If I were a Mac developer building a product I'd hope to sell or nurturing an open source application My latest Apple Developer Connection article, titled Test Driving Your Code with OCUnit, explains why Automator.
I'm headed home from WWDC. The ol' brain is full and I'm exhausted in that good kind of way. Last year we got an enticing preview of Tiger, but we couldn't really dig into it. This year was all about how to put the bumper crop of APIs and technologies in Tiger to good use, and for the good of users. Most of the sessions I attended were directed hands-on exercises.
Frankly, I could care less about the Intel news. I didn't buy a Mac for the chip inside; I bought it for the whole experience. Then again, I don't have to port a Mac application over to a universal binary. But with the number of applications that have already been ported just this week, I don't think this will be as big a deal as one might have thought walking out of the keynote on Monday morning.
Some take-away points for me this year:
Version 2.0 of the .Mac SDK is hot! It's all about the collaboration. More on this later.
Automator seems to be under-utilized. Yeah, there are over 500 actions already out in the world, but the energy level in the sessions wasn't as high as I expected. I'm wondering if it's an adverse reaction to AppleScript. Perhaps it's just too early to call.
The Apple campus bash feels like a rock concert, with a very long line to get into the gift shop. It was cool to be where all the magic happens.
The Rails meme has spread wider than I thought. It came up several times in hallway conversations at a Mac conference, and not once did I have to explain what it is.
Never underestimate how much you can accomplish in a 5-minute face-to-face conversation with a client. James and I got a lot of work done this week meeting with our Rails client team every day for lunch. Just another example of rapid feedback.
This is a great developer conference!
My latest Apple Developer Connection article, titled Test Driving Your Code with OCUnit, shows you how to integrate OCUnit with Xcode and write automated OCUnit tests for your Cocoa/Objective-C code.
The DHL guy dropped off the box on Tuesday morning and was kind enough to wait around a couple minutes while I filled it with my ailing PowerBook.
This morning, Thursday, the same guy returned bearing a much-improved PowerBook. It now has a rap sheet—the following were replaced:
DA FUJITSU V40+ 2.5" 4200 RPM 80GB HDD (that explains the ka-chunk sound) DSPL, 15.2, XGA, AU, PB15" (the infamous white spots) FOAM DIFFUSER ASSY, PE, DSPL, PB15" (no idea) THERMAL MODULE ASSY, PB15" (will it keep my legs from roasting?) KYBD ASSY, BACK-LIT, PB15" (it was mushy from all this typing) ASSY, INVERTER, PIEZO, TOKIN, PB15" (sounds cool)
That was a fast turn-around, but what do you do in the meantime if your PowerBook is your computer and you're staring at deadlines? Well, the Mac Mini has a 14-day return policy with a 10% fee if opened...
That big server in the sky called .Mac just became a digital hub for your Cocoa application. At no cost to you, and no network programming, users of your application can enjoy all the benefits of the .Mac services, including global credentials, synchronized preferences across machines, and lightweight collaboration. As an added bonus, for each new .Mac subscription that your application generates, you collect $15. Not too shabby for giving your users a network-aware application that feels like home wherever they go. (Do I hear the rumblings of an open source project?)
My first Apple Developer Connection article, titled Using the .Mac SDK, shows you how easy it is to embed the DotMac Kit in your application. And it might be the easiest money you've ever made...
Advanced Rails Recipes
May 2008
Agile Web Development with Rails
December 2006
Pragmatic Project Automation
July 2004
Becoming Productive in Xcode
February 2009