Poll: How about an alliance against Apple strategies? (Catalina, OpenGL...)

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

my work here is done


(magick! pizzazz!!!!)

[vurt]

god i looked young back then

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

god i looked young back then

and a lot less hairy

[vurt]

god i looked young back then

and a lot less hairy

well i was a baby.

[stratology]

FWIW, I once spent 6 hours (!) with several levels of Apple tech support on what I thought was a necessary OS policy change affecting audio software. They finally asked me to email Tim Cook with the concise facts and recommendation. I did, and for some reason Apple changed that OS policy. So it is possible....

In most cases you don't have to write to Tim Cook. A well written Radar is often enough to see changes implemented, sometimes on fairly short notice.

'Well written" is the key word here. Meaning, the Radar has to include an exact step by step description of what you're trying to do, what the expected outcome of the actions is, what the observed outcome is, and, depending on the case, why things should behave as you describe.
Details system specs, including all peripherals, are a 'must' as well. The more detail, the better. If you're not sure if you should include a specific detail, do include it.

Apple reads all Radars, and they go directly to the relevant teams, as long as they're written and classified correctly.

So if you submit a Radar that says 'Notarisations are crap' or 'auVal is still broken' without further details, these will, understandably, go straight to the trash.

[MeldaProduction]

So if you submit a Radar that says 'Notarisations are crap' or 'auVal is still broken' without further details, these will, understandably, go straight to the trash.

What is this Radar thingy? Last time I used one of the tickets available to developer accounts, you know the one you have 3 of them, and then you have to pay, and it took them a month to reply that they basically didn't do anything and consider it closed .

[MacGyver]

I had almost the same experience with the most bug reports to Apple. At least they removed a bug regarding the flash player and Safari after 3 years or so, but I cannot tell, if it was because my report. It was then closed. Flash player btw. was already obsolete then. Then one time they answered like four years later, if I still experience the same issue... But 99% were ignored. Not saying they are idiots, but I don't believe their bug fixing strategy works very well.

https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/8796

Or was that irony, stratology?

[Urs]

'auVal is still broken' without further details, these will, understandably, go straight to the trash.

It's probably wrong as well, since it's not just AUVal which doesn't get in touch with freshly installed AUs, it's also all other hosts. There's probably a bug in some code which gets alerted on a folder change, but that alert doesn't get sent on AFS.

[stratology]

What is this Radar thingy?

Is this a serious question?

Radar is Apple's bug reporting system. 'Bug reporting' in the widest sense - it can also be used for feature requests, criticism, suggestions, etc.


If you submit a report via
https://www.apple.com/feedback/
you effectively create a Radar.

Submitting a Radar is a 'black hole' for anyone outside of Apple. Meaning, you send something, but you will never get a response. If you need to talk to someone, tech support/dev support is the better option.

As I said before - providing as much information as possible is key. If it's an actual bug, that includes all steps and conditions to reliably reproduce the bug.

[stratology]

Or was that irony, stratology?

Definitely not. I have seen issues resolved fairly quickly.

But: if it's an obscure issue, it will get much less attention than an issue that's reported by lots of users.
And there are development cycles, that have planning and new tech tested for years in advance.
Meaning, work on macOS 10.16 starts long before macOS 10.15 is released.

So if you report a Flash bug, and internal, non-public knowledge within Apple is that Flash is on its way out, the bug will not be addressed.

The key point is that all Radars are read by someone at Apple. And it's always good to remember that there's a human being on the other side. Which also means, you want to word your bug description so precisely and comprehensively that a 6 year old could understand it, and reproduce your issue reliably. Don't assume that the person on the other side automatically knows what you're talking about when you're describing, say, unexpected behaviour in an Audio Unit.

[MacGyver]

Hm, but I did describe it pretty accurately, including example webpages etc. Actually it just was one click away to understand it. Ok, nice you made other experiences. The problem was about layering a flash player in safari or so, not a bug within flash player. At that time, youtube still run with flash player, so it was quite common still. I also reported various bugs about Finder, file system, cloud, audiounit, gpu acceleration, Safari... In the end it was a waste of time for me. But maybe I can hand over the bug report to you then?

[stratology]

Haha, no need, I do submit bug reports myself when I see something that I think should be addressed.

[JCJR]

I'm a retired music application developer though I did write some plugins. Large applications may have different maintenance profiles than plugins. Furthermore, maintenance profiles might vary over time according to OS requirements and available tools, etc. But basically I no longer have a dog in the fight and am rather grateful about that.

Given some Delta X, an evaluation method might measure it "Getting Better", "About the Same", or "Getting Worse". The same Delta X might measure "Getting Better" with one evaluation method while measuring "Getting Worse" according to some other evaluation method. It is possible to construct skewed evaluation methods which measure almost all possible Deltas as "Getting Better" and to construct other skewed methods which measure almost all possible Deltas as "Getting Worse".

However, given an evaluation method with fairly normal distribution, showing approximately equal probability of measuring "Getting Better" versus "Getting Worse": Because of the nature of the world and the universality of entropy and the arrow of time, we may generally expect that sometimes things will get better and sometimes things will get worse-- But on long-term average it is more probable that more things will get worse and that fewer things will get better.

So possibly Microsoft Winders will be better in the future, but not quite as probable as the other alternatives. Possibly Apple MacOS will be better in the future, but not quite as probable as the other alternatives. Same deal for Google, Facebook, etc.

Developers in my experience tend to work more than 40 hours per week. In my experience programmer burnout seems a real and crippling condition. Maybe it is some kind of placebo or hysterical effect, but seemed real enough when it happened to me.

Now such crippling burnouts could happen after enough years of 60 hour work weeks even if you are working only on stuff that is fun. But IMO a person is treading on thin ice if he spends enough 60 hour workweeks on stuff that drives him crazy, just because he doesn't want to give up the money.

In summary, if programming Windows drives you crazy, then POSSIBLY Windows will get better but more likely it will stay the same or get worse. So do yourself a favor and stop programming Windows even if it costs you money.

Same deal with Apple. Maybe Apple will get better but more likely Apple will stay the same or get worse, so if Apple drives you crazy then stop programming on Apple stuff, even if it costs you money.

Life is too short and its not worth the additional burnout risk to keep doing something that drives you nuts.

If Windows drives you nuts and you have sufficient revenue maybe you could hire a Windows zealot code-monkey, if you can find a guy who does good work and requires so little supervision that it actually saves you time and worry in the long run.

If Mac drives you nuts and you have sufficient revenue, ditto hire a Mac religious zeolot code-monkey, if you can find the right guy that actually makes your life simpler rather than "even more complex".

If you don't have enough money and you are a Mac zealot then maybe you can find an otherwise likeable penniless Winders zealot to form a partnership. I scratch your back and you scratch mine. Or vice-versa if you are a low-budget Winders zealot.

I'm not a winders zealot. Just didn't get so burned on windows that I can't stand to use a Windows computer anymore. Long ago I was a Mac zealot but when that began to change I let it go on so long before bailing that I can't stand to even look at a Mac anymore. Which was a mistake. Could probably have worked a few more years before burnout if I'd dropped Mac the first time it started seriously griping my ass.

[telecode]

Yup, this happens when regular users enter developer forum

this is not the "developers forum"

+1 (just snooping)

[telecode]

Yup, this happens when regular users enter developer forum

this is not the "developers forum"

Is not the "off topic" forum or the "Legos" forum neither... just saying.

With all respect.

It doesn't matter. If you want a "private" sub-forum where only certain members can read and post, I am pretty sure whoever runs KVR can set one up in 2 secs.

You are keeping it open for openness and I guess that's a good thing. It follows Raymon's Catherdral way.