RE: ANOTHER MONDAY!
RE: ANOTHER MONDAY!
Sent: 12/30/96; 10:05:27 AM
From: chris@spiderisland.com (Chris Silverberg)
Hi Dave.
I just wanted to say that I share many of your fealings over the NeXT deal. When the deal was finally announced, for the first time hit me. This is it... this is the end of the Macintosh as we know it. Sure, the Macintosh and MacOS will be around for a while, but as a developer, I probably wont be developing for it anymore. Why should I?
So now I, the company I work for, and I'm sure many other developers are weighing the options... perhaps waiting till MacWorld to see what shakes down. Do I jump onboard the OpenStep bandwagon? Do I leap for the BeOS? Do I continue to develop for MacOS (as we know it today)? Do I join the parade for Windows95/NT?
Ideally I suppose the answer would be, "all of them". Cross platform. Yea yea, well... cross platform should always be the ideal and programming patterns that make cross platform easier should be employed. But we all know that each platform requires efforts, especially if we want our software to work WELL on a particular platform.
I want to go where the fun is. BeOS looks fun. OpenStep might be fun. But will either of these routes put dinner on my table? Will either of these OSes survive Microsoft? I do _not_ want a one OS world!
BTW, I have a question for you... if Apple had instead chosen to buy the BeOS, would your reaction be different? To *me*, whether Apple chooses BeOS or OpenStep... doesn't really make much difference. Differences between the two OS'es aside, either choice means an end to MacOS as we know it.
Perhaps OpenStep is the better move. Many developers that use OpenStep love it. It's not in its infancy like BeOS currently is. I'm just curious why you seem particularly negative towards OpenStep, yet very positive toward BeOS. Or is this not the case?
Cheers,
- Chris
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