[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Correct. There is a lot of exchange between the iOS and OS X teams, and I believe that hardware design and engineering is just one team for both products.

From what I understand, It's more than exchange: it's the same people working on both products. There's no need to have separate kernel teams, fr'instance.

[freudling]

I'm sure though that they do have separate teams for a lot of stuff. You just have to a) have experience b) look at their hires and departments c) the way they operate. Often times, from what I've read, on products engineers only see part of a system. They don't know what the whole thing will look like when it's complete. The iPhone was an example that got some press on that. Those part of the development... were in the dark about parts of the phone outside the immediate purview of their responsibility.

Another example is their augmented cognition project. I've read that they have about 7-10 people on it, and it's locked down secret.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Wow, if all of this checks out, that's an incredibly small tooth to tail ratio.

There's a reason they're so fast and far ahead of the markets that the competition hasn't even *considered* building what Apple is first to ship.

Small, nimble teams concentrating on project items, and the bureaucracy and infrastructure dealing only with the business - this means some things take a while to get around to, but when they're done, they're done right, and there's no tripled redundancy duplication of functions implemented into functionality made to work around the same problems that other teams have already worked around the issues for by implementing functionality that turns out to be redundant once the third team has submitted their solution to the development tree, where it migrates upwards in the hierarchy and back down through the builds to the other teams who've fixed the same problems in their sphere of influence and find their work was wasted and redundant once the two other fixes migrate back down the hierarchy to their departments' codebases.

This is apparently why there's invariably at least five ways to do anything in Office that are mutually inter- or independent, depending on the amount of redundancy (see key command assignments in Office 2008 for awesomeness - at least three different methods, while only two of them actually show the shortcut in the menu, but which one is actually shown depends upon the order in which they were set or Ballmer's digestion, I forget which).

[Phileas]

^ Which is what's dragging Yahoo down - well, one of the many issues dragging Yahoo down. Multiple teams, working on the same problem, each favouring their own solution.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Small, nimble teams concentrating on project items, and the bureaucracy and infrastructure dealing only with the business - this means some things take a while to get around to, but when they're done, they're done right, and there's no tripled redundancy duplication of functions implemented into functionality made to work around the same problems that other teams have already worked around the issues for by implementing functionality that turns out to be redundant once the third team has submitted their solution to the development tree, where it migrates upwards in the hierarchy and back down through the builds to the other teams who've fixed the same problems in their sphere of influence and find their work was wasted and redundant once the two other fixes migrate back down the hierarchy to their departments' codebases.

Ya, makes sense, and is embarrassing for some tech companies. But dude, this is one of the worst run on sentences I've ever seen! My god man, it's huge. I think it's so long it's going to exit the Earth's orbit.

[CharlesS]

That's not a run-on sentence, it's just long.

[Cold Warrior]

It's just long German.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

That's not a run-on sentence, it's just long.

? I see places where you could insert 3 or 4 periods, and there's a few spots that require a period. I'm sorry, I'm just blown away by the size. It's stuff I'd read in government policy, but it's not even that long.

Jesus man!

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

It's just long German.

Isn't that racist?

[CharlesS]

A run-on sentence is two or more independent clauses which have been improperly joined, an example could be joining two sentences with just a comma without using an appropriate conjunction or semicolon. Yes, I did that on purpose.

Spheric's sentence didn't include this as far as I could tell — it just contained a long string of subordinate clauses and phrases, which is technically grammatically correct, regardless of personal taste.

Actually, if there's a grammatical problem with that sentence, it's that the first part of it before the em dash is a sentence fragment; "Small, nimble teams concentrating on project items, and etc." is missing a verb. That's right, folks, this sentence isn't long enough.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Another example is their augmented cognition project. I've read that they have about 7-10 people on it, and it's locked down secret.

We know that Apple keeps a lot of things on the back burner before they're fully cooked. For example, how when Steve Jobs announced that Macs would be switching to Intel, he said that every version of OS X had been configured for OS X in the lab and had been running on Intel versions of PowerPC Macs.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

From what I understand, It's more than exchange: it's the same people working on both products. There's no need to have separate kernel teams, fr'instance.

Well there are clear leadership structures and figureheads in both iOS and OS X development teams, but nearly everyone on the iOS development team came from the OS X side of things (Scott Forstall for example).

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Isn't that racist?

Don't think so. German's grammar makes very long sentences easy to construct.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Ya, makes sense, and is embarrassing for some tech companies. But dude, this is one of the worst run on sentences I've ever seen! My god man, it's huge. I think it's so long it's going to exit the Earth's orbit.

Have you considered that I may have written purposely to underline my point?

(hint: is there any duplication or redundancy in there? Could I have said much the same thing with one-fifth the effort? Exactly.)

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Actually, if there's a grammatical problem with that sentence, it's that the first part of it before the em dash is a sentence fragment; "Small, nimble teams concentrating on project items, and etc." is missing a verb. That's right, folks, this sentence isn't long enough.

Actually, no - that's just part of the subject ("this").

Had I thought to string together actually *broken* fragments and gumming up the final structure gramatically, it would have made my point all the better.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

A run-on sentence is two or more independent clauses which have been improperly joined, an example could be joining two sentences with just a comma without using an appropriate conjunction or semicolon. Yes, I did that on purpose.

Spheric's sentence didn't include this as far as I could tell — it just contained a long string of subordinate clauses and phrases, which is technically grammatically correct, regardless of personal taste.

Actually, if there's a grammatical problem with that sentence, it's that the first part of it before the em dash is a sentence fragment; "Small, nimble teams concentrating on project items, and etc." is missing a verb. That's right, folks, this sentence isn't long enough.

Well, I'm assuming you read this on Wikipedia. Could be wrong. Anyway, it's not quite that simple. It is, in fact, a run-on sentence, and that's because, for starters, there is more than one independent clause in the passage. It's just harder to tell because they're buried in coordinating conjunctions and the syntax is a bit crazy. Second, it's not just a strict rule of conjoining two or more independent clauses. If text is strung together with an overuse or misuse of coordinating conjunctions where main ideas and points become confusing, it's a run-on sentence. Several books point this out, although Wikipedia, which I did just check now, keeps things pretty simple. I've got some grammar books here that I've consulted, and have a bit of a background on this subject.

http://i675.photobucket.com/albums/v...eudling/SH.png



PS: Spheric, not picking on you, just having a little fun.

[Don Pickett]

Grammar fight!

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Well, I'm assuming you read this on Wikipedia. Could be wrong.

Read it in my 4th grade grammar textbook. And my 6th grade grammar textbook. And my high school grammar textbooks. And pretty much every textbook for every grammar class I ever had to take during my younger years. Uh oh, those were all sentence fragments. Whoops!

The fact that Wikipedia also has it right further reinforces my point. Looking at their page on run-ons, it appears they also cite a bunch of sources, including a grammar textbook and two websites belonging to educational institutions.

If you want a real authority, how about Oxford? Here's what it says:

Originally Posted by Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style

In a run-on sentence, two independent clauses — not joined by a conjunction such as and, but, for, or, or nor — are incorrectly written with no punctuation between them.

Unlike some texts, this example distinguishes between run-ons and comma splices, rather than considering the latter a subtype of the former, but hey, you get the point.

Merriam-Webster defines it as:

a sentence containing two or more clauses not connected by the correct conjunction or punctuation

I'm not at home right now, so I can't check a wide variety of sources right now, but that should be sufficient. It's been a pet peeve of mine for years when people call sentences run-ons when they're actually just long, especially when a college professor in a field other than English writes that on a paper.

It is, in fact, a run-on sentence, and that's because, for starters, there is more than one independent clause in the passage. It's just harder to tell because they're buried in coordinating conjunctions and the syntax is a bit crazy.

If they have conjunctions and the proper punctuation, they're not run-ons. Run-ons aren't just sentences with more than one independent clause; they're sentences where the independent clauses are joined incorrectly.

Second, it's not just a strict rule of conjoining two or more independent clauses. If text is strung together with an overuse or misuse of coordinating conjunctions where main ideas and points become confusing, it's a run-on sentence.

This is simply wrong. Sorry!

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Don't think so. German's grammar makes very long sentences easy to construct.

Not much easier than English; in fact, it's extremely similar in enough ways that you can generally apply the same rules across the two languages and get correct - if terrifying - results.

You're thinking of WORD structure, where you can often just string together words in, say, a possessive relationship to build huge conglomerates:

Fahrt - ride, travel

Schiffahrt - shipping

Dampfschifffahrt - steamboat shipping

Donaudampfschifffahrt - Danube steamboat shipping

Gesellschaft - company

Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft - Danube Steamboat Shipping Company

etc.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Not much easier than English; in fact, it's extremely similar in enough ways that you can generally apply the same rules across the two languages and get correct - if terrifying - results.

You're thinking of WORD structure, where you can often just string together words in, say, a possessive relationship to build huge conglomerates.

Nope. My dad speaks German, and I grew up around the language. I haven't spoken it in so long I don't consider myself to be fluent, but I have always found it much easier to construct sentences with lots of clauses in German than in English. This may be because modern, spoken, American English has come to be a language of relatively short sentences. And this may be just my use, or misuse, of German.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Read...

Nope, don't agree. And there's other sources that substantiate what I'm saying. Just sayin'.

Take it easy.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Nope. My dad speaks German, and I grew up around the language. I haven't spoken it in so long I don't consider myself to be fluent, but I have always found it much easier to construct sentences with lots of clauses in German than in English. This may be because modern, spoken, American English has come to be a language of relatively short sentences. And this may be just my use, or misuse, of German.

As you can see from my example above, it's not particularly difficult in English, either.

FWIW, I grew up as a native speaker of both.

[Spheric Harlot]

Anyway, getting back to the actual point:

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Small, nimble teams concentrating on project items, and the bureaucracy and infrastructure dealing only with the business - this means some things take a while to get around to, but when they're done, they're done right

That's Apple.

You may interpret that as "neglect", as has been a theme in this thread, but in reality, it's the efficiency of setting clear priorities and getting them done.

Sometimes this means that certain projects get long in the tooth and languish in a "done, but needs overhaul" state, but overall, it's apparently a lot better compromise than

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

tripled redundancy duplication of functions implemented into functionality made to work around the same problems that other teams have already worked around the issues for by implementing functionality that turns out to be redundant once the third team has submitted their solution to the development tree, where it migrates upwards in the hierarchy and back down through the builds to the other teams who've fixed the same problems in their sphere of influence and find their work was wasted and redundant once the two other fixes migrate back down the hierarchy to their departments' codebases.

This is apparently why there's invariably at least five ways to do anything in Office that are mutually inter- or independent, depending on the amount of redundancy (see key command assignments in Office 2008 for awesomeness - at least three different methods, while only two of them actually show the shortcut in the menu, but which one is actually shown depends upon the order in which they were set or Ballmer's digestion, I forget which).

This is Microsoft, and, unless they've fired MASSIVE amounts of people and completely restructured the entire corporation, pretty much the way development works there (from what I've read).

I know which model's results I prefer.

[P]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Not much easier than English; in fact, it's extremely similar in enough ways that you can generally apply the same rules across the two languages and get correct - if terrifying - results.

The difference is the auxiliary verbs in german. A decently sized sentence can get incredibly long when you pile up all the main verbs at the end.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Nope, don't agree.

Doesn't matter if you agree or not — that's the definition of a run-on sentence. I could say I disagree and that I think a run-on sentence is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Doesn't make it so.

And there's other sources that substantiate what I'm saying. Just sayin'.

[citation needed]

If you've got a source that claims that, your source contains an error. I could get you plenty more sources later in the week when I'll have some time to get over to the library, if you wish.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Doesn't matter if you agree or not — that's the definition of a run-on sentence. I could say I disagree and that I think a run-on sentence is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Doesn't make it so.


[citation needed]

I've made my case. The defence rests. I won't repeat myself. Let's move forward and talk about the state of the Mac, because this is way off topic and not worth any further discussion, unless it's in another thread.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by P 

The difference is the auxiliary verbs in german. A decently sized sentence can get incredibly long when you pile up all the main verbs at the end.

That's true, but it's also extremely uncommon.

The construction I made above to characterize Microsoft's development approach (will this ever get back on topic?) can be built equally easily in German or English.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Well, I'm assuming you read this on Wikipedia. Could be wrong. Anyway, it's not quite that simple. It is, in fact, a run-on sentence, and that's because, for starters, there is more than one independent clause in the passage.

That alone doesn't qualify it.

The issue is that you're talking about two different things:

The grammatical "run-on sentence" is defined as "a written sentence of two or more main clauses that are not separated by a period or semicolon or joined by a conjunction. [1910-1915]" in my Random-House Webster's.

You're talking about a stylistic issue.

Either way, it's a pretty useless semantic argument at this point, so why don't you guys just lay it to rest and go do something useful, like have a beer on me, or something.

Originally Posted by freudling 

http://i675.photobucket.com/albums/v...eudling/SH.png



PS: Spheric, not picking on you, just having a little fun.

All good.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

That alone doesn't qualify it.

The issue is that you're talking about two different things:

The grammatical "run-on sentence" is defined as "a written sentence of two or more main clauses that are not separated by a period or semicolon or joined by a conjunction. [1910-1915]" in my Random-House Webster's.

You're talking about a stylistic issue.

Either way, it's a pretty useless semantic argument at this point, so why don't you guys just lay it to rest and go do something useful, like have a beer on me, or something.


All good.

Nope, it's not a stylistic issue. But who cares man, you guys are sure of yourselves so let's drop it. Mac still alive? Shxt, I forgot the verb in the last sentence! Sentence fragment! No, no more grammar...!!!

[imitchellg5]

Hey guys, what if we didn't talk about grammar anymore?

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Hey guys, what if we didn't talk about grammar anymore?

I'm actually curious as to how far this thread can drift.

[imitchellg5]

Also, freudling should try and read some Edmund Burke. He manages to write page long sentences that actually work.

[mattyb]

Are Apple really that efficient as a company? Wonder if they follow ITIL or Cobit. (Not a joke, I really do wonder).

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Hey guys, what if we didn't talk about grammar anymore?

Sorry, this thread is now about run-on sentences.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Sorry, this thread is now about run-on sentences.

I think it should be a grammar thread because that way it will get really anal, that would be very cool don't you think?

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by mattyb 

Are Apple really that efficient as a company? Wonder if they follow ITIL or Cobit. (Not a joke, I really do wonder).

Some American will be along presently to correct the plural.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Some American will be along presently to correct the plural.

With extreme prejudice.

[Spheric Harlot]

cue Conan the Grammarian.

[shabbasuraj]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

The state of the Mac is ............

The reality is all organizations and institutions must change.

SJ has done this for Apple.

It is clear that Apple is a very different company now as compared to the turn of the century.

Much of the hardware and software that Apple has introduced has been - for a lack of a better word - groundbreaking.

Apple sits on a mountain of cash reserves now.

An amount no one here would have believed was possible way back in the mid 90s.

It is crazy to think about how much influence and change has come in such a short period.

Very few corporations have the clout (however you define it) that Apple has in a marketplace.

Can it do better? u betcha!

I just want cheaper hardware.

But then there is the issue, why lower prices when Apple is selling everything they make?

What Apple does with its cash reserves over the next decade is yet to be determined.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by shabbasuraj 

The...

Scabulataculous. Your username made me think of this gibberish word. Thought I would share it.

[Don Pickett]

Missed this when voodoo first posted, but:

Mac versions of Adobe apps are 30% or so of their revenue. It's true, they're not dropping support, but the apps suffer a lot for it and quite reasonably much more effort is put into Wintel apps at Adobe.

Nope. Look at Adobe's 2009 10-K and you will see that Mac sales account for between 70%-75% of CS suite sales. To give you an idea of numbers, for FY2009, Adobe's Creative Suite business brought in US$ 1.7 billion, for 58% of total revenue, of which approximately US$ 1.2 billion was generated from Apple sales. Adobe's FY2009 revenue was US$ 2.95 billion, so Mac CS sales accounted for over 40% of Adobe's revenue all by themselves. Because Adobe separates CS and Acrobat (putting Acrobat under "Knowledge Worker"), it's safe assumption that about 70% of the knowledge worker revenues go to Mac users as well. Add those to CS and you have Mac sales accounting for at least 56% of Adobe's revenues. It's probably higher, but they don't seem to publish those breakdowns.

Just took a quick spin through the 2010 10-K and things look very similar. About 70% of Adobe's business comes from selling software--mainly CS and Acrobat--and 70% of that is for the Mac. Windows software brings in relatively little money for them.

Originally Posted by shabbasuraj 

What Apple does with its cash reserves over the next decade is yet to be determined.

Apple uses its cash reserves to ensure it will get the supply of parts it needs down the road. They essentially give cash to suppliers as very low interest loans so the suppliers can ramp up their facilities, or even build new ones, to ensure Apple has what it needs. They did it a few years ago with flash suppliers to make sure they had enough memory for iPods/iPhones/iPads, and they just invested/loaned another couple billion to the companies which make the screens for the various iDevices. I've seen some numbers which speculate that Apple may have tied up something like 60% of the global capacity.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Nope. Look at Adobe's 2009 10-K and you will see that Mac sales account for between 70%-75% of CS suite sales. To give you an idea of numbers, for FY2009, Adobe's Creative Suite business brought in US$ 1.7 billion, for 58% of total revenue, of which approximately US$ 1.2 billion was generated from Apple sales. Adobe's FY2009 revenue was US$ 2.95 billion, so Mac CS sales accounted for over 40% of Adobe's revenue all by themselves. Because Adobe separates CS and Acrobat (putting Acrobat under "Knowledge Worker"), it's safe assumption that about 70% of the knowledge worker revenues go to Mac users as well. Add those to CS and you have Mac sales accounting for at least 56% of Adobe's revenues. It's probably higher, but they don't seem to publish those breakdowns.

Just took a quick spin through the 2010 10-K and things look very similar. About 70% of Adobe's business comes from selling software--mainly CS and Acrobat--and 70% of that is for the Mac. Windows software brings in relatively little money for them.

Add to that the Premiere/Photoshop Elements that are sold for Mac, and the numbers look even slightly higher.

[freudling]

And the funny thing is, Adobe's stuff is trash, cept Photoshop, but even that's a bit trashy. I say this because these programs are so old in terms of their look and feel... the overall way they work. I really like Pixelmator. Now that's a great UI and it's fast. But it's lacking a lot of features.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by freudling 

And the funny thing is, Adobe's stuff is trash, cept Photoshop, but even that's a bit trashy. I say this because these programs are so old in terms of their look and feel... the overall way they work. I really like Pixelmator. Now that's a great UI and it's fast. But it's lacking a lot of features.

People who use Adobe's products in a design and work environment don't really care. They don't want it to be redesigned, they need the workspace that they are accustomed to.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

People who use Adobe's products in a design and work environment don't really care. They don't want it to be redesigned, they need the workspace that they are accustomed to.

That's why they complain about Adobe, from what I gather.

Adobe keeps redesigning shit, moving the entire interface into Flash, uglifying it and making it clunky, all the while introducing an astounding lack of attention, style, and detail that makes for totally awesome work environments for people used to quality software.

[imitchellg5]

They've moved around a few options, but the overall workspace in Photoshop CS5 is pretty much exactly the same as Photoshop CS. At least key commands haven't changed. InDesign and Illustrator are perhaps the apps that has changed the most over the past few years.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

That's why they complain about Adobe, from what I gather.

Adobe keeps redesigning shit, moving the entire interface into Flash, uglifying it and making it clunky, all the while introducing an astounding lack of attention, style, and detail that makes for totally awesome work environments for people used to quality software.

Those are problems--Adobe has the habit of randomly changing things which have worked for years--but the much bigger issues are Adobe's lack of programming clue. Why is Photoshop still, essentially, a single-threaded app? Some parts of the program make use of multiple cores, but most of the time the program will ignore your extra cores.

Why haven't Illustrator's graphing functions been updated in ten years? Almost every graph or chart you see in a printed publication is made in Illustrator, yet its graphing abilities remain basic and clunky.

And on and on and on. I actually have a long screed I wrote to a friend who works for Adobe, explaining to her why I was continually ragging on the company she works for.

[angelmb]

Crash Report for “Adobe Fireworks CS4” by Jon Hicks

[freudling]

Adobe's stuff doesn't perform well at all. It's clunky and slow. I hate it. Sigh.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Adobe's stuff doesn't perform well at all. It's clunky and slow. I hate it. Sigh.

For all my Adobe bashing, I disagree: on powerful enough hardware CS flies.