s injunction to build for passengers AND sailors. Make things that are familiar and offer good affordances for people who just pick it up and need to get something done. But also make room for those who want to “go belowdecks” and fool around with the engine.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- analog31 5y ago
  >>> But also make room for those who want to “go belowdecks” and fool around with the engine. I admired Kawasaki, but I don't think he had that much clout at Apple. This was the part that Apple never got. Indeed, not too many years later, Apple announced to the business press that they were going to de-emphasize engineering applications and focus on their core strengths in the arts and education. I remember an article by Kawasaki proclaiming that the Mac was going to be the go-to platform for an emerging field called Embedded Systems. Virtually no embedded systems tooling was ever developed for the Mac. I created Mac hardware by programming it on an MS-DOS machine. I'm grateful that MacOS and MS-DOS let me bypass the Windows 3.1 era. I am not sure that Windows was any better, but Windows allowed dropping back to MS-DOS mode and creating ugly-but-works tooling. Then Visual Basic came along and made it easy. And today, anything I'm like to do with "the engine" will preferably involve Linux.
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    Visual Basic doesn't get enough credit for revolutionising development. It isn't sexy, it isn't sitting on a cool language, it had serious limitations. But wow did a lot of systems get developed in it. Microsoft still haven't got a decent replacement for it and nobody else does either.
  - rjsw 5y ago
    They had A/ROSE [1], it could have been a good platform if it had a link to HyperCard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/ROSE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/ROSE
FullyFunctional 5y ago
I stopped reading when I got to the development of the Macintosh which utterly disagree with every inside account I have read, in particular the very many snippets on https://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&sortOrder=Sort+by+Date https://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&so.... Most notably the demo wasn't some grand vision of Jobs, but read it here: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Intro_Demo.txt&sortOrder=Sort+by+Date&author=Andy+Hertzfeld https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...
- uniqueid 5y ago
  I didn't notice anything one wouldn't expect, given how different first-hand accounts tend to be. Kawasaki is a marketing guy so his knowledge is weaker than an engineer's in many areas; stronger in a few others. For anyone interested, here's the demo in question: https://youtu.be/1tQ5XwvjPmA https://youtu.be/1tQ5XwvjPmA
  - FullyFunctional 5y ago
    He seems to be drunk on Jobs cool-aid

54 points by uniqueid 5y ago

Love this book. Reading this book's depiction of Jean-Louis Gassée was a major deflection point in my life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gassée https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gassée Trying to emulate Gassée, my team and peers, knowing my true nature, thought I had gone insane. I continued to read his opinions. http://www.mondaynote.com http://www.mondaynote.com Agree or disagree, I appreciate his heterodoxy, challenging my own assumptions and views. Guy Kawasaki, not so much.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tambourine_man 5y ago
Could you expand? You got me curious. What characteristics from Gassée did you try to emulate in vain? What do you dislike about Kawasaki?
- specialist 5y ago
  Page 165, bullet point 11. Explaining would ruin Kawasaki's story. Rereading just now, I'm amused that was the only Gassée lesson I remembered. I like Kawasaki just fine. The followups I'd read didn't really land like Macintosh Way did. But I see now that he kept writing, all of which are rated highly. So I retract my judgement. YMMV.

smoldesu 5y ago

> Q. How many Macintosh Division employees do you need to change a light bulb? > A. One. He holds the light bulb up and lets the universe revolve around him. How well does that scale to modern Apple? Do they retain 140,000+ employees, each one expecting the world to revolve around them?

thought_alarm 5y ago
That's a description of the early Macintosh Division relative to the rest of the company (which at the time was being kept afloat by the Apple II). I'm sure there are groups within Apple that think the rest of the company revolves around them, as there are in most companies.

a4isms 5y ago

My favourite thing in this book is Guy’s injunction to build for passengers AND sailors. Make things that are familiar and offer good affordances for people who just pick it up and need to get something done. But also make room for those who want to “go belowdecks” and fool around with the engine.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
analog31 5y ago
>>> But also make room for those who want to “go belowdecks” and fool around with the engine. I admired Kawasaki, but I don't think he had that much clout at Apple. This was the part that Apple never got. Indeed, not too many years later, Apple announced to the business press that they were going to de-emphasize engineering applications and focus on their core strengths in the arts and education. I remember an article by Kawasaki proclaiming that the Mac was going to be the go-to platform for an emerging field called Embedded Systems. Virtually no embedded systems tooling was ever developed for the Mac. I created Mac hardware by programming it on an MS-DOS machine. I'm grateful that MacOS and MS-DOS let me bypass the Windows 3.1 era. I am not sure that Windows was any better, but Windows allowed dropping back to MS-DOS mode and creating ugly-but-works tooling. Then Visual Basic came along and made it easy. And today, anything I'm like to do with "the engine" will preferably involve Linux.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  Visual Basic doesn't get enough credit for revolutionising development. It isn't sexy, it isn't sitting on a cool language, it had serious limitations. But wow did a lot of systems get developed in it. Microsoft still haven't got a decent replacement for it and nobody else does either.
- rjsw 5y ago
  They had A/ROSE [1], it could have been a good platform if it had a link to HyperCard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/ROSE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/ROSE

FullyFunctional 5y ago

I stopped reading when I got to the development of the Macintosh which utterly disagree with every inside account I have read, in particular the very many snippets on https://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&sortOrder=Sort+by+Date https://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&so.... Most notably the demo wasn't some grand vision of Jobs, but read it here: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Intro_Demo.txt&sortOrder=Sort+by+Date&author=Andy+Hertzfeld https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...

uniqueid 5y ago
I didn't notice anything one wouldn't expect, given how different first-hand accounts tend to be. Kawasaki is a marketing guy so his knowledge is weaker than an engineer's in many areas; stronger in a few others. For anyone interested, here's the demo in question: https://youtu.be/1tQ5XwvjPmA https://youtu.be/1tQ5XwvjPmA
- FullyFunctional 5y ago
  He seems to be drunk on Jobs cool-aid