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- From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik )
- Subject: Re: Reuse Discussion Topics (Was: Reuse and Software Components)
- Sender: news@gallant.apple.com
- Message-ID: <ksand-061192220347@wintermute.apple.com>
- Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 06:08:10 GMT
- References: <Bx56G1.8pr@cs.uiuc.edu> <jubo.720960526@rwthi3> <ksand-051192155051@wintermute.apple.com> <1992Nov6.175825.2978@ampex.com>
- Organization: Apple
- Followup-To: comp.sw.components
- Lines: 41
-
- In article <1992Nov6.175825.2978@ampex.com>, leepeng@ampex.com (Peng Lee)
- wrote:
- > In software, I believe X-window protocol, MS-Window API, DOS
- > interrupt functions are good examples of some very successful
- > reuseable software components. If we agree on this, maybe
- > we should start analysis why these APIs succeed.
-
- Well, I have to advertise for the Macintosh Toolbox, appeared 1984
- and still going strong! It's really staggering actually to think
- that people are using the same window creation routines then and
- also today.
-
- Note also that when we made sure that the toolbox was the *one and
- only* way to access the system, we gained two things:
- a) uniform application look&feel, maybe one of the prime reasons
- for our fame in user friendly computing
- b) control so developers would not do skanky things behind our backs
- (even if they do it now and then), like re-defining the look&feel.
-
- The main idea is to make the use of the toolbox API (or component)
- so compelling, that it's not worth the time and energy to rewrite
- the functionality. It is true that we failed with some of the
- features, and developers immediately rewrote these.
-
- Another aspect is to look at very clean and elegant ways to override
- built-in functionality. In the toolbox case we allow developer to patch
- into the toolbox calls, either before the call (preferred) or
- after (should be avoided, because we also patch for fixing problems).
-
- Anyway, we have a long history inside Apple concerning how to make
- developers reuse functionality. The interesting observation was that
- this strategy worked well, but you just need a very good and compelling
- reason. The evolving time-to-market cycle that is slowly decreasing to
- > 1 year is IMHO one of the reasons why component based development
- work will gain followers.
-
- Cheers,
- Kent
- -------------------
- Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
- DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.
-