April Highlight
Even if lately I’m stepping in analysis and architecture tasks, I consider myself to be a developer; as such, I expect next week with high expectations: it will be one of the most important of the year from a technical viewpoint:
- On Monday, April 25th, Microsoft will release the Beta 2 of version 2.0 of the Microsoft .NET Framework and developer tools.
- On Friday, April 29th, Apple will release Tiger, also known as MacOS X 10.4, the fifth iteration of its Unix-based operating system, maybe the best operating system available today.
On one side, the Beta 2 of any product, particularly a development environment, is always a huge step forward: Beta 2 means that the interfaces of the APIs are stable (well, subject to minor changes) and that the development teams at Microsoft are concentrating in eliminating bugs and in raising the performance bar.
On the other side, I think that the best operating system just got better. And Apple's last quarter results (43% more computers sold, 558% more iPods sold) are just a direct result of this commitment to high quality.
.NET Framework 2.0 Beta 2
For the .NET Framework the evolution is huge:
- 64-bit support
- New deployment features, including the ClickOnce technology
- Windows access control lists support
- COM Interop enhancements
- New data protection API
- New debugger features, such as edit-and-continue and display attributes
- Network connectivity changes detection
- Distributed computing enhancements
- EventLog enhancements
- Expanded security certificate enhancements
- Generics and generic collections
- New globalization features
- I/O enhancements, including serial devices support
- New compression libraries
- Remoting enhancements
- Local network configuration information
- Network ping and FTP support
- Support for handling HTTP requests from within an application
- It works only for Windows XP or 2003, though
- Caching enhancements
- New security exceptions
- Serialization enhancements
- SMTP support
- Strongly-typed resource support
- Threading improvements
- Trace data filtering
- Enhanced transactions support
- New standards supported for SOAP Web Services
- ... and much more...
More details about these new features can be found in this page:
http://blogs.msdn.com/junfeng/archive/2004/08/01/203813.aspx
Apple’s Tiger
And Tiger... what else can be said about MacOS X, this magnificent, performant, good-looking operating system that is a joy to use, and to develop for as well.
The list of new features... is even bigger than that for the .NET Framework: more than 200 new features will be released!
The complete list is here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/newfeatures/over200.html
There are so many of them that they have been categorized as follows:
- Address Book
- New LDAP and import/export features
- AppleScript
- Including XML and SQLite access
- Aqua
- Including Dashboard Widgets and Spotlight integration
- Audio
- 64-bit audio support and the Core Audio developer library!
- Bluetooth
- Support for Bluetooth 1.2, which makes MacOS X compatible with an even wider range of cellphones and PDAs
- Developer
- Including Xcode 2.0, AppleScript Studio, GCC 4.0, Core Audio, Core Data, Core Image, Core Video, SQLite, and many other things!
- DVD Player
- New playing options, including that of playback from the Dock!
- Faxing
- Faxing status shown in the menu bar
- Finder
- Including Smart Folders and Spotlight!
- Font Book
- Including enhanced export capabilities
- Graphics and Media
- Core Image and Core Video, two new APIs allow developers to enhance new applications with impressive capabilities
- iCal
- iChat AV
- Compatibility with Jabber and multi-person video conferencing
- Image Capture
- With new wireless capabilities
- International
- More languages are supported in Tiger than ever before
- The Mail application has been completely redesigned!
- Mobility
- Power and Network enhancements for mobile users
- Networking
- Xgrid distributed computing and new protocols supported
- Preview
- New formats and PDF forms supported
- Printing
- QuickTime 7
- Faster playback and new codecs
- Safari RSS
- Safari 2.0 has been enhanced and loads pages 1.8 times faster than Safari 1.2
- Security
- System
- Including Automator, a new utility that allows users to simplify repetitive tasks
- System Preferences
- Access for new configuration options and Spotlight support
- Universal Access
- Featuring VoiceOver spoken interface
- UNIX
- 64-bit support, ksh integration, and Spotlight integration
- Windows
- Enhanced compatibility with Windows-based computers
Comments
OK, OK, I agree that not everything in either list is neither grounbreaking nor revolutionary, but I am interested in the following aspects:
The .NET Framework is one of the two most interesting development environments that I know of (the other being Apple’s Cocoa); what I will particularly appreciate from the new version of the .NET Framework is:
- ClickOnce
- Generics
- New I/O devices supported
- New globalization features
- New resource management features
- New networking capabilities
- New threading model
Apple MacOS X is even more interesting than the whole of .NET technologies; MacOS X is a whole platform, that is growing faster than ever before, with the broadest developer support and the finest user interface available. I enjoy MacOS X both as a developer and as an end user (which I cannot say of Windows, that I only enjoy as a developer - lately, I must say).
As an end user, what I will appreciate most of MacOS X is:
- Spotlight
- Dashboard Widgets
- iCal (I want to get rid of Entourage, actually)
- Bluetooth (finally I will be able to connect my Motorola V500 phone to my G5...)
But as a developer... this is what I will enjoy most:
- The new “Core” APIs:
- Core Data
- Core Image
- Core Video
- Xcode 2.0 and its modeling capabilities
- SQLite support
More to come...