WillItStand – Macintosh

welcome again to the next match of Will It Stand, this time bringing you Apple Macintosh computers versus McIntosh apples.

The Contenders:

Origin:

Apple Macintosh: Palo Alto, California, although some sources say that it is a Xerox Alto rippoff

McIntosh apples: Dundas, ON, Canada – A single half-burn’t  apple tree gave birth to a whole lineage of apples and every apple of this kind you get today is a direct descentant of this tree.

winner:  a draw - there’s no clear winner on this round.

Size:

Apple Macintosh: It can vary to a big desktop unit to a slim iPod Touch device slightly bigger than a opened hand.

McIntosh apples: Somewhat bigger than a closed fist in average. The size can vary.

winner: Apple Macintosh - you cant carry a McIntosh in your pocket very easily…Something you can easily do with the newest portable Apple handhelds.

Color:

Apple Macintosh: They were produced in the in lots of colors but usually bland and translucent colors.

McIntosh apples: A bright and colourful red. One of the most beautiful apples you will ever see in your life.

winner: McIntosh apples – c’mon guys! I would be ashamed to bring home some Macintosh models

Taste:

Apple Macintosh: Dont know it, never tasted it.But judging from the toxic wisp that came out of the Will It Blend: iPhone episoide,I will never taste it.

McIntosh apples: A tart but sweet taste. Crunchy skin adds to the experience. (words of a McIntosh lover. I ate the legit Ontario McIntosh!)

winner: McIntosh apples – easy to pick this one. ’nuff said.

Availability:

Apple Macintosh: Almost everywere, but it costs a little fortune, with the cheapiest model , the iPod Touch being very limited.

McIntosh apples:  Not very easy to pick outside Ontario, I guess. But they are not that expensive.

winner: Apple Macintosh – won from a very narrow lead. I cant find McIntosh apples in Rio.

Develop for Apple’s Application Store:

Apple Macintosh: The only option to develop for Apple’s Application Store.

McIntosh apples: Great snack while compiling, but you still need the Macintosh.

winner: Apple Macintosh – That’s where the money is, baby!

Good for salad:

Apple Macintosh: the olive oil would make your keyboard very greasy…

McIntosh: Great with some mayo, raisings and nuts  – tasty and healthy!

winner: McIntosh apples – Ma and Pa would be very angry if you mistake them in kitchen…

Ladies and Gentlemen , we have a draw! Again! Oh boy…I have to say that I dont personally like Apple’s UI, but this is no parameter of comparission..so I have to concede…I will probably buy both one day…

Thanks for Cindy Dalfovo for the support!

Next week: Bungie’s Marathon vs running a marathon!

Mid Feb 09 Report

I just realised how screwed up I am! I “released” Riddler about 6 months ago and consistently looked at it for most of this time (but still I dont consider Riddler a finished product, as I consider Angstron) and never got it:

a HUGE typo in the game logo!

I dont know I missed that for so long. But thats it. these last two days I had a really HARD work to adapt the menu system I wrote about a year ago (back in Toronto) to work with vector graphics and parsing its contents from a XML (very similar to WML). Maybe its time to ditch all the art, and maybe even change the game name. The game itself doesnt contain any riddle! More on that later.

Now, for something completely diferent

You probably heard it before: ” Never optimize it early. Always make sure it works from end-to-end first, and then optimize it”. I just saw it on a book Im reading (again):  “Data structures and program design in C++” by Kruse and Ryba. Its a nice book. kind of a encounter of the old school and the new tendencies from late 90s. Kind of a entry-level art programming book. You would rather read this before reading Cormen or Knuth ( Kruse->Cormen->Knuth).

But about this lemma, I have a counter-argument when we’re dealing with open source software.  Optimizing it early attracts attendion and helps gathering momentum to the project. And every possible consequence to the Linus Law. And goes in acordance with “release it early and release it often”. Others will come and fill the gaps on functionality and fix bugs. The important thing is to show something compeling.

Of course, dont take my work to the last extremes. As my wise teacher , Vinod Rebello ,from college once said in class: “there’s always a trade-off”.  Developers might get frustrated by the lack of functionality or maybe readable code. Indeed, Im very surprised on how people could actually read the Linux Kernel code.  Its very annoying! But thing is: Linus released a very 386-optimized UNIX-like kernel and that attracted atention. Plan carefully your releases, even when releasing often. Repetitive and irrelevant releases might also get away with help. I learned this the hard way…

As a last note:

From the last post, I said I was about to test World of Goo. Well…

HOLY SHIT!!!111 Too bad I cant buy it from Brazil. This game is AWESOME! I dont remember playing a Linux game so well finished. Unreal Tournament 2004? not even close! I felt like playing some fancy video game in a last generation game console.

Other game taking my time is Warzone 2100 – a former closed source comercial game made open source and ported to linux. The game is simple, but very inteligent (well, not its unit IA)  and very adictive!