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Re: Mac OSX [message #27162 is a reply to message #27034]

Wed, 10 October 2001 16:41

David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001

Senior Member

Randall Skelton (rhskelto@atm.ox.ac.uk) writes:

> There are alternatives. I'll admit that none of them can compete with the
> wide cross-platform support that IDL has enjoyed over the years but it
> looks like RSI's cross-platform marketing approach has vanished.

Gentlemen,

I am sympathetic. I really am. I especially
dislike the cheesy way this whole decision
was announced. It denotes a lack of...well,
respect...for the people who really do pay
the bills it seems to me.

And from what I hear at least half the folks
at RSI are sympathetic. I don't think this was
a unanimous decision, not by a long shot. But
I don't think scientists are running the company
anymore. And I don't think the people who made
the decision really stopped to consider the--for
lack of a better word--cultural significance of a
decision like this.

Quite frankly, losing a platform like the Mac matters
to a lot of us, whether we use a Macintosh or not.

But given all that, I don't think this decision
will be changed. I don't know the leadership at RSI,
or anything about them, but I don't expect them
to change their mind for this reason.

The Mac right now, today, is not a serious
scientific computing platform. I know, I know.
MacOSX is going to change all that, etc., etc.
But I don't believe it. And I doubt the folks
making this decision at RSI believe it. Not when
perfectly good systems can be had for no more than
$3000.

Many of us using Windows today were once Mac users.
Why did we switch? I switched, because practically
everyone I knew was using a PC. And because the
software I wanted to use ran better on a PC than
it did (if it was available) on a Mac. Is that going
to change in the next year? The next two years? I
seriously doubt it. RSI is recognizing a trend that
has been going on for a long time. The Mac may be
the cat's meow in desktop publishing, but it is
never going to capture enough scientific computing
market share to drive software development on that
platform. That is an economic prediction, not
an indictment of the Mac's number crunching
capabilities.

And I am sorry to see the whole "Alternatives
to IDL" thread appear again. We hashed this whole
thing over several months ago. Yes, there are
alternatives to IDL. But let's be honest, most
of them suck in one way or the other. None of
them, *none* of them, are going to capture more
than an extremely small fraction of IDL users.

I really hate to be cynical on a newsgroup I
love so much, but I don't believe the majority
of the people beating their chests now will really
leave IDL. Too many colleagues, too much invested,
too easy to buy a new Dell machine and carry on.
And you will end up needing the new feature IDL
has added that is not available in whatever the
alternative de jour is that you decided to use
as a protest.

Yes, send your letters and e-mail. Yes, make
your feelings about this decision known to the
people who made it. Maybe it will cause them
to consider more carefully the next time they
make a decision like this. Yes, explore alternatives
to IDL, if you must. But in the end, you have
to realize that this is how things are in the
real world. We don't always like it, I'll grant
you that. But sometimes we have to accept it.
Sometimes that is the best alternative of all.

Sadly,

David

P.S. I just saw that sales of Eastman Kodak were
3.5 billion last quarter. Do you really think a loss
of a couple hundred thousand dollars of revenue from
disgruntled customers matters to them? This is just
the price *we* pay for a corporate culture.

--
David W. Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
Phone: 970-221-0438, E-mail: david@dfanning.com
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155

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[Message index]

		Mac OSX By: Richard Adams on Mon, 08 October 2001 03:53
		Re: Mac OSX By: Dick Jackson on Wed, 10 October 2001 12:21
		Re: Mac OSX By: colinr on Thu, 11 October 2001 01:17
		Re: Mac OSX By: Dennis Boccippio on Fri, 12 October 2001 07:22
		Re: Mac OSX By: Pavel A. Romashkin on Wed, 10 October 2001 12:46
		Re: Mac OSX By: Stein Vidar Hagfors H[1] on Wed, 10 October 2001 11:34
		Re: Mac OSX By: colinr on Thu, 11 October 2001 01:19
		Re: Mac OSX By: Paul van Delst on Wed, 10 October 2001 12:38
		Re: Mac OSX By: Todd Clements on Wed, 10 October 2001 10:43
		Re: Mac OSX By: Pavel A. Romashkin on Wed, 10 October 2001 07:55
		Re: Mac OSX By: Noam R. Izenberg on Wed, 10 October 2001 07:22
		Re: Mac OSX By: Jaco van Gorkom on Wed, 10 October 2001 06:18
		Re: Mac OSX By: Richard Adams on Wed, 10 October 2001 05:56
		Re: Mac OSX By: Randall Skelton on Wed, 10 October 2001 05:24
		Re: Mac OSX By: Bernard K. on Wed, 10 October 2001 00:37
		Re: Mac OSX By: Rob.Preece on Fri, 12 October 2001 07:29
		Re: Mac OSX By: Bernard K. on Wed, 10 October 2001 00:33
		Re: Mac OSX By: Wayne Landsman on Tue, 09 October 2001 23:18
		Re: Mac OSX By: Randall Skelton on Tue, 09 October 2001 22:55
		Re: Mac OSX By: Pavel A. Romashkin on Tue, 09 October 2001 21:28
		Re: Mac OSX By: gschneider on Tue, 09 October 2001 16:01
		Re: Mac OSX By: Stein Vidar Hagfors H[1] on Wed, 10 October 2001 12:20
		Re: Mac OSX By: Pavel A. Romashkin on Tue, 09 October 2001 14:09
		Re: Mac OSX By: Mark Hadfield on Thu, 11 October 2001 13:45
		Mac Scoop (Long) By: Noam R. Izenberg on Thu, 11 October 2001 14:25
		Re: Mac Scoop (Long) By: msienkiewicz on Fri, 12 October 2001 17:30
		Re: Mac OSX By: Pavel A. Romashkin on Thu, 11 October 2001 09:24
		Re: Mac OSX By: richard hilton on Thu, 11 October 2001 09:06
		Re: Mac OSX By: Andrew Cool on Sun, 14 October 2001 17:09
		Re: Mac OSX By: John-David T. Smith on Thu, 11 October 2001 09:06
		Re: Mac OSX By: John-David T. Smith on Fri, 12 October 2001 07:47
		Re: Mac OSX By: Martin Otte on Thu, 11 October 2001 14:49
		Re: Mac OSX By: Pavel A. Romashkin on Thu, 11 October 2001 08:48
		Re: Mac OSX By: Noam R. Izenberg on Thu, 11 October 2001 08:23
		Re: Mac OSX By: Randall Skelton on Wed, 10 October 2001 23:01
		Re: Mac OSX By: David Fanning on Wed, 10 October 2001 21:25
		Re: Mac OSX By: John Boccio on Wed, 10 October 2001 20:19
		Re: Mac OSX By: David Fanning on Wed, 10 October 2001 19:00
		Re: Mac OSX By: Mark Hadfield on Wed, 10 October 2001 18:33
		Re: Mac OSX By: David Fanning on Wed, 10 October 2001 16:41
		Re: Mac OSX By: pit on Sat, 13 October 2001 11:44
		Re: Mac OSX By: Randall Skelton on Wed, 10 October 2001 14:54
		Re: Mac OSX By: David Fanning on Wed, 10 October 2001 13:39
		Re: Mac OSX By: Noam R. Izenberg on Wed, 10 October 2001 13:27
		Re: Mac OSX By: Pavel A. Romashkin on Wed, 10 October 2001 13:12
		Re: Mac OSX By: David Fanning on Wed, 10 October 2001 13:09
		Re: Mac OSX By: Ken Prager on Fri, 12 October 2001 09:06
		Re: Mac OSX By: Noam R. Izenberg on Fri, 12 October 2001 08:01
		Re: Mac OSX By: pit on Mon, 15 October 2001 12:21
		Re: Mac OSX By: Craig Markwardt on Sun, 14 October 2001 17:51

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