At the 23:50 mark the slides follow the familiar model seen in Apple media events today.
The approach: in 3-4 concluding slides, concisely reiterate key selling points, compatibility, price, and the availability timeline. I've always found this approach to be particularly effective -- I'm highly likely to unambiguously remember these most important bits given that they are presented last.
What is fascinating to me was seeing how passionate he was on a product like it was his life goal while talking, and a few years later totally focused on another completely different thing.
It is impressive to me since I am having hard time to let go my little hobby projects and start another one, while he is doing it on much higher level with the same passion. Respect on that.
He actually wasn't that passionate about enterprise stuff, but could clearly make it look like he was in important events like this. I think at this time, he was getting tired of NeXT and was looking to sell the company so he could focus on Pixar, or something like that. He was really tired of the computer business. I remember seeing an interview with him from around the same time period where the interviewer asked him to talk about NeXT's enterprise stuff and the response was something like "You don't really want to hear about that right? It's not really that interesting."
> What is fascinating to me was seeing how passionate he was on a product like it was his life goal while talking, and a few years later totally focused on another completely different thing.
> It is impressive to me since I am having hard time to let go my little hobby projects and start another one, while he is doing it on much higher level with the same passion. Respect on that.
What a trip to see Steve Jobs not only try to sell something pre-iPod-success, but something as technical and relatively pedestrian as a web framework...And he does it well, without the use of a primetime-polished slideshow or catchphrases.
The one visual that sticks out to me in this video: the silhouettes of people arriving mid-speech and leaving early.
In early '96 having a RAD MVC web framework backed by an ORM was really pretty groundbreaking (even moving codebases relatively seamlessly between an OpenStep desktop app and WO was possible), though yeah, this was Jobs going after the Enterprise audience rather than consumer electronics, very different vibe.
The QA is really interesting. Most of the questions I felt he handled well and showed that he has knowledge of the domain. Two questions in particular stood out:
Q: How can I, as a developer, get my hands on the expensive software suite?
A: Come talk to us. We can accommodate developers who are willing.
This may have been some early input for him to think about sdks and the philosophy of providing developers with tools early on.
Q: What is your view of transactions on the web?
A: We don't think it's a technology problem. It's more of a social/business problem
He was clearly wrong on this one, with the advent of cutting edge technology companies like PayPal and Stripe that followed.
Transactions on the web exist, there are improvements to the UI but it is a social problem (I am afraid of my credit card being stolen) and business problem (Don't worry, trust us we won't let anything bad happen to your credit card).
Hmm I was more impressed by PayPal's business tenacity than with their technical ingenuity. Along with the entrenched credit card companies they had to deal with fraud and organized crime.
No, he was right. In 1996 people were just scared of using their cards online. No one big was doing it yet, consumers didn't trust anything about the end-to-end process. There are more risks now than there were then, if anything (given how many trojans and hackers there are targeting cards now), but people are used to it now.
Paypal didn't bring any particularly new technology, they just bought confidence and bigness.
So, about the 10x programmer myth, productivity etc...
Steve mentions that it took about 3 weeks with 3 programmers to build this app. The tools & technologies have evolved and today we can build this kind of thing with a tiny fraction of this effort...
To me that's the kind of thing that really matters after all: evolving technology & tools, not the "10x programmer myth", or those "how to be more productive" tutorials. The tech evolution has a much bigger impact on productivity than those individual productivity recipees.
Those programmers were arguably 10x or 100x programmers, not run-of-the-mill. They made a choice to work on new technology, solving a hard problem. And then put in the effort, probably with little handholding, and managing the uncertainty.
These are traits not found in the average or even median programmer.
I can see close to 10x productivity gains depending on my work environment. If I have three meetings spaced throughout the day, a ton of quick interruptions, and I am trying to learn something new, forget it. If I get to focus on that one thing, then I can be pretty productive.
I also think that the 10x thing is more to do over the longer term (rather than "look at what I bashed out in 2 hours"). I probably don't code as quickly as I used to, but I am a lot more thorough, and having made plenty of crappy mistakes designing my code in the past, I am in a far better position to know what will make my code robust, and maintainable time a month or two down the line.
And, 100x cheaper, if taking consideration of free cloud offerings.
These profound factors keep me working everyday, although I haven't made my millions yet. There was an article about Nokia or Ericsson around early 2000, saying that people tend to overestimate the impact of technology in short term but underestimate in long run. It's the case.
I would really like to know how cutting-edge this was at the time. It seems incredible to me how little has changed in how we make dynamic web applications.
It moved from Objective-C to Java under Apple. Apple discontinued shipping it with OS X Server Snow Leopard, but the frameworks are still available/free. The community picked up where Apple left off with the open source Project WOnder.
It is a full stack development framework. Enterprise Objects Framework(EOF) is the ORM or Model layer like Cayenne or Hibernate. WebObject components are the front end View layer like you might get from Tapestry.
I have yet to find a web framework that rivals its Controller layer, DirectToWeb (D2W). D2W sits between the Model and the View. It can generate Views automatically using information from the model and with customizable direction from a rule system. It also provides controller actions with customizable callbacks.
Out of the box, WebObjects can reverse engineer your database, constructing a full model of it, and D2W can then construct a full blown Create/Read/Update/Delete interface to it with no coding required. If you don't have a database, you build a model and WebObjects can generate the SQL necessary to create the database for you as well.
It's still pretty amazing, despite being treated like an ugly step child by Apple. It still powers the billion dollar iTunes store as well AFAIK.
I used to sell WebObjects projects during the dotcom boom and the ORM was a big selling point. There weren't a lot of frameworks or web dev options back then.
Looking at options today, I feel like a kid in a candy store.
Web Objects was the first web framework I worked in, back in 2001, and I didn't really understand it at the time, but it already had built and running in production many of the features that I subsequently came into contact with via supposed innovations in other stacks. The J2EE 1.3 spec for example added "entity beans" and unleashed hideous vendor implementations like WebSphere on developers. The impact of all the anti-patterns that spec inspired are still visible in the development world today - I'd say it is indirectly responsible for the rise of Spring and Rails.
WO also had the added benefit of being a full-stack solution. The way the J2EE spec was built up of sub-specs really contributed to the fragmented Java framework universe. Developers then had to get used to spending think-time reasoning about the way the pieces and "tiers" fit together and less time building coherent apps.
This was 1996. WebObjects was far ahead of anything I used at the time. I started using WO and EOF in 1999 and it had stuff like scaffolding (D2W) at that time. When did RoR introduce this?
Interesting that he dismissed interpreted languages for non-trivial code, as if it were obvious that the performance wouldn't be good enough. But wasn't Perl already being used for CGI scripts in 1996?
I'm sure you could make it work, but back then fewer engineer-hours had gone into making interpreted languages fast, and hardware was slower. It was also common to run a website on one machine.
[+] [-] lpsz|11 years ago|reply
The approach: in 3-4 concluding slides, concisely reiterate key selling points, compatibility, price, and the availability timeline. I've always found this approach to be particularly effective -- I'm highly likely to unambiguously remember these most important bits given that they are presented last.
[+] [-] k-mcgrady|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whizzkid|11 years ago|reply
It is impressive to me since I am having hard time to let go my little hobby projects and start another one, while he is doing it on much higher level with the same passion. Respect on that.
[+] [-] quux|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _pmf_|11 years ago|reply
He's the world's greatest used car salesman.
[+] [-] danso|11 years ago|reply
The one visual that sticks out to me in this video: the silhouettes of people arriving mid-speech and leaving early.
[+] [-] nemo|11 years ago|reply
In early '96 having a RAD MVC web framework backed by an ORM was really pretty groundbreaking (even moving codebases relatively seamlessly between an OpenStep desktop app and WO was possible), though yeah, this was Jobs going after the Enterprise audience rather than consumer electronics, very different vibe.
[+] [-] PeterGriffin2|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kalleboo|11 years ago|reply
http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdP...
Found this story about the first time Steve Jobs moved from using physical slides to Concurrence running on a NeXT http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Articles/NeXTWORLD/92...
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|11 years ago|reply
Yep! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Objects_Framework
Apparently it provided the basis for Core Data, too.
[+] [-] threeseed|11 years ago|reply
And yes it is the basis of Core Data.
[+] [-] takahisah|11 years ago|reply
Q: How can I, as a developer, get my hands on the expensive software suite?
A: Come talk to us. We can accommodate developers who are willing.
This may have been some early input for him to think about sdks and the philosophy of providing developers with tools early on.
Q: What is your view of transactions on the web?
A: We don't think it's a technology problem. It's more of a social/business problem
He was clearly wrong on this one, with the advent of cutting edge technology companies like PayPal and Stripe that followed.
[+] [-] X-Istence|11 years ago|reply
Transactions on the web exist, there are improvements to the UI but it is a social problem (I am afraid of my credit card being stolen) and business problem (Don't worry, trust us we won't let anything bad happen to your credit card).
[+] [-] Tycho|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codeulike|11 years ago|reply
No, he was right. In 1996 people were just scared of using their cards online. No one big was doing it yet, consumers didn't trust anything about the end-to-end process. There are more risks now than there were then, if anything (given how many trojans and hackers there are targeting cards now), but people are used to it now.
Paypal didn't bring any particularly new technology, they just bought confidence and bigness.
[+] [-] lucaspottersky|11 years ago|reply
Steve mentions that it took about 3 weeks with 3 programmers to build this app. The tools & technologies have evolved and today we can build this kind of thing with a tiny fraction of this effort...
To me that's the kind of thing that really matters after all: evolving technology & tools, not the "10x programmer myth", or those "how to be more productive" tutorials. The tech evolution has a much bigger impact on productivity than those individual productivity recipees.
[+] [-] ovi256|11 years ago|reply
These are traits not found in the average or even median programmer.
[+] [-] collyw|11 years ago|reply
I also think that the 10x thing is more to do over the longer term (rather than "look at what I bashed out in 2 hours"). I probably don't code as quickly as I used to, but I am a lot more thorough, and having made plenty of crappy mistakes designing my code in the past, I am in a far better position to know what will make my code robust, and maintainable time a month or two down the line.
[+] [-] crazychrome|11 years ago|reply
These profound factors keep me working everyday, although I haven't made my millions yet. There was an article about Nokia or Ericsson around early 2000, saying that people tend to overestimate the impact of technology in short term but underestimate in long run. It's the case.
[+] [-] cowmix|11 years ago|reply
The timing of this video is funny because soon after he went back to Apple to recapture the glory which is consumer electronics.
[+] [-] heyts|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wodev|11 years ago|reply
http://wocommunity.org
It moved from Objective-C to Java under Apple. Apple discontinued shipping it with OS X Server Snow Leopard, but the frameworks are still available/free. The community picked up where Apple left off with the open source Project WOnder.
It is a full stack development framework. Enterprise Objects Framework(EOF) is the ORM or Model layer like Cayenne or Hibernate. WebObject components are the front end View layer like you might get from Tapestry.
I have yet to find a web framework that rivals its Controller layer, DirectToWeb (D2W). D2W sits between the Model and the View. It can generate Views automatically using information from the model and with customizable direction from a rule system. It also provides controller actions with customizable callbacks.
Out of the box, WebObjects can reverse engineer your database, constructing a full model of it, and D2W can then construct a full blown Create/Read/Update/Delete interface to it with no coding required. If you don't have a database, you build a model and WebObjects can generate the SQL necessary to create the database for you as well.
It's still pretty amazing, despite being treated like an ugly step child by Apple. It still powers the billion dollar iTunes store as well AFAIK.
[+] [-] slantyyz|11 years ago|reply
Looking at options today, I feel like a kid in a candy store.
[+] [-] goodgoblin|11 years ago|reply
WO also had the added benefit of being a full-stack solution. The way the J2EE spec was built up of sub-specs really contributed to the fragmented Java framework universe. Developers then had to get used to spending think-time reasoning about the way the pieces and "tiers" fit together and less time building coherent apps.
[+] [-] daigoba66|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] applecore|11 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8715128
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1968611
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nailer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ajasmin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meepmorp|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] based2|11 years ago|reply
https://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/tapestry-users/200...
http://vschart.com/compare/apache-tapestry/vs/webobjects
http://tapestry.apache.org/
[+] [-] a_rahmanshah|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukev|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] biafra|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dangerboysteve|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjmlp|11 years ago|reply
Somehow the OpenStep efforts got sidestep by making Oak into Java and everything else got ramped down.
I wonder how it would have been if Sun had kept with OpenStep instead.
[+] [-] CptMauli|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ankurpatel|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daigoba66|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acomjean|11 years ago|reply
For a while sadly it really was the best web browser for mac.
[+] [-] aarestad|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stffndtz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mwcampbell|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevinchen|11 years ago|reply
Tangentially related: https://twitter.com/GregB/status/27244912213
"> @spolsky: Digg: 200MM page views, 500 servers. Stack Overflow: 60MM page views, 5 servers. What am I missing? << That's the PHP factor"
[+] [-] pjmlp|11 years ago|reply
I learned never ever again to use interpreted languages for anything else other than shell scripting.
[+] [-] state|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dtanl|11 years ago|reply