[fpc-pascal] Re: Porting Discussion

[Marco van de Voort]

> On 24 Jun 2008, at 14:18, Marco van de Voort wrote:
> > prefered way,
> > and invest massively in some ObjC solution, to not miss some word of  
> > mouth
> > or a pat on the shoulder from Apple and/or partners.
> 
> Even several Mac-only developers do not do this because they have too  
> much investments in existing code and skills. And they can make  
> perfectly fine apps.

Hmm, how do they (plan to) deal with the 64-bit carbonicide then?
 
> > So apparantly the porters are (in general) are not putting the Mac  
> > central to their world, so trying to force them to is useless.
> 
> Nobody has asked for this. But flooding the Mac market with  
> quick&dirty Windows ports is going to be as commercially successful as  
> Kylix was on Linux,

I do not agree with the analogy. The problem with Kylix was that it targeted
a (not yet) existing market, namely corporate linux desktop users. Because
despite the many problems (and me being the heaviest "fix that Kylix code"
critic here), IMHO Kylix should have been enough for its target audience.

The problem was that the target audience didn't exist/didn't emerge as fast
as expected. (we are 5-8 years further, and Linux on the desktop in
corporations uptake is still slow to non existent.

The Mac users however are there, in publishing oriented departments, the
occasional manager with a laptop, ok, not really numereous, but they are
real.

> no matter how "demented" your targeted Mac users may be (and those will
> probably the only Mac users you'll ever have in that case).

Hehe, I knew that would ruffle some feathers. However it was more than a
cheap shot. It is really how the avg corporate admin or helpdesk regards
Macers. They are "different", and there that "different" doesn't have the
same positive connotations as in the Mac ads. They are simply a burden,
because they upset contemporary large scale workplace maintenance.

So you seem to miss my point. Namely that for most of the porters a proper
budget to do it right is simply missing.

So it's either "quick&dirty" or not. Both for the developers, as for the
users. And IMHO it is arrogant to state that then there can be no such apps
at all.