MS wrote:Then you have the issue with the constantly changing "rules" for the Mac platform. First, there was PPC and Carbon. Then there was a sudden switch to x86, and Cocoa was added to the palette. Then we were told Carbon would not go to 64-bit. So the story continues...
As a developer, should it not have been clear that Carbon was only ever a transitional technology and the future of software on OSX was always going to be Cocoa?
MS wrote:Most of the specific platform efforts from our side actually go towards solving issues on the Mac platform. A big reason for this is the wide variety of combinations possible on Mac, compared to Windows. On Windows, you have x86 and x64, Win32 gui and VST 2/3 format. (With the very rare occasional Win/RTAS user). On Mac, you have 4 architectures - x86, x64, ppc, ppc64. Add to this AU, RTAS, VST2, VST3 formats, some supporting Carbon views only, some supporting Cocoa views only, some supporting both.
That's funny because the argument normally is that there is such a huge permutation of hardware/software combinations on the PC side that it's much harder to troubleshoot software issues on PC. You have your various motherboard and component designs and then there's Windows 7 - Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate. Most available as either 32 or 64 bit and then there's also the Vista variants and of course XP.
On Mac I believe that the latest VSL software no longer officially supports PPC code so that would make things a bit more even.
Unfortunately we have Steinberg to thank for not making the complete specifics of the VST format available. They presumably saw it as a competetive advantage, and so Apple was forced to develop their own standard in order to not look bad for poorly supporting audio software. And of course Steinberg continued to use VST on Mac to complicate things. In my opinion VST on Mac should have been depricated in favour of AU since AU is an open standard and VST is not.
MS wrote:There are many, many other core technologies that also simply work faster on Windows than on Mac, due to the way the kernel, OS, SDK, compiler tools etc are put together. For certain things there are workarounds to be found, sometimes there are not. We at least are doing everything within our powers to make it better.
I appreciate the hard work in supporting both platforms, however, it seems to me that the points you expressed would simply be the other way around if the VSL team were primarily programming for Mac and then supporting Windows. Coming from a Logic background I think I'd find Cubase a bit awkward and problematic and vice versa.