I keep on hearing that, even non-Apple, Mac programs are more elegantly made (clean, focused, and with attention to details) than their Windows counterparts. Why is that? Are Mac programmers adhering to some design principles that their counterparts are not? Does the OS X environment encourage better development? or is the premise faulty to begin with?
Ask HN: How are Mac programmers different from Windows programmers?
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Re: Ask HN: How are Mac programmers different from Windows programmers?
#2I would think it's false, even with the surging popularity of Apple computers recently there are still far more people using Windows and far more developers writing Windows applications. With more applications being developed comes a much greater number of unreliable, slow applications with poor user interfaces.
Though I wonder if the use of Objective-C, and lack of any safety scissors-esque programming environments like Visual Basic, is helping keep out cruft like Bulk Rename Utility (http://bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Screenshots.php).
Re: Ask HN: How are Mac programmers different from Windows programmers?
#3I think it's something of a faulty premise - both platforms have UI design guidelines (Ribbon interface, Chrome, etc...) - Apple's are more extensive IMHO, but that's a developer guidance issue and not a platform capability issue.
I think the perception of comes from a bunch of legacy Win32 apps that are still lingering around which have the crusty old design.
Newer apps made on Windows using WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) look great - like the Zune client, Visual Studio, Expression Blend, and third party apps like MetroTwit and Paint.NET. WPF uses a mark-up language to build UI elements and is thus more designer-friendly than WinForms and older Windows UI technologies - this fact in combination with the Aero UI leads to more elegant-looking Windows apps imho.
Apple has a longer-history of offering designer-friendly tools and UI guidelines to go with it, so that's probably where the perception comes from, but I'd argue it's a dated premise now.
Re: Ask HN: How are Mac programmers different from Windows programmers?
#4I would think it's false, even with the surging popularity of Apple computers recently there are still far more people using Windows and far more developers writing Windows applications. With more applications being developed comes a much greater number of unreliable, slow applications with poor user interfaces. Though I wonder if the use of Objective-C, and lack of any safety scissors-esque programming environments…
Maybe this is a sign that I'm a Windows dev, but that app seems pretty cool. The screen is cluttered, but I must admit that I spent about five seconds looking at it, and I felt like I could jump right in and start using it.
I just downloaded the command line and GUI version. Thanks! :-)
Re: Ask HN: How are Mac programmers different from Windows programmers?
#5I would think it's false, even with the surging popularity of Apple computers recently there are still far more people using Windows and far more developers writing Windows applications. With more applications being developed comes a much greater number of unreliable, slow applications with poor user interfaces. Though I wonder if the use of Objective-C, and lack of any safety scissors-esque programming environments…
The UI is a little messy but that's a great little app. :)
Re: Ask HN: How are Mac programmers different from Windows programmers?
#6Part of it is the customer base; you probably buy a Mac because Windows doesn't do what you want, and so the programs have to be different enough. One way to justify using a different machine is to have apps that put in more effort to be really good.
But also, it's a matter of copying what you see. When learning to program for the first time, a developer seems to do most of his or her learning on one platform, and copy that style for the most part (both the good and the bad, in everything from the design of GUIs to programming APIs). Regardless of what you think of either company, is there any doubt that Apple is better at coming up with good examples of design, than Microsoft? I consider Windows to be mediocrity breeding mediocrity; while this isn't 100% true, it's true enough for me to hate using the average PC.
Diversity is also a good indicator of quality; the more methods a programmer is familiar with, the more likely a program is to be well-designed. As a single platform, Mac OS X is pretty diverse; it comes with lots of tools, and is influenced by many different roots (Unix philosophy; NeXT/IBM with Objective-C/Smalltalk; classic Mac OS GUI elements; etc.).
Re: Ask HN: How are Mac programmers different from Windows programmers?
#7I would think it's false, even with the surging popularity of Apple computers recently there are still far more people using Windows and far more developers writing Windows applications. With more applications being developed comes a much greater number of unreliable, slow applications with poor user interfaces. Though I wonder if the use of Objective-C, and lack of any safety scissors-esque programming environments…
>"poor user interfaces"
http://www.militaryfactory.com/cockpits/imgs/f16.jpg
Interfaces designed for experts tend not to hide important information and high performance features.
This Mac based product (http://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderRename/) apparently doesn't allow search and replace operations at the same time as sequential numbering even though it almost certainly allows both.
Re: Ask HN: How are Mac programmers different from Windows programmers?
#8Mac programmers programme on Macs, Windows programmers programme on Windows. Any other differences between them are not related.
Re: Ask HN: How are Mac programmers different from Windows programmers?
#9I think Apple's Human Interface Guidelines helps push developers in the right direction:
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserEx...
Re: Ask HN: How are Mac programmers different from Windows programmers?
#10I think Apple's Human Interface Guidelines helps push developers in the right direction: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserEx...
The HIG is dead (at least according to gruber http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/uniformity_vs_individualit...).