File System and Cross Platform Philosophy ( was RE: Valentina installed)

[Lynn Fredricks]

> Well I downloaded god knows how many "beta" versions and they 
> all crashed while doing the simplest of things. We couldn't 
> afford the time needed to develop using Valentina, pity 
> because I think it would be a pretty good package if all the 
> "silly" problems were fixed and the installation was a lot 
> easier and clearer.

This is a known problem having to do with how file access works under Mac OS
X, and my understanding is that it only occurs when you try to access a
local db with Valentina Studio and your own running application is accessing
it at the same time (server based Valentina solutions are designed for
multi-access and so it doesn't occur there).

That being said - while users of our commercial (vs developer) products
wouldn't put themselves into harm's way, its entirely possible that not all
developers on Mac OS X understand these system issues in having multiple
attempts on accessing local applications at the same time as Valentina
Studio.

Id like to share with you a philosophical argument I had some time ago
regarding cross-platform issues (it was a Mac OS X issue), and why there's
going to be a "I didn't know that!" solution implemented soon in Valentina
Studio.

I had a third party develop a cross-platform installer solution using
REALbasic. The solution works just fine under Windows - you can build
installers on Windows and deploy them on both Windows and Mac OS X. However,
because of the way permissions work on Mac OS X (as it was explained to me),
we didn't know until close to release that the Mac OS X solution simply
would not work. Here is where my assumptions with the project that were
wrong - I assumed that since REALbasic (no particular slam against RB, its
probably true of others) is promoted as a cross-platform 'build once, deploy
everywhere' solution, that we could, in fact, build this installer builder
and have it run on both Windows and Mac OS X and create installers on both
platforms.

When I discussed this with REAL, I was told this is a Mac OS X permissions
issue and there was nothing that could be done about it - and that it is an
unrealistic expectation that the "framework" would resolve this or provide a
workaround, too. I have a philosophical view that is contrary to that.

Im not so ignorant of developer issues that - for example - if I specify an
application use Quicktime as an embedded playback mechanism and want to have
it run on Linux that Im in for trouble. Or, if settling on COM components on
Windows Im asking for it if I want a Mac port later. However, when a product
is promoted as a cross-platform RAD solution AND also targets the "new to
programming" market, the lowest levels of file interaction should have some
sort of safety net that the knowledgable user can override/workaround or
avoid. Not knowing this unfortunate fact about the Mac OS (and having a
Windows developer with no Mac experience building with a cross-platform
compile in mind) really damaged the entire project; it never would have been
authorized to begin with if this was known at the time.

In the case of Valentina - a segment of our customers are using RAD tools
and may not be so familiar with this base level problem with Mac OS X that
is causing this problem. Ruslan and I discussed a possible solution for
Valentina Studio that should provide a better safety net for this. We have
no control over what the IDE vendors do (or Apple!), but Id like to say we
will try to remove this stone in your path.

Best regards,

Lynn Fredricks
President
Paradigma Software
http://www.paradigmasoft.com

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