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MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

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Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#41
post #32

> a degraded user experience, as the first time a user runs a new executable, Apple delays execution while waiting for a reply from their server. The way to avoid this behavior is to staple the notarization ticket to your bundle (or dmg/pkg), i.e. "/usr/bin/stapler staple ." Otherwise, Gatekeeper will fetch the ticket and staple it for the user on the first run. (I'm the author of xcnotary [1], a tool to make notariz…

I mean, when I’m developing in a compiled language with the workflow edit code -> compile -> run (with forced stapling), changing it to edit code -> compile -> staple -> run doesn’t make it any less slow...

Notarization/stapling/etc. is for distribution only, not generally part of your dev workflow.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#43

I've been forced to update to this pile of shit because latest iOS requires latest Xcode which in turn requires Catalina. It's a nightmare. First off the new apps (music, podcasts, etc) are terrible. They killed off iTunes but replaced it with much worse. These apps don't behave like standard macOS apps, the UI is full of inconsistencies and is just so empty. This website has nice examples of the failures of modern M…

> I've been forced to update to this pile of shit because latest iOS requires latest Xcode which in turn requires Catalina. It's a nightmare.

I'm literally halfway there as I type this, Xcode 'installing components'. Having to upgrade essentially everything just to get the right dev tools for the current iOS is madness, feels like buying a new house to fit the new coffeemaker...

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#44
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, when I’m developing in a compiled language with the workflow edit code -> compile -> run (with forced stapling), changing it to edit code -> compile -> staple -> run doesn’t make it any less slow...

Notarization/stapling/etc. is for distribution only, not generally part of your dev workflow.

But TFA and my personal experience do point to a noticeable delay after each recompile in dev workflows, and TFA claims this is due to notarization checks... So I guess I’m confused and you’re talking about something else?

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#45
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am so glad I decided years ago to leave closed operating systems behind. The problem is, there's nothing else out there. Everything is going to shit in one way or another. Windows is now a disaster, Linux was always a disaster in terms of user experience and isn't improving. Mac OS was the last bastion of somewhat good, thoughtful design, user experience and attention to detail and now they've gone to shit too.

Linux was always a disaster in terms of user experience and isn't improving. Curious: what have you tried? People who use "Linux" as a catch-all in terms of UX usually have only tried a single distribution with a single desktop environment.

This is a good point.

It's really hard for me to use non i3wm supporting OSes now, even though I have to use Windows from work, and have used Macs for the better part of the last 2 decades personally and in college.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#46

I hope Apple currently has a team focused on macOS perf. I worked on the team in charge of improving iOS (13) perf at Apple and IIRC there was no dedicated macOS “task force” like the one on iOS. Luckily some iOS changes permeated into macOS thanks to some shared codebases.

> IIRC there was no dedicated macOS “task force” like the one on iOS

It's not surprising. Macs are less than 10% of Apple's revenue.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/04/30/apple-2q-2020-earnings/

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#47

I've been forced to update to this pile of shit because latest iOS requires latest Xcode which in turn requires Catalina. It's a nightmare. First off the new apps (music, podcasts, etc) are terrible. They killed off iTunes but replaced it with much worse. These apps don't behave like standard macOS apps, the UI is full of inconsistencies and is just so empty. This website has nice examples of the failures of modern M…

Re: downloading Xcode, this page has saved me hours: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10335747/how-to-download... . It's just a list of direct links to each version of Xcode at apple.com. Mystery why Mac App Store downloads still can't be bulletproof after all these years.

I actually prefer the App Store approach because that way the majority of my updates are in one place and can be done automatically in the background. The problem is that it used to work fine and they managed to break it.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#48

This is completely insane. I am so glad I decided years ago to leave closed operating systems behind. This design seems to cement the trend at Apple to position their products as consumer appliances, not platforms useful for development.

> I am so glad I decided years ago to leave closed operating systems behind. The problem is, there's nothing else out there. Everything is going to shit in one way or another. Windows is now a disaster, Linux was always a disaster in terms of user experience and isn't improving. Mac OS was the last bastion of somewhat good, thoughtful design, user experience and attention to detail and now they've gone to shit too.

>> Linux was always a disaster in terms of user experience

Try Pop_OS!. I switched from macOS and it's been a relatively painless experience with some tweaks.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#49
post #27

I completely understand why things are going the way they are as our computing environment has become ever more hostile. But I am very nostalgic for the time where I would power up a Vic-20 and within seconds be able to get to work. Teaching my daughter to program on a modern computer, we spend more time bootstrapping and in process, than we do in actual development.

If that’s what you really want, grab a used ThinkPad and put Arch Linux on it. It will boot in a few seconds and is much more powerful than a Vic-20.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#50
From the comments, roughly, are you running third party "security" tools?

> Is there any "security" software running on your Mac? I've seen this sort of thing caused by that, but not in general.

> I ran the two line test and it had no delay at all. The Mac doesn't check for notarization on shell scripts or any non-bundle executable. I just did it again with a new test2.sh and Wireshark capture and there is nothing.

> I do a lot of Keychain code and I've also never seen those delays. The reason I suspect they told you not to use that API is that it's in the "legacy" macOS keychain. They really want everyone to move to the modern keychain but lots of people, myself included, still need the older macOS specific features.

> I'm not saying you are crazy, but all of these things though are the trademark reek of kernel level security software that is intercepting and scanning every exec and file read on the system. We had an issue with Cisco AMP once that took Xcode builds from under 10 seconds to over 5 minutes until we were able to get it fixed.

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