[WASTE-list] Next update?

[Marco Piovanelli]

On Sun, 2 Aug 2009 12:03:04 +0700,
Ryan Joseph (thealchemistguild at gmail.com) wrote:



>I think it would be wise for you to pull WASTE asap because it's  

>virtually inevitable you will run into a problem which won't be fixed  

>and ultimately jeopardize your project. Using NSTextView in an  

>HICocoaView is the Carbon solution unless the more limited MLTE will  

>work. My overhaul was a totally nightmare (still going) but the end  

>result is a much more powerful and flexible API.

>

>I'm sorry to advocate anti-WASTE and the mail list but I don't want to  

>see people get stuck in the same mess I did. The writings on the wall,  

>Apple is not supporting Carbon and NSTextView is simply better than  

>WASTE, if you can stomach all the Objective-C. Sadly there's no place  

>for WASTE anymore and I think that's prompted the halt in development,  

>which makes perfect sense.


Ryan is right.  Carbon is a dead-end.  It has been for several years
now, but Apple made this clear at WWDC 2007, when they reluctantly
conceded that the promised 64-bit version of Carbon (which had been
in the works for a good while, and was almost ready for prime time)
had been killed.  Cocoa is simply a superior choice for UI work, and
the Cocoa text framework is at least an order of magnitude better
than anything to ever come out of the Carbon camp, including WASTE.

At this point, it makes no economic sense to continue development
of WASTE 3.0.  As for projects still using WASTE, my impression is
that Apple will eventually pull the rug from under them, by finally
removing Carbon altogether from OS X.  Snow Leopard is clearly heading
in this direction.

A year ago, I had hoped to have time for one last bug-fix release
of WASTE 3.0, but it's been my busiest year since I started writing
software for Apple OSes in the early 90s, and the first year in
which more than 90% of the code I wrote was Objective-C (for the
iPhone OS, in case you wonder).  Coming from a mostly C++ background,
I still love C++ and the STL, but I have to admit Objective-C is
more productive, especially when coupled with a very well thought-out
framework like Cocoa.  But I'm sure you've all heard similar assessments
ad nauseam.

So yes, to put it bluntly, WASTE is dead, and I encourage everyone
still using it to move on to anything whose foundations have more
chances of not being dropped by Apple.

In closing, I'd like to thank everybody who contributed to the WASTE
project in the past 15 years or so, by adopting it, reporting bugs,
suggesting improvements, contributing code, and generally encouraging
me to keep going.


                                            -- marco