A note to self I might have already noted... myself.

angular.module('MyApp')['_invokeQueue'].forEach(function(value){ 
    console.log(value[1] + ": " + value[2][0]);
});

Sauce.

So look, I'm at a company where much of the app is still in AngularJS. The downside is that this reminds me of a post I'd shared before that said:

If your list of things to develop is really a list of things that you won’t have to do in a more functional environment, none of which will make you more employable elsewhere… it’s time to walk away.

That's not wrong. More experience in AngularJS isn't making me more employable at this point unless I want to work in the small subset of positions that plan to continue using it well past its dead-on date. Which, again, was January of this year.

That admission aside, as I've mentioned before, there is, however, a practical advantage: Most of the questions I have when I'm developing have nearly canonical answers. I mean, have you seen StackOverflow's blog on the Next.JS conference? The blog's title is "Goodbye Webpack, hello Turbopack!". With just a little bit of exaggeration, webpack, we barely knew ye.

I was looking to get us to a React stack, and I'd initially liked this "minimal" build tool suite over at 2ality. Okay, okay, it's been over three years, but it's now kaput. Gone. Snowpack is dead. I'd heard a bit about ViteJS already a bit from my RSS sub to Shawn Wildermuth's blog, and sure enough that's what Snowpack says to use now. If I'd learned Snowpack inside and out (not that it was tough to learn, and I've been playing with it on and off for a few years), that'd be nearly wasted time now.

Look, it's fine to need to keep up a little, it's not like .NET 6 doesn't have a decent amount of new stuff (does it though?), and maybe it's just that I've been around long enough to see things change several times, but it doesn't really have to, does it? There are database admins who haven't needed to learn anything exceptional for their whole career. I mean, look, it's not like our buddy Mr. Dave hasn't kept things moving, but it ain't client-side JavaScript. He's had a chance to get good at what he does, to really drill-down and understand rdbms engines.

Okay, yes. I'm a little jealous. 😏

And if I haven't mentioned it before, I'm pretty sure it's because of conferences, YouTube, and Twitter. Everybody who wants to be a bleeding edge type can be, and they all race each other to be the new expert of something nobody else can be yet because it was just released. God made humans, but constantly evolving tech stacks made humans equal[ly clueless].

That said, I do need to write my follow-up to my intro to why we're using transpilation-free Preact. Preact really is a wonderful bridge from a hopelessly out of date client-side app to, well, at least a TypeScript-powered React refactor. Need to develop something new now but can't, for whatever reason, create all new tooling?

If you can limit support to IE 9+ or so, Preact (with hooks) is your stack. We've used Preact with Enzyme to create a tested, cradle-to-grave page with a reasonably complex UI and have it running well right smack in the middle of an AngularJS app. Set down new work in Preact now, start eating from the top with React, and when they meet in the middle, it's a very quick port.

So maybe I won't need to remember that cheat to get all directives, constants, etc out of an AngularJS site for too long. But when I forget again, at least I'll know I've got it sitting here.

Labels: angularjs, enzyme, noteToSelf, obsolescence, preact, vitejs

From mjtsai.com:

I’m not quite sure whether iTunes LP was a bad idea or simply one that neither Apple (aside from Steve Jobs?) nor the music producers actually had much interest in. 

I think this signals less "whether iTunes LP was a bad idea" (though the skeuomorphism Jobs loved is slowly dying our from the `OSes) than "someone's paying attention to scaling down iTunes". I think they're slowly moving towards killing music sales, no matter what Sellers at AWT thinks. ;^D

I tried to think of why this is happening now, and believe it falls in with a general deprecation of non-Apple Music (qua the streaming service) features in iTunes. Here are a few data points...

• Cesium's author points out that playing music on your own phone is increasingly difficult via Apple Music in iOS 11.
  • That is, where Apple Music API used to be an easy way to access files and streams, it's now neither. A change is coming.
• HomePod is an obvious push towards subscriptions.
  • The only music you can play that doesn't require at least an Apple Match subscription is stuff you bought directly from Apple.
  • In a sense, those files are delivered via streaming too... the only twist is that you sometimes save the bytes.
• This useless Android Apple Music app, which can't even play what you've purchased from Apple. It's only streaming.
• As Michael Tsai remarked recently (and I mighta mentioned), Amazon recently ended its song hosting.
• Microsoft stopped its streaming service and replaced it with Spotify.
• And Microsoft stopped selling online music completely.

The writing's on the wall. Heck, Apple Music on iTunes has a whole second UI...

After cashing in a $100 for $85 Apple Music gift card (<<< I'm not an affiliate, but it looks like it was legit), iTunes asked me if I'd like to put that towards an Apple Music subscription.

No, no I wouldn't. But I did drop into the Apple Music UI side of iTunes, which is obviously different than the normal iTunes Music Store. I bet there's some crossover with the Android app. After looking around the posh store of which I wasn't a member, I slunk out, knowing there's a new side to iTunes I don't get to experience.

Follow the money

I don't blame Apple, much. Streaming revenue continues to grow like mad, and 36 million x $100 or so is lots more than $600 million in digital sales.

The number will continue going lower. And subtract from that number the cost to support the mammoth mess that is iTunes and the iTunes Music Store. Microsoft's Groove is a small-scale test of the economics of supporting music sales. There are better places to spend that development time.

The Apple Music side of iTunes will eat the iTunes Music Store. We're getting rid of the cruft of the Store now. In a year or two, the iTMS will be a clear second fiddle to Music. Then we'll get a warning, like I did on Groove, to download all my purchases by a certain date, or they'll be unavailable.

And finally, acceptance

After years of hang-wringing, I find that by now I don't really mind that online track sales is dying. I have a good collection.

And I'm lucky enough to have a local record store. Here's what they wrote to all of their newsletter subscribers when Best Buy said it was closing down CD sales...

From Monster Music:

The whole point of all of this isn't to slam Best Buy...  But what invariably happens when the media reports an item like this is that the general public totally misconstrues what's going on.

 

What's going on, as it affects you, is... well, not much.

 

Except for this - not only are we going to continue to sell CDs, we're actually adding to our CD inventory.

I don't see vinyl getting less hipster. And, as they say later in their letter, "Three, there will be a CD resurgence one day, you know there will. It might not be as drastic and fantastic as the vinyl resurgence, but I'll bet it'll be stronger than the cassette revival." That's probably a good call too.

After the iTunes Music Store closes its doors, I'll still have music to buy. And rip. And mix. And burn.

Labels: Apple Music, business, iTunes, music, obsolescence, subscriptions, vinyl

From Daring Fireball: Design to Bring About the Future:

Marco Arment, “Design for the Present”:

A pro laptop released today should definitely have USB-C ports — mostly USB-C ports, even — but it should also have at least one USB-A port.

Including a port that’s still in extremely widespread use isn’t an admission of failure or holding onto the past — it’s making a pragmatic tradeoff for customers’ real-world needs. I worry when Apple falls on the wrong side of decisions like that, because it’s putting form (and profitability) over function.

...

But this is not how Apple thinks about transitions like this. They design for the future, and in doing so, they bring the future here faster. In the alternate universe where the new MacBook Pros ship with one USB-A port, the transition to ubiquitous USB-C peripherals and cables will happen at least a little slower.

See? Gruber's usually right on the Apple-aesthetic money. (But isn't it "more slowly"?)

I was going to reply to Marco's post myself to say something similar. If there's one thing that Jobsian-Apple (so any time before Jobs left, and anytime, up to & including now, after he returned) does better than anyone, it's follow this advice from The Great One:

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

 --Wayne Gretzky

Marco's asking Apple to skate to where the puck has been. Bad advice.

Lots of things wrong with the Mac line-up. The desktops are fossils, and the new MacBook Pros are too expensive and easily argued to be underpowered, refusing to wholly make up for the desktop gaps. But in five years, when I might want 32 gigs of RAM, I'll definitely want USB-C ports. My current laptop doesn't have them, and that's already a pain when it comes to docking options.

Maybe we should take a second to consider what Apple expects you to connect to your ports:

1. Thunderbolt monitor 1 (includes power & ports)
2. Optional Thunderbolt monitor 2 (also includes ports)
3. A dock, if your monitors aren't enough -- or something they didn't think of.
4. Something else they didn't think of. (The "horn of a rabbit" port)

The third and fourth are really just favors Apple's paying to you already. You need a controller per monitor, and Apple's throwing in an extra port per controller.

External keyboard and mouse -- and headphones/AirPods -- are all supposed to be wireless in Apple-world now. If there's anything you're not attaching to your monitor or dock, what is it? If you're mobile, you don't need anything else (in Apple world) beyond the power supply. You have the best screen, keyboard, and trackpad available. USB-C thumb drives exist, and are often faster than the crap you're still shoving in your USB-A ports.

What are you missing?

There's really only one place you can ding them on ports, and that's that there's no USB-C to Lightning cable in the iPhone 7 box.

Every Mac user thought the end of ADB (and every PC user the parallel port!) was the end of the world. Anybody (other than Gruber -- no, really) using an ADB or parallel port device now?

(And does anyone really think Apple's doing USB-C for profit? What, are they making billions on adapters? Seriously, who is buying MBPs? Joe iPhone User? Probably not. And Jane Creative Pro knows Monoprice & friends has cheaper options. Plus, honestly, you know, I really don't mind the symmetry.)

EDIT: See, this is completely wrong:

From appleinsider.com:

OWC announces Thunderbolt 3 Dock with ports galore, returns functionality to new MacBook Pro

By AppleInsider Staff Wednesday, November 02, 2016, 06:15 pm PT (09:15 pm ET)

Capitalizing on Apple's decision to go all in on Thunderbolt 3 with its latest MacBook Pro, aftermarket Mac specialist OWC is taking preorders for a 13-port breakout dock that restores expansion options lost with the new laptop design. 

No, no it does not. These options weren't lost. Apple wants you to use a dock. This is what USB-C enables, for heaven's sake.

Do you need ethernet when you're away from your desk? How about digital audio out? Thunderbolt? DisplayPort? An additional USB-C port?

If you need a USB-A port, you can get a slick metal adapter for $10 shipped with Prime. Think of it as part of the device you're plugging in, and it doesn't seem as unwieldy.

If you use SD cards on the road to download images and you were considering a MBP, I feel for you. No, really. That does stink.

Otherwise, stop it. This is exactly what Apple intended.

Labels: apple, design, Gretzky, gruber, obsolescence

Labels: obsolescence, Word

In other words, Apple will reach back in time 9 years to make the iPhone compatible on PCs but only 3 to make it compatible with their own computers. So much for the advantages of a closed infrastructure!

Labels: apple, code, microsoft, obsolescence