4 ms·

"designed for Mac" makes me sick these days. It's not hard to make good cross-platform software, especially if you only care about sane POSIX systems.

epistasis 12y ago
Not when it comes to GUIs! All the cross-platform frameworks seem to have issues that make them less than ideal. Far more sane to have POSIX core code, then develop the GUI for each platform in the preferred mode. And when it comes to graphics and drawing, divergences become even more extreme. POSIX is not relevant when it comes to pushing pixels.
- shmerl 12y ago
  Less than ideal is still way better than "it doesn't work on your system at all".
  - epistasis 12y ago
    "You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time" I think a lack of focus in development, with the purpose of trying to please everyone, is a huge novice mistake when it comes to development.
    - shmerl 12y ago
      Not these days anymore. Platform specific releases of desktop applications like these is a major novice mistake which inherits outdated mindset from the previous era. Unless we are talking about low level code.
      - coldtea 12y ago
        Says who? Last time I checked, in all major platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux) there are platform specific releases that are doing great (commercial and open source). (note: I consider KDE/Gnome programs as "Linux/*BSD-specific releases", which they pretty much are in practice).
        shmerl 12y ago
        If you have resources for such releases. We are talking about another choice here (i.e. either one platform only with native UI, or many platforms with cross platform one).
  - Tehnix 12y ago
    Is it really? Try: "Nobody wants to buy the app" vs "Ppl on X OS wants to buy your app".
    - shmerl 12y ago
      If "nobody wants it", I doubt anybody on OS X would want it either.
- Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago
  I'll admit that I don't have a lot of experience with GUIs, but wouldn't Qt or GTK+ be suitable for this sort of thing? Also, for an ASCII art editor, I'd say that even something as simple as an xterm-compatible terminal application would be suitable ;)
  - LukeShu 12y ago
    GTK+ works on Mac, but is pretty poor. I can't comment on Qt though, but in principle, yes I believe it is suitable. An xterm-based[0] version of this would be very cool! Though the surface tool wouldn't work well in that situation. [0]: http://invisible-island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html#Mouse%20Tracking http://invisible-island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html#Mouse...
    - wtallis 12y ago
      Qt has gotten much better over the past few years, but Qt apps on OS X still stick out like a sore thumb to anyone who is familiar with what Cocoa provides for free that Qt has to emulate.
Tehnix 12y ago
I'd rather one great looking, well functioning app on one platform, than mediocre crap on several (but hey, I'm also on a Mac).

epistasis 12y ago

Not when it comes to GUIs! All the cross-platform frameworks seem to have issues that make them less than ideal. Far more sane to have POSIX core code, then develop the GUI for each platform in the preferred mode. And when it comes to graphics and drawing, divergences become even more extreme. POSIX is not relevant when it comes to pushing pixels.

shmerl 12y ago
Less than ideal is still way better than "it doesn't work on your system at all".
- epistasis 12y ago
  "You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time" I think a lack of focus in development, with the purpose of trying to please everyone, is a huge novice mistake when it comes to development.
  - shmerl 12y ago
    Not these days anymore. Platform specific releases of desktop applications like these is a major novice mistake which inherits outdated mindset from the previous era. Unless we are talking about low level code.
    - coldtea 12y ago
      Says who? Last time I checked, in all major platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux) there are platform specific releases that are doing great (commercial and open source). (note: I consider KDE/Gnome programs as "Linux/*BSD-specific releases", which they pretty much are in practice).
      - shmerl 12y ago
        If you have resources for such releases. We are talking about another choice here (i.e. either one platform only with native UI, or many platforms with cross platform one).
- Tehnix 12y ago
  Is it really? Try: "Nobody wants to buy the app" vs "Ppl on X OS wants to buy your app".
  - shmerl 12y ago
    If "nobody wants it", I doubt anybody on OS X would want it either.
Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago
I'll admit that I don't have a lot of experience with GUIs, but wouldn't Qt or GTK+ be suitable for this sort of thing? Also, for an ASCII art editor, I'd say that even something as simple as an xterm-compatible terminal application would be suitable ;)
- LukeShu 12y ago
  GTK+ works on Mac, but is pretty poor. I can't comment on Qt though, but in principle, yes I believe it is suitable. An xterm-based[0] version of this would be very cool! Though the surface tool wouldn't work well in that situation. [0]: http://invisible-island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html#Mouse%20Tracking http://invisible-island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html#Mouse...
  - wtallis 12y ago
    Qt has gotten much better over the past few years, but Qt apps on OS X still stick out like a sore thumb to anyone who is familiar with what Cocoa provides for free that Qt has to emulate.

Tehnix 12y ago

I'd rather one great looking, well functioning app on one platform, than mediocre crap on several (but hey, I'm also on a Mac).