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We need to document macOS

eclecticlight.co

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Re: We need to document macOS

#111

Post by extra88 »

The author seems confused. Launchd is a service for starting processes (on boot, on other events, or on a schedule), Centralized Task Scheduling (CTS) is a low-level API used only by developers writing native code to perform tasks within a process [0]. CTS can only be used by a running process while launchd is a running process you can instruct by loading .plist files (normally they're only loaded at boot from LaunchAgent/ and LaunchDaemon/ directories).

[0] https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Pe...

Re: We need to document macOS

#112

Post by kronos29296 »

Asooka wrote: post #70
stuntkite wrote: post #35

OT a bit but I think still related. 8 years ago when I switch to OSX I was furious with finder. Tiny window, no hierarchical browsing and the search just doesn't do shit that is useful. I normally default to locate or find now so much that I was using it the other day I was reminded about how much it sucked. It's literally identical (aside from tags and labels) to what it was forever ago and is a terrible paradigm. I…

This sentiment is why I do almost everything in a terminal. I see even people who use mac do everything on the terminal. Whenever someone complains about a UI tool crashing, acting wonky, being slow, my reply is always 1. I can't help you, I don't use that; 2. Just use the terminal. UI fashions come and go, but the terminal is forever.

If you are just using bash for everything why don't you just use a tty instead. Jokes aside, Isn't linux a better idea if Bash is all you need? The only difference is that Mac has more proprietary stuff that don't support linux. If that's not an issue linux is much better.(IMO)

Re: We need to document macOS

#113

Post by davemp »

blablabla123 wrote: post #82
SwellJoe wrote: post #58

When I did some work on porting out product to macOS (so developers could run their server environment locally, though a few loons wanted to actually run macOS on servers), I was immediately struck by how awful and incomplete the documentation was. And, I've been working in the Linux world for a couple decades...where docs are copious but wrong about 50% of the time. In particular, the service launcher (launchd, ment…

>And, I've been working in the Linux world for a couple >decades...where docs are copious but wrong about 50% of the >time. Nice summary of the status of Linux documentation. Not sure if it's really 50% wrong, especially the man pages make an impression of over-corrected but the usefulness depends on the tool and is completely random. But yeah, online documentation, classical tutorials are usually useless. When I see…

> But yeah, online documentation, classical tutorials are usually useless.

How long ago was this? Checkout the arch linux wiki. It's a pretty great resource for all things GNU/linux.

Re: We need to document macOS

#114

Post by cptskippy »

For all the things that Microsoft takes flak about, this is one of the few areas you really can't complain much about. They maintain detailed versions documentation and make it easy to explore.

Every so often I come across something that isn't documented well or at all and it hurts. But it has a page at least and on every page they have a public feedback mechanism.

Re: We need to document macOS

#115

Post by kronos29296 »

nebabyte wrote: post #59
enqk wrote: post #15

This problem is actually the reason I've fallen out of love with Macos as a platform for my home computers. There's way too much stuff that goes around, daemons that are waking up at any given point and doing a lot of I/O, for which there's absolutely no documentation whatsoever. It kills the performance on my old Macs and also doesn't inspire confidence that I'm a user/owner of the device.

> and also doesn't inspire confidence that I'm a user/owner of the device ...What gave you that delusion? Are you one of those people who clicks "okay" to EULAs without reading them?

Actually you still own the device just not the stuff making it actually useful. That is still owned by apple. (EULA)

Re: We need to document macOS

#116

Post by Ezhik »

taurath wrote: post #39
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "but a really terrible choice on the desktop" This is a very subjective claim. Maybe a long long time ago you could say this, but not the case today. > "not convinced that free software documentation is any better" That's beside the point. If that were true, that is an argument for focusing a community effort at improving documentation for a free desktop. And actually with linux the problem is not as much a lack of…

I shouldn't have to go to terminal to edit a conf file to make audio or video work. I have every single time I have tried Linux on the desktop. It does not work out of the box. You must know how to use terminal and edit Byzantine configurations, and read Linux forum posts from 2005 to make basic functionality work. It's my "subjective" opinion, but after 5+ hours troubleshooting and configuring as a power user who do…

Apple devices are fine-tuned to run macOS. It doesn't make sense to compare a MacBook to some random Linux installation on incompatible hardware.

Buy one of those Developer Edition Dell laptops to even the field, and compare then.

Re: We need to document macOS

#117

Post by charlesism » 

    > I don’t know how many technical authors were employed 
    > by Apple at that time, but I suspect it was a 
    > far higher proportion of total staff than it is now.
Or maybe the proportion is the same, but Tim's shorter release cycle has resulted in the OS permanently being in a state of churn.

Re: We need to document macOS

#118

Post by peatmoss »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #63
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #5

Better: We need to stop using undocumented proprietary systems like macOS.

Best: We need to stop making our preference on software an ethical issue and accept that proprietary software isn't bad just because it's not free.

I'd posit that ethical reasons are a great basis to choose software. You either support the values that your software espouses or you don't. There isn't a correct answer there.

Stallman has a "Why Open Source Misses the Point" article that I find pretty compelling. It suggests you should support Free Software because it's the right ethical thing to do, not because of the many instrumental utility arguments of the Open Source movement.

He calls out specifically the notion that Open Source is intrinsically higher quality than commercial software. Indeed there are many high quality, well-functioning commercial bits of software out there.

So, either the ethos of Free Software appeals to you, and you should choose it regardless of whether it is the highest quality, or you don't, in which case the function of the software should be your guide. I personally find the ethical argument compelling, and so often do forego "better" software in favor or freer software.

Re: We need to document macOS

#119

Post by S4M »

sds2 wrote: post #80
LeoPanthera wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And use what? Windows spies on you and they call it a feature. Linux is a great server OS but a really terrible choice on the desktop. I'm not convinced that free software documentation is any better, either. macOS is the best desktop OS going, for the moment.

> Linux is a great server OS but a really terrible choice on the desktop. Why?

Sad to see this simple reply downvoted for no reason by a bunch of Apple fanboys.

Re: We need to document macOS

#120

Post by JeremyBanks »

blablabla123 wrote: post #87
st3fan wrote: post #75

Launchd documentation: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Ma... See more documents linked at the bottom of that page.

Nice, XML config. I wonder if Apple employees are internally allowed to voice criticism.

Plist files have XML, binary, and JSON-like serialization options, and have been in use for longer than JSON has existed. Any Mac developer will be familiar with them, and have access to multiple APIs for handling them. Of all the things in MacOS to criticize, this is just ignorant.
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