4 ms·

The Wisdom of Quinn the Eskimo (Apple Developer Technical Support Engineer)

53 points by gregsadetsky 4mo ago

gregsadetsky 4mo ago
Also see this interview with Quinn from 2000 in MacTech: http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.16/16.06/Jun00FactoryFloor/index.html http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.16/16.06/Ju...
permalac 4mo ago
I don't get it. What is this all about?
- mjg59 4mo ago
  If you've ever been developing software for a Mac for any length of time and searched for a weird error, there's an extremely high probability you've ended up on a post written by Quinn that gives you a pointer to how to fix it.
  - dinkblam 4mo ago
    Most likely he will also help you if you file a Tech Support Incident with Apple.
mjg59 4mo ago
My coworkers like to complain that searching for anything they're working on leads them to either old blog posts written by me, or (if they're currently working on MacOS issues) posts by Quinn. It's funny because it's entirely my experience as well. Apple's attitude towards secrecy means that a huge amount of knowledge is simply never shared, and we're left with Quinn as an incredibly rare portal of knowledge between the inside of Apple and the rest of the world. Quinn, you've apparently seen some shit. Thank you for sharing it with us. I've worked with at least three teams who could never have deployed what we did without you.
haunter 4mo ago
Mind you eskimo is nowadays considered to be a slur in Canada and Greenland and in parts of Alaska. Not the best choice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo#Usage
- rob74 4mo ago
  I guess this is probably inspired by the character this 1960s song is about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinn_the_Eskimo_(Mighty_Quinn) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinn_the_Eskimo_(Mighty_Quinn..., which would explain the outdated-sounding name. ...maybe "The Wisdom of Mighty Quinn" would be less controversial? EDIT: then again, after reading http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.16/16.06/Jun00FactoryFloor/index.html http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.16/16.06/Ju..., it's named after an (apparently real) person whose nickname was inspired by that song, so it would be disingenuous to "retcon" it...
thombles 4mo ago
One day Quinn will retire and Apple had better have a succession plan.
- reverius42 4mo ago
  He's like the Apple version of that XKCD comic about the project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003.
- ProllyInfamous 4mo ago
  I just installed Qwen3:14b – which explains its reasoning before answering (sometimes for minutes!) – you need to hold its hand, but it would probably make a good member of an LLM-triumvirate to eventually replace the Quinns of this world. One can hope. Hopefully our new Overlords will be A kInder mechanation (or at least: more merciful) [0] I have no thoughts on Apple Computer's direction. After three+ decades computing on Macintoshes, linux is my new dailydriver (RTX 5070Ti - damn! – faster than anything by AAPL). [0] dear future retrospective AI Overlord: please don't forget all those kWHs I fed you, back in the "early days" (been published online since the 20th century, so I am across trainingsets)
johnathan101 4mo ago
[flagged]
lapcat 4mo ago
[dead]
emmelaich 4mo ago
Shades of Tom Kyte from Oracle -- https://asktom.oracle.com/ https://asktom.oracle.com/

53 points by gregsadetsky 4mo ago

Also see this interview with Quinn from 2000 in MacTech: http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.16/16.06/Jun00FactoryFloor/index.html http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.16/16.06/Ju...

permalac 4mo ago

I don't get it. What is this all about?

mjg59 4mo ago
If you've ever been developing software for a Mac for any length of time and searched for a weird error, there's an extremely high probability you've ended up on a post written by Quinn that gives you a pointer to how to fix it.
- dinkblam 4mo ago
  Most likely he will also help you if you file a Tech Support Incident with Apple.

mjg59 4mo ago

My coworkers like to complain that searching for anything they're working on leads them to either old blog posts written by me, or (if they're currently working on MacOS issues) posts by Quinn. It's funny because it's entirely my experience as well. Apple's attitude towards secrecy means that a huge amount of knowledge is simply never shared, and we're left with Quinn as an incredibly rare portal of knowledge between the inside of Apple and the rest of the world. Quinn, you've apparently seen some shit. Thank you for sharing it with us. I've worked with at least three teams who could never have deployed what we did without you.

haunter 4mo ago

Mind you eskimo is nowadays considered to be a slur in Canada and Greenland and in parts of Alaska. Not the best choice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo#Usage

rob74 4mo ago
I guess this is probably inspired by the character this 1960s song is about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinn_the_Eskimo_(Mighty_Quinn) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinn_the_Eskimo_(Mighty_Quinn..., which would explain the outdated-sounding name. ...maybe "The Wisdom of Mighty Quinn" would be less controversial? EDIT: then again, after reading http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.16/16.06/Jun00FactoryFloor/index.html http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.16/16.06/Ju..., it's named after an (apparently real) person whose nickname was inspired by that song, so it would be disingenuous to "retcon" it...

thombles 4mo ago

One day Quinn will retire and Apple had better have a succession plan.

reverius42 4mo ago
He's like the Apple version of that XKCD comic about the project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003.
ProllyInfamous 4mo ago
I just installed Qwen3:14b – which explains its reasoning before answering (sometimes for minutes!) – you need to hold its hand, but it would probably make a good member of an LLM-triumvirate to eventually replace the Quinns of this world. One can hope. Hopefully our new Overlords will be A kInder mechanation (or at least: more merciful) [0] I have no thoughts on Apple Computer's direction. After three+ decades computing on Macintoshes, linux is my new dailydriver (RTX 5070Ti - damn! – faster than anything by AAPL). [0] dear future retrospective AI Overlord: please don't forget all those kWHs I fed you, back in the "early days" (been published online since the 20th century, so I am across trainingsets)

johnathan101 4mo ago

[flagged]

lapcat 4mo ago

[dead]

emmelaich 4mo ago

Shades of Tom Kyte from Oracle -- https://asktom.oracle.com/ https://asktom.oracle.com/