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At the end of the day, Apple has always delivered far superior tools, frameworks, and ecosystem (development-wise). That to me says a lot more than how friendly

At the end of the day, Apple has always delivered far superior tools, frameworks, and ecosystem (development-wise). That to me says a lot more than how friendly the staff is.

deminature 12y ago
Anecdotally, this is also my experience with using some of the lesser known frameworks in the Android ecosystem - nothing is documented properly or the documentation is years out of date and/or uses long deprecated methods, significant bugs remain open for years without attention, requiring time-consuming workarounds, and everyone just puts up with it, because that's the way things have always been. An example of problematic documentation is Volley, which is a brilliant and totally needed framework and documentation that exists for it is a 45 minute presentation and a handful of StackOverflow posts.
- archivator 12y ago
  While I'm not arguing against your overall point, your example is not a good one. Volley was unnecessary. It only got attention because Google did it but the community was already on top of the issue. From shipping their own, newer Apache Client libs, through koush's ion and picasso, to Square's okhttp, networking on Android is full of good libraries to use. Volley didn't anything dramatic to this and, judging by the amount of attention it has received, it was someone's side project.
  - deminature 12y ago
    I take your point, and that's exactly why I'm not using it in production, but it doesn't seem like Google should have drawn as much attention as they did to it, running a session on it within Google I/O, if it was just intended to be a side-project and not for widespread consumption. I guess I'm just coming at this with a WWDC mentality, where a presentation would be run only on a completely production-ready and documented framework, and perhaps I/O does things differently.
bredren 12y ago
This. We generally don't send employees to either WWDC or I/O. As a result, the tone, attitude of attendees or company reps don't matter to us much at all. Our users and testers care about a great software experiences. So what matters most to us are stable, well designed and supported software platforms and ecosystems that let us deliver great experiences.
kumarm 12y ago
>>Apple has always delivered far superior tools, frameworks, and ecosystem Its easier to make good tools when they need to work on 5% market share (Mac only)? Google Tools are free. Apple tools start with you buying their $2000 machine.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  In what country does a macbook air cost $2K? Also, many people who use Google tools also have macbooks (e.g. all the Googlers I know), they have to use the tools with something.
  - danans 12y ago
    Based on what I've seen, fellow Googlers use Macs as glorified ssh terminals + chrome machines. Most Google code isn't allowed on laptops per security policy, and most wouldn't build there anyway. I also think lots of people have Macs because, before the Pixel, they were the only laptop offered internally that qualified as a fashion symbol, and the only option with a Retina display.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      I know a Googler with one MBP and 2 Pixels. Guess which computer he brought to the workshop we were in...
- austinz 12y ago
  You can get a Mac Mini that more than suffices for around $600-$800. But honestly, if paying $2000 was the only way to get a set of Android SDKs and development tools of the same caliber as Apple's developer offerings, I would immediately do so. I like the idea of the platform and I believe in anything that makes it easier for developers to build better applications.
  - vacri 12y ago
    Excellent. Now I've bought my mac mini, I can plug it in and listen to it consume power. I wonder how I can see what it's doing? Hrm... well, it can come with a monitor... for an extra thousand. Okay, scratch that, I'll get a cheap DisplayPort monitor... add a couple of hundred (or if I feel like splurging, get two). Oh, and a keyboard, another $50 (apple-branded, of course, because normal keyboards don't have apple keys). Mouse? Apple mouse at $50+? Maybe I'll go with a cheap logitech or something... 4GB memory standard? for a dev machine? OSX has trouble with that little memory. Up to 8GB for another hundred (or 16GB for three hundred). Spinning rust will do, but if you did want an SSD, throw on a couple hundred more. The idea that mac minis are 'cheap development boxes' is nonsense. It's cheaper than a decent macbook pro, but it's not a cheap workstation.
blinkingled 12y ago
Ugh, no. Ask anyone who has used both Xcode and Visual Studio. I used it once for porting a C/C++ project to OS X - it crashed a ton, the debugger integration was sub-par, the new window for everything thing was annoying. It did not really feel like a superior experience. If there's anyone delivering superior tools - it's Microsoft hands down.
- deminature 12y ago
  >the new window for everything thing was annoying This hasn't been the case since XCode 4, which was released in 2010 and introduced a single-window for everything.
  - nevi-me 12y ago
    Comment still relevant as the response was to "Apple has always", which implies that isn't entirely the case.
    - deminature 12y ago
      I suspect the original post was referring to XCode versus Android tools, given the post context of Google I/O, and if so, the statement that the tools have always been better is definitely correct. At least on OSX, I doubt anyone would dispute that XCode 4 in 2010 was miles ahead of Eclipse and early versions of the Android SDK, and that arguably holds to today, though less so with Android Studio.
  - blinkingled 12y ago
    I might be misremembering but the tabs in XCode 4 did not work like tabs in any other IDE - there were some major annoyances around new window/tab open behaviour if I recall it right.
- megablast 12y ago
  Eh, I have always preferred Xcode over VS. Maybe I just hated .Net.

At the end of the day, Apple has always delivered far superior tools, frameworks, and ecosystem (development-wise). That to me says a lot more than how friendly the staff is.

deminature 12y ago

Anecdotally, this is also my experience with using some of the lesser known frameworks in the Android ecosystem - nothing is documented properly or the documentation is years out of date and/or uses long deprecated methods, significant bugs remain open for years without attention, requiring time-consuming workarounds, and everyone just puts up with it, because that's the way things have always been. An example of problematic documentation is Volley, which is a brilliant and totally needed framework and documentation that exists for it is a 45 minute presentation and a handful of StackOverflow posts.

archivator 12y ago
While I'm not arguing against your overall point, your example is not a good one. Volley was unnecessary. It only got attention because Google did it but the community was already on top of the issue. From shipping their own, newer Apache Client libs, through koush's ion and picasso, to Square's okhttp, networking on Android is full of good libraries to use. Volley didn't anything dramatic to this and, judging by the amount of attention it has received, it was someone's side project.
- deminature 12y ago
  I take your point, and that's exactly why I'm not using it in production, but it doesn't seem like Google should have drawn as much attention as they did to it, running a session on it within Google I/O, if it was just intended to be a side-project and not for widespread consumption. I guess I'm just coming at this with a WWDC mentality, where a presentation would be run only on a completely production-ready and documented framework, and perhaps I/O does things differently.

bredren 12y ago

This. We generally don't send employees to either WWDC or I/O. As a result, the tone, attitude of attendees or company reps don't matter to us much at all. Our users and testers care about a great software experiences. So what matters most to us are stable, well designed and supported software platforms and ecosystems that let us deliver great experiences.

kumarm 12y ago

>>Apple has always delivered far superior tools, frameworks, and ecosystem Its easier to make good tools when they need to work on 5% market share (Mac only)? Google Tools are free. Apple tools start with you buying their $2000 machine.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
In what country does a macbook air cost $2K? Also, many people who use Google tools also have macbooks (e.g. all the Googlers I know), they have to use the tools with something.
- danans 12y ago
  Based on what I've seen, fellow Googlers use Macs as glorified ssh terminals + chrome machines. Most Google code isn't allowed on laptops per security policy, and most wouldn't build there anyway. I also think lots of people have Macs because, before the Pixel, they were the only laptop offered internally that qualified as a fashion symbol, and the only option with a Retina display.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    I know a Googler with one MBP and 2 Pixels. Guess which computer he brought to the workshop we were in...
austinz 12y ago
You can get a Mac Mini that more than suffices for around $600-$800. But honestly, if paying $2000 was the only way to get a set of Android SDKs and development tools of the same caliber as Apple's developer offerings, I would immediately do so. I like the idea of the platform and I believe in anything that makes it easier for developers to build better applications.
- vacri 12y ago
  Excellent. Now I've bought my mac mini, I can plug it in and listen to it consume power. I wonder how I can see what it's doing? Hrm... well, it can come with a monitor... for an extra thousand. Okay, scratch that, I'll get a cheap DisplayPort monitor... add a couple of hundred (or if I feel like splurging, get two). Oh, and a keyboard, another $50 (apple-branded, of course, because normal keyboards don't have apple keys). Mouse? Apple mouse at $50+? Maybe I'll go with a cheap logitech or something... 4GB memory standard? for a dev machine? OSX has trouble with that little memory. Up to 8GB for another hundred (or 16GB for three hundred). Spinning rust will do, but if you did want an SSD, throw on a couple hundred more. The idea that mac minis are 'cheap development boxes' is nonsense. It's cheaper than a decent macbook pro, but it's not a cheap workstation.

blinkingled 12y ago

Ugh, no. Ask anyone who has used both Xcode and Visual Studio. I used it once for porting a C/C++ project to OS X - it crashed a ton, the debugger integration was sub-par, the new window for everything thing was annoying. It did not really feel like a superior experience. If there's anyone delivering superior tools - it's Microsoft hands down.

deminature 12y ago
>the new window for everything thing was annoying This hasn't been the case since XCode 4, which was released in 2010 and introduced a single-window for everything.
- nevi-me 12y ago
  Comment still relevant as the response was to "Apple has always", which implies that isn't entirely the case.
  - deminature 12y ago
    I suspect the original post was referring to XCode versus Android tools, given the post context of Google I/O, and if so, the statement that the tools have always been better is definitely correct. At least on OSX, I doubt anyone would dispute that XCode 4 in 2010 was miles ahead of Eclipse and early versions of the Android SDK, and that arguably holds to today, though less so with Android Studio.
- blinkingled 12y ago
  I might be misremembering but the tabs in XCode 4 did not work like tabs in any other IDE - there were some major annoyances around new window/tab open behaviour if I recall it right.
megablast 12y ago
Eh, I have always preferred Xcode over VS. Maybe I just hated .Net.