Re: What's up with the Cocoa Text System?
Is your personal hubris about a job you were not offered 14 years ago (and tastes for interview style) somehow relevant to the other developers on this list? b Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 23, 2015, at 2:38 PM, Michael Crawford wrote: > > Cocoa Text is glacially slow compared to what it would be had Apple > offered me the developer tools job I interviewed for in 2001. > > Perhaps, when interviewing with the Xocde team, it might not have been > a bad idea to avoid criticizing Xcode. I made it quite clear that I > was unimpressed with Mac OS X in general, and to this day, I regard > Mac OS System 8.1 as the very finest System Software release Apple has > ever produced. > > Are you familiar with the term "Bozo Filter"? > > More or less, I won't accept a job offer, unless I can call my > potential employer a jackass directly to his face - then have him > agree that he is, in fact, a jackass. > > No doubt you expect that I am of very modest means. I was quite > wealthy at one time, but my money did not do me a whole lot of good. > Michael David Crawford, Consulting Software Engineer > mdcrawf...@gmail.com > http://www.warplife.com/mdc/ > > Available for Software Development in the Portland, Oregon Metropolitan > Area. > > >> On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 2:16 PM, Jens Alfke wrote: >> >> On Jan 23, 2015, at 1:53 PM, Michael Crawford wrote: >> >> At one time I found it quite painful to edit source code with Xcode. >> I was told that was due to Xcode using the Cocoa text widget. >> >> Consider that Lightspeed C worked just fine, snappy and responsive, on >> my 6 MHz 68000 Mac 512k (or was it 8 MHz). >> >> >> I used Lightspeed C too. Its editor didn't support Unicode, or any languages >> outside the basic Roman alphabet. That's a significant quality-of-life issue >> for programmers whose first language isn't English. It also didn't do live >> syntax checking or code folding. In fact it only supported monospaced >> single-color text (no syntax highlighting.) >> >> The Cocoa text system compares to that editor, or MacWrite, the way >> Photoshop compares to a crayon. And some of those features may seem like >> nice-to-have frills to Americans (contextual forms, ligatures, bidirectional >> layout, pop-up text input panels) but are must-haves for languages written >> by the majority of the world's people. >> >> I'm sure that if we resurrected the Lightspeed C engine, it would let you >> type at about ten million words-per-minute on today's computers. So what? >> The editor only needs to be fast enough to keep up with human fingers. The >> rest of the CPU time can be dedicated to extra features. >> >> Cocoa Text isn't slow. (And it wasn't slow on a Power Mac G3 back in the day >> either.) One guy is having some nasty slowdowns that seem to be caused by >> something incidental, not an intrinsic problem with the text system. >> >> --Jens > ___ > > Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) > > Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. > Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com > > Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: > https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/ben%40zygoat.ca > > This email sent to b...@zygoat.ca ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: What's up with the Cocoa Text System?
Cocoa Text is glacially slow compared to what it would be had Apple offered me the developer tools job I interviewed for in 2001. Perhaps, when interviewing with the Xocde team, it might not have been a bad idea to avoid criticizing Xcode. I made it quite clear that I was unimpressed with Mac OS X in general, and to this day, I regard Mac OS System 8.1 as the very finest System Software release Apple has ever produced. Are you familiar with the term "Bozo Filter"? More or less, I won't accept a job offer, unless I can call my potential employer a jackass directly to his face - then have him agree that he is, in fact, a jackass. No doubt you expect that I am of very modest means. I was quite wealthy at one time, but my money did not do me a whole lot of good. Michael David Crawford, Consulting Software Engineer mdcrawf...@gmail.com http://www.warplife.com/mdc/ Available for Software Development in the Portland, Oregon Metropolitan Area. On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 2:16 PM, Jens Alfke wrote: > > On Jan 23, 2015, at 1:53 PM, Michael Crawford wrote: > > At one time I found it quite painful to edit source code with Xcode. > I was told that was due to Xcode using the Cocoa text widget. > > Consider that Lightspeed C worked just fine, snappy and responsive, on > my 6 MHz 68000 Mac 512k (or was it 8 MHz). > > > I used Lightspeed C too. Its editor didn't support Unicode, or any languages > outside the basic Roman alphabet. That's a significant quality-of-life issue > for programmers whose first language isn't English. It also didn't do live > syntax checking or code folding. In fact it only supported monospaced > single-color text (no syntax highlighting.) > > The Cocoa text system compares to that editor, or MacWrite, the way > Photoshop compares to a crayon. And some of those features may seem like > nice-to-have frills to Americans (contextual forms, ligatures, bidirectional > layout, pop-up text input panels) but are must-haves for languages written > by the majority of the world's people. > > I'm sure that if we resurrected the Lightspeed C engine, it would let you > type at about ten million words-per-minute on today's computers. So what? > The editor only needs to be fast enough to keep up with human fingers. The > rest of the CPU time can be dedicated to extra features. > > Cocoa Text isn't slow. (And it wasn't slow on a Power Mac G3 back in the day > either.) One guy is having some nasty slowdowns that seem to be caused by > something incidental, not an intrinsic problem with the text system. > > --Jens ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: What's up with the Cocoa Text System?
> On Jan 23, 2015, at 1:53 PM, Michael Crawford wrote: > > At one time I found it quite painful to edit source code with Xcode. > I was told that was due to Xcode using the Cocoa text widget. > > Consider that Lightspeed C worked just fine, snappy and responsive, on > my 6 MHz 68000 Mac 512k (or was it 8 MHz). I used Lightspeed C too. Its editor didn't support Unicode, or any languages outside the basic Roman alphabet. That's a significant quality-of-life issue for programmers whose first language isn't English. It also didn't do live syntax checking or code folding. In fact it only supported monospaced single-color text (no syntax highlighting.) The Cocoa text system compares to that editor, or MacWrite, the way Photoshop compares to a crayon. And some of those features may seem like nice-to-have frills to Americans (contextual forms, ligatures, bidirectional layout, pop-up text input panels) but are must-haves for languages written by the majority of the world's people. I'm sure that if we resurrected the Lightspeed C engine, it would let you type at about ten million words-per-minute on today's computers. So what? The editor only needs to be fast enough to keep up with human fingers. The rest of the CPU time can be dedicated to extra features. Cocoa Text isn't slow. (And it wasn't slow on a Power Mac G3 back in the day either.) One guy is having some nasty slowdowns that seem to be caused by something incidental, not an intrinsic problem with the text system. —Jens ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: What's up with the Cocoa Text System?
At one time I found it quite painful to edit source code with Xcode.
I was told that was due to Xcode using the Cocoa text widget.
Consider that Lightspeed C worked just fine, snappy and responsive, on
my 6 MHz 68000 Mac 512k (or was it 8 MHz).
I myself did a lot of the work on Working Software's QuickLetter,
which used the same CoreEdit styled text engine as MacWrite. When I
ran into its developers at a WWDC, I shouted "We owe you sixty
thousand dollars!"
"No worries," one of them replied, "Say 'Hi' to Dave for us."
While somewhat buggy QuickLetter was quite perfomant on System 6.5 on
a Mac Plus. It stopped being buggy after I'd been working for WSI for
a while.
A real good way to get performance problems out of code, is for that
code's developers to use the very slowest computers they possibly can
as their development machines.
Michael David Crawford, Consulting Software Engineer
mdcrawf...@gmail.com
http://www.warplife.com/mdc/
Available for Software Development in the Portland, Oregon Metropolitan
Area.
On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 10:43 AM, sqwarqDev <2551p...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 23 Jan 2015, at 20:50, Charles Jenkins wrote:
>>
>> I have turned off Autocorrect and Check Spelling While Typing to eliminate
>> the significant pause that happens each time you finish a word and hit the
>> space bar.
>
> That's a local issue you've got there.
>
> 1. Create a new user. Restart and log in to that account. If the problem is
> not apparent in the new user account, look carefuly at what 's in the
> affected account's ~/Library/LaunchAgents folder and its System Preferences >
> Users & Groups | Login Items ("look carefully" = remove everytihng and add
> them back in one at a time till you find the culprit).
>
> 2. If the problem persists in a new user account, look at what's in both of
>
> [Hard Disk]/Library/LaunchAgents
> [Hard Disk]/Library/LaunchDeamons
>
> Again, eliminate any 3rd party stuff, restart and test. Add any 3ed party
> files back in one at a time, restarting and testing after each, till you find
> the miscreant.
>
> 3. If there's no 3rd party stuff in there or removing them doesn't solve the
> issue, find or get an external USB HD, do a clean install of OS X, boot into
> it and see the difference. If it's noticeable don't discount internal HD
> failure (have you checked the SMART status of the disk in Disk Utility?), but
> chances are a reinstall of OS X on your internal HD will sort things out.
>
> If there is no difference, you've got hardware problems (too little, badly
> seated or corrupt RAM, failing logic board, graphics card, etc).
>
> Best
>
> Phil
>
> DisplayDroid beta (a lightweight script editor and automation tool) is now
> available for free download. More info on sqwarq.com/displaydroid
>
> http://applehelpwriter.com
> http://sqwarq.com - apps for OS X & iOS
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___
>
> Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com)
>
> Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list.
> Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com
>
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>
> This email sent to mdcrawf...@gmail.com
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Re: What's up with the Cocoa Text System?
> On 23 Jan 2015, at 20:50, Charles Jenkins wrote:
>
> I have turned off Autocorrect and Check Spelling While Typing to eliminate
> the significant pause that happens each time you finish a word and hit the
> space bar.
That's a local issue you've got there.
1. Create a new user. Restart and log in to that account. If the problem is not
apparent in the new user account, look carefuly at what 's in the affected
account's ~/Library/LaunchAgents folder and its System Preferences > Users &
Groups | Login Items ("look carefully" = remove everytihng and add them back in
one at a time till you find the culprit).
2. If the problem persists in a new user account, look at what's in both of
[Hard Disk]/Library/LaunchAgents
[Hard Disk]/Library/LaunchDeamons
Again, eliminate any 3rd party stuff, restart and test. Add any 3ed party files
back in one at a time, restarting and testing after each, till you find the
miscreant.
3. If there's no 3rd party stuff in there or removing them doesn't solve the
issue, find or get an external USB HD, do a clean install of OS X, boot into it
and see the difference. If it's noticeable don't discount internal HD failure
(have you checked the SMART status of the disk in Disk Utility?), but chances
are a reinstall of OS X on your internal HD will sort things out.
If there is no difference, you've got hardware problems (too little, badly
seated or corrupt RAM, failing logic board, graphics card, etc).
Best
Phil
DisplayDroid beta (a lightweight script editor and automation tool) is now
available for free download. More info on sqwarq.com/displaydroid
http://applehelpwriter.com
http://sqwarq.com - apps for OS X & iOS
___
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Re: What's up with the Cocoa Text System?
> On Jan 23, 2015, at 6:02 AM, Peter wrote: > > Maybe this sounds silly, but have you tried to increase the keyboard repeat > frequency in the system preferences. I once was silly enough not to. That sounds silly, honestly. That only affects how rapidly a key repeats when you hold it down. Useful for arrow keys and Delete, but not a factor while typing in text. —Jens ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: What's up with the Cocoa Text System?
> On Jan 23, 2015, at 5:50 AM, Charles Jenkins wrote:
>
> For some reason, typing text on a Mac has always had a little bit of
> friction: however the OS receives keyboard input, it doesn't seem to be able
> to keep up as well as a PC. But lately, toward the end of Mavericks' lifespan
> and now on Yosemite, it has actually become painful to type in text. I'm
> excited about working on my app, but when it comes time to sit down and work
> on it, I always feel noticeable dread about having to type code into XCode.
I don't see this problem. I'm quite a fast typist, and apps don't have trouble
keeping up. In particular, there's not a "significant pause that happens each
time you finish a word".
I have very occasionally seen Xcode get sluggish, but I could resolve it simply
be relaunching Xcode. (My hunch is that it was some Xcode bug where a
timer-based task starts running after every event and taking too much time.)
I'm guessing you either have very old hardware, or too little RAM, or some kind
of extensions installed (input methods?) that are monitoring keystrokes and
doing too much work.
The way I'd troubleshoot this is to go to Terminal, enter "sleep 2; sample
TextEdit 5", immediately switch to TextEdit and type as fast as you can for 5
seconds. Then look at the sample and see where the time is going and if
anything looks suspicious ("-[NSAKeyLogger checkForTerroristKeywords:]" maybe…)
—Jens
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Re: What's up with the Cocoa Text System?
Maybe this sounds silly, but have you tried to increase the keyboard repeat frequency in the system preferences. I once was silly enough not to. ___ Peter Hartmann Am 23.01.2015 um 14:50 schrieb Charles Jenkins : > For some reason, typing text on a Mac has always had a little bit of > friction: however the OS receives keyboard input, it doesn't seem to be able > to keep up as well as a PC. But lately, toward the end of Mavericks' lifespan > and now on Yosemite, it has actually become painful to type in text. I'm > excited about working on my app, but when it comes time to sit down and work > on it, I always feel noticeable dread about having to type code into XCode. > > (Does anyone use BBEdit? Is it more responsive?) > > I don't want to open a Mac-vs-PC debate, so let me say I've used Macs since > the advent of Jaguar and I'd never buy anything else for my primary, personal > use. I work on PCs all day at work, but I bought a Mac mini there and work on > PCs remotely through Jump Desktop because the Mac can handle my display > better. Year over year, my experience is that everything is better on a > Mac... except typing text. The PC just keeps up better. > > I'm not just complaining here: I'm writing a word processor, so I'm concerned > about how to make my app more responsive. > > I'm composing this email using Airmail 2, but it wouldn't matter what email > client I used. I recently switched from Sparrow, where I had exactly the same > problems. I have turned off Autocorrect and Check Spelling While Typing to > eliminate the significant pause that happens each time you finish a word and > hit the space bar. I just wrote a reply and still had regular hiccups as I > typed, so then I turned off Substitutions - Smart Links and Substitutions - > Text Replacement. Now typing flows better and I'm able to get more words > typed in before a pause. It's much better now, but there are still times when > the computer will seem to hang for a bit and then a group of ten or so > characters will all appear at once. > > I am not a fast touch-typist, but post-Mavericks, it seems that in every new > app I have go go and turn off a bunch of text system features we Mac users > have come to rely on over the years in order to make typing at all bearable. > > Is there anything I can do as a developer to make my app more responsive and > make typing flow better, other than defaulting the app to turn off as many > text features as possible or writing my own replacement for NSTextView? > > -- > > Charles > ___ > > Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) > > Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. > Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com > > Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: > https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/magnard%40web.de > > This email sent to magn...@web.de ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
What's up with the Cocoa Text System?
For some reason, typing text on a Mac has always had a little bit of friction: however the OS receives keyboard input, it doesn't seem to be able to keep up as well as a PC. But lately, toward the end of Mavericks' lifespan and now on Yosemite, it has actually become painful to type in text. I'm excited about working on my app, but when it comes time to sit down and work on it, I always feel noticeable dread about having to type code into XCode. (Does anyone use BBEdit? Is it more responsive?) I don't want to open a Mac-vs-PC debate, so let me say I've used Macs since the advent of Jaguar and I'd never buy anything else for my primary, personal use. I work on PCs all day at work, but I bought a Mac mini there and work on PCs remotely through Jump Desktop because the Mac can handle my display better. Year over year, my experience is that everything is better on a Mac... except typing text. The PC just keeps up better. I'm not just complaining here: I'm writing a word processor, so I'm concerned about how to make my app more responsive. I'm composing this email using Airmail 2, but it wouldn't matter what email client I used. I recently switched from Sparrow, where I had exactly the same problems. I have turned off Autocorrect and Check Spelling While Typing to eliminate the significant pause that happens each time you finish a word and hit the space bar. I just wrote a reply and still had regular hiccups as I typed, so then I turned off Substitutions - Smart Links and Substitutions - Text Replacement. Now typing flows better and I'm able to get more words typed in before a pause. It's much better now, but there are still times when the computer will seem to hang for a bit and then a group of ten or so characters will all appear at once. I am not a fast touch-typist, but post-Mavericks, it seems that in every new app I have go go and turn off a bunch of text system features we Mac users have come to rely on over the years in order to make typing at all bearable. Is there anything I can do as a developer to make my app more responsive and make typing flow better, other than defaulting the app to turn off as many text features as possible or writing my own replacement for NSTextView? -- Charles ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
