To be the Jackass

[Thundercross]

I have to ask why PC users have been shoved aside for nearly 2 years now...? I know I will get an answer but it will not satisfy me because it is simply marketing hype and allegance to Apple.

Why not put the Mac users on hold for a few months? And let the PC users catch up on the glory... seems fair to me. I hate being told "buy a mac" worst advice ever.

Build/Beta 16 is upon us but guess what Redalert is finished first, and AGAIN PC users must wait. The SDK is "coming"... I know you have limited resources (hire more people) but like I said put the the PC guys in the front line for a change. Not as many people use Macs as we are brainwashed to believe.

I am being a jackass because I am on the fence waiting on as PC support drifts further away each month.

Regards

Jeff.

 

[Damon Meledones]

I think the quick and easy answer is that OS X is RED's internal development platform. I understand your frustration, and if RED were a Windows based company I'm sure the Apple users would feel the same way you do now.

 

[Alex Carr]

I have less problems with a PC that runs Mac os x than a real Mac... So invest some time in it and you too will already have a mac.

 

[Thundercross]

I think the quick and easy answer is that OS X is RED's internal development platform. I understand your frustration, and if RED were a Windows based company I'm sure the Apple users would feel the same way you do now.

For sure. No arguments.

But the fact is it is the other way around and it would be nice if the paradigm shifted the other way. I hate getting into mac/pc & osx/windows arguments I am asking that both be treated fairly when it comes to product support... is that too much to ask for?

 

[Justin Kirchhoff]

To be fair, I know for a fact that RED only hires employees who are completely dedicated to RED. It's not as easy as "hire more people". As with any business building, they are looking for competent employees, not people that will work there for a month and decide to leave.

 

[Chris Kenny]

It's probably a fair bit easier to develop for OS X as the primary platform because you're working with a more manageable set of hardware. Test your software on a couple of recent MacBook Pros and Mac Pros with a couple of graphics cards, and you know it'll work fine on most of the systems your Mac-based customers will try to run it on. In the PC world, it's quite a bit harder to test on a representative sample of systems.

 

[Joel Kaye]

I am asking that both be treated fairly when it comes to product support... is that too much to ask for?[/I]

Their goal with the SDK is to make the camera completely cross platform. But Jim and Graeme are Mac guys. The second I realized that I bought a Mac. Is it fair that the guy who owns the company gets his software first? Sounds fair to me.

 

[Jannard]

There was no interest from any PC platform companies to work with "the scam" when we got started. Apple embraced us from day one. So you tell me which comes 1st. Having said that, we are frantically working on the SDK to solve the PC issue. No matter what we do, there will be those that have something to complain about (most are legitimate). All we can do is do our best to keep knocking down issues.

Jim

 

[Brook Willard]

It's payback for the 1990s.

 

[Eryc Tramonn]

I have less problems with a PC that runs Mac os x than a real Mac... So invest some time in it and you too will already have a mac.

Hackintosh? You're the man.

 

[Eryc Tramonn]

There was no interest from any PC platform companies to work with "the scam" when we got started. Apple embraced us from day one. So you tell me which comes 1st. Having said that, we are frantically working on the SDK to solve the PC issue. No matter what we do, there will be those that have something to complain about (most are legitimate). All we can do is do our best to keep knocking down issues.

Jim

Jim, this is one time you're being far too nice. F*ck that...if the PC dev community was too myopic, or over-inflated to take a look at what you were doing, or at least listen due to your background...they can now fall in line. It's too bad the PC end users will have to bear the brunt of the developers decisions. And I really mean that, I feel bad for the PC faithful. However, it's these deep-pocketed conglomerates that are so denotative of the PC world that will often hinder forward-thinkers and true innovation. There's a euphemism for these individuals and companies in the hood: we like to call them "cockblockers."

You go Jim. You beat the odds, and now I bet there are plenty of PC firms that would like to speak with you, or better still in some way try to stop you if it benefits them.

 

[Bruce Allen]

Well, you coulda kinda seen this coming 2 years ago if you looked at the platform of choice of the people Jim hired.

We love em all but for example Graeme's previous plugins were Mac / FCP / Color only. That's why I never bought any. Every plugin I've ever bought has been cross-platform.

No reason they can't hire someone to port RedCode to PC Quicktime faster though. Having a guy sitting in a corner maintaining the Windows port should not slow down development on your main team's part unless your code is a rat's nest written without portability in mind.

Guess they just like keeping the team small. I don't know.

EDIT: oh, now I see like another 10 responses above me. Ah well... this is such a hackneyed argument.

I must say that RED made the right move in terms of becoming friendly with Apple - it was an obvious fit for the average target market.

And Apple would have been crazy not to embrace something pushed by Ted (from AJA, top 3rd party hardware manufacturer) and Graeme (top 3rd party plugin developer). And Jim!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Stuart English]

Windows support

Windows support

No reason they can't hire someone to port RedCode to PC Quicktime faster though. Having a guy sitting in a corner maintaining the Windows port should not slow down development on your main team's part unless your code is a rat's nest written without portability in mind.

Bruce, with respect; you don't know so don't guess.

 

[Christian Edwards]

I have to ask why PC users have been shoved aside for nearly 2 years now...?

Macintosh need a head start

 

[David Birdy]

There was no interest from any PC platform companies to work with "the scam" when we got started. Apple embraced us from day one. So you tell me which comes 1st. Having said that, we are frantically working on the SDK to solve the PC issue. No matter what we do, there will be those that have something to complain about (most are legitimate). All we can do is do our best to keep knocking down issues.

Jim

Jim,

Your posts are always full of such logic!!!


Dave

 

[Tico Llaurador]

Why should RED or Apple be blamed for Microsoft's past mistakes?

:clown2:

 

[Bruce Allen]

Bruce, with respect; you don't know so don't guess.

Stuart, double respect to you back... just thinking about this a lot because I'm trying to figure out whether I have to plan to buy a Mac next year or whether I can put the cash towards a Scarlet instead.

Is Apple deliberately crippling the Windows Quicktime API? Is there some secret agreement? I have no idea.

I used to work on develop cross-platform Windows / Linux / Mac stuff. It's not that hard. And I only have an undergrad Comp. Sci degree.

This is not about the SDK. It's simply about the ability to play a Red Quicktime in Windows.

Which has not much to do with Avid / Adobe / discreet vendor agreements IMHO.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Dj Joofa]

Is Apple deliberately crippling the Windows Quicktime API? Is there some secret agreement? I have no idea.

Though not related to Red development, but as a side remark, Apple does have some strange anomalies in Windows and OS X based Quicktime. For e.g., Quicktime Media Layer, QTML, (port of OS X Carbon API to Windows as Quicktime is heavy dependent upon Carbon functions) is serialized on Windows, but on OS X it is multi-threaded.

I used to work on develop cross-platform Windows / Linux / Mac stuff. It's not that hard. And I only have an undergrad Comp. Sci degree.
www.boacinema.com

Bruce, a graduate degree in computer science is not a harbinger to good programming skills. When one programs a large piece of software, very different programming styles are needed. There are very few people out there who write code that may be considered good programming. Notice, I am not saying functionally correct code. Most programmers can write functionally correct code that gets the job done. But writing a good program is not an easy task, and certainly not helped by many US CS departments not adequately preparing students for such skills.

On the issue of cross platform Windows/Linux/Mac OS X, I personally have noticed that it is easy to develop cross-platform code if one stays closer to Linux based API's. Mac APIs (Carbon/Cocoa/Quicktime etc.) are horrendous and quite out-dated in certain areas, and in my estimation it is difficult for programmers used to them to move over to Linux equivalent flavors. The good news is that one can avoid Apple supplied libraries/frameworks to some extent while programming on OS X and use Linux derived stuffed, as a lot of code originally written for Linux works under OS X. Mac Ports (formerly Darwin Ports) and Fink are a good way to put Linux based code on OS X.

 

[Stuart English]

P.C support

P.C support

just thinking about this a lot because I'm trying to figure out whether I have to plan to buy a Mac next year or whether I can put the cash towards a Scarlet instead.

Bruce, there are very talented Windows savvy resources inside RED, so you can safely plan to buy the Scarlet......

 

[Bruce Allen]

Bruce, there are very talented Windows savvy resources inside RED, so you can safely plan to buy the Scarlet......

YAAAAAAY, thanks Stuart.

Will now leave this thread to join my Intel Mac buddies in the celebratory Build 16 beta dance.

Thanks for the kind and informative comment too, Joofa.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com