Portable News
PB Zone
iBook News
iBook Zone
Forum
MacDebate.com
Mac OS X
X Appeal
Quotes
WWDC 2003: Day 5
by Jeff Szuhay
<jeff@szuhay.org>
Friday, June 27, 2003
|
Quick table of contents |
Smells Like ... Victory (??)
There are some sessions this morning that I really want to see, so I dispense with my morning routine and head straight out for the convention.
Yet another gorgeous morning in San Francisco. It's early enough in the day to still cool and comfortable. Locals keep apologizing for the hot weather; go figure.
But on this last walk to the convention center, I realize there are just some smells I don't want to remember. Mind you, I've lived in New York City during its very dark period in the 1980's so I'm no stranger to "urban flora." Nevertheless, I can't help but wonder if this is a factor or weather (more rain) or California's social mores. And, yes, I've been back to New York recently and it has regained its urban splendor.
Morning Sessions
One of the biggest changes for developers in Panther is the automatic generation of code for the controller layer in the Model-View-Controller object model. Thanks to the Smalltalk guys for this; it's a really useful model to adopt, especially for dynamic typing, late-binding languages (Smalltalk, Objective-C, Python, Ruby, etc.).
Anyway, there's also another set of technologies for the UI that can eliminate even more coding: Key-Value Coding and Key Value Observing. This looks to be extremely flexible yet simple so it will impact (i.e. simplify) the way programs will be written for Panther. We'll be seeing more of this in MacTech and Apple documentation. I can't help but wonder, however, what this means for apps which support pre-Panther versions which don't have this technology.
I then attended a session on building apps using QuickTime with non-Cocoa or C++ tools. Real Basic, Visual Basic, Runtime Revolution, and AppleScript Studio (let's refer to this as just AS, okay?). Each had it quirks but overall, it was amazingly simple with just a handful of code to embed QuickTime into an application. This means not just movies, but also VR, wired sprites and the other cool goodies in QuickTime.
Lunch
I missed lunch today; darn. I spent too much time talking with some Apple engineers about OS 9 (yes, it's really dead), MacHack and my own project. Today, I met (again, I think) Jim Ray of Panorama. He told me of his experiences supporting Mac and Windows using Altura's MacToWin (sic) tools. It seems this is useful when the Mac is your first platform and you don't want to move to Windows (or you don't already have the "up the Microsoft butt" syndrome (TM).
I think that the land-line ethernet tables and dining tables (or anywhere you can sit comfortably and gather) are really the places where you can partake in "geek banter" and make useful acquaintances. But food was taken away early so I missed out.
Save the Best for Last
The afternoon sessions I attended were, like the earlier ones of today, some really outstanding sessions. It's kind of odd that they occur today, when attendees are typically burned out and ready to go home. Yet they are well attended, well organized, and just plain useful.
I'm talking about "Writing Threaded Applications in OS X" and "Cocoa Text."
Somehow I missed all of the feedback forums; maybe I just didn't feel like bitching at Apple this year. The only one I regret missing was the ADC feedback forum because I later heard that it was quite lively. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who noticed the qualitative differences in the food service, snack availability and quantity, and overall venue organization between this year and prior year's. In prior WWDCs, you got the feeling that it was run by people who knew the peccadillos of programmers; this year it felt more oriented to the business-class types. Not really bad, just not appropriate to this audience, I think.
The Party's Over
I was a bit disappointed that the convention staff really shut the place down quickly. Attendees were pushed out of sessions, network services were shut down promptly. I really could have used a couple more hours of network access.
Nevertheless, attendees continue to mill about outside the hall -- those who didn't have a plane to catch. I prefer to fly out the next day or even Sunday as it gives me an extra day to recover. While I'm out milling about I met up with Ted and also get invited to an ad-hoc Aussie party later (it turns out that I was with a couple of Aussies in the pub last night but wasn't really aware of it -- beer can do that to you).
After a quick return to my hotel to dump my backpack and to take a dip in the pool, I head out to meet Ted at a really wonderful sushi bar in the Sony Metreon, and then off to the party. Anybody who is a friend of beer is a friend of mine and the Aussies love beer. It was a great party and nice end to the conference.
Stay tuned for my post-conference wrap-up and final thoughts.
Have a question or comment? I appreciate your feedback
Published by Doug B. Landry and contributing staff. Trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., and others reserved. ©2003 Delta Design. Publishing headquarters is located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Index version 1.1.2
