I bought my first Mac in 1985. Not the first version, but the second, with 512K of memory and an external 400K floppy drive. (My dealings with Apple since have only confirmed my decision to never buy version 1.0.)
Lately I have been watching the iOS-ification of OS X with some nervousness. Apple long ago established a corporate silo for hardware. At one point they allowed other manufacturers to make computers running the Apple OS, and all of a sudden they got cut off. I believe this coincided with Steve Jobs’ return to the company in the 1990s. Now, with their App Stores, they are going in the same direction with software. OS X is not completely walled in yet (and may never be). But App Store apps are privileged and may become more so.
Where does that leave me, a guy who writes a lot of Python scripts to massage and process data from local files and remote sources? Python is not available in the app store. My fears here are perhaps overblown — Apple does feature stories about customers using Python, and one hopes those customers won’t get cut off — like some app developers were by sandboxing.
So far this is all a kind of vague dread about the future, not any specific current problems. But along comes Mountain Lion, where the (again available) Save As feature is broken.
When I write a Python script, I start with one of several template files. The Save dialog box allows you to save files as stationery files. They will then open as new, untitled files instead of under their own name. I have several of these, with different boilerplate depending on the use I intend for them. I open them as untitled files, then save them under their new name and start writing code. Easy. Clean. The question is, how will all this work in Mountain Lion?
My other use case for Save As involves editing photos. I want my files that come from the camera to remain inviolate. But I don’t need or want to turn them all into stationery files. So I will have to use the Duplicate function instead, or disable autosaving. This approach has its own problems.
While checking out the nearest Apple Store, I found that you can ask tech support questions online, saving me a 60 mile one-way trip to the nearest store. If it works as advertised. My question:
In my programming (system 10.6.8) I use stationery files quite a bit — files that open as new, untitled files, containing the boilerplate I need, that I then save as a descriptive name. My understanding is that “Save As”, when run in conjunction with autosave, is broken, saving the changes in the original file as well. My question is, (a) do I understand this correctly, (b) do stationery files still exist in Mountain Lion, and (c) are they subject to the same problem as ordinary files?
But note that an answer costs money: $28 for a low urgency, low detail response; $78 for high in each category, and their are middle levels too. Oh, well, with gas and mileage on the Prius for a 120 mile round trip, the cash expense might be a wash, but I still save several hours. $28 it is. Also, it is not Apple answering these questions, but JustAnswer.
This is the first post in what I expect to be a series documenting my decision to stop buying Macs after 27 years, and my experiences with Linux instead.
