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Ah, yes, the flammable Wil Shipley - the not-so-delicious monster of Mac development. Wil publishes a long rant on the tired old topic of Carbon vs. Cocoa, some folks resond, and Wil goes off. Hasn't this happened before?

Wil's latest article contains a number of errors and silly comments, including his disparaging of FSRefs, his ignorance re: the relative age of Carbon and Cocoa, etc., yet when taken to task on his opinion, Wil calls people names and shifts goalposts.

Rosyna of Unsanity responds rather tactfully in the comments, and Wil goes off. He begins by calling anyone who disagrees with him a troll, despite the fact that most commenters are simply pointing out some fallacies in his thinking or design. But hey, calling people who are trying to discuss something with you bad names is always a good start when you're Wil Shipley.

Then Wil says "Don't care about the name" when it's pointed out that he's not complaining about Carbon, but rather QuickTime or Security APIs that sit independent of "Carbon." You cannot write an entire article that delineates "Carbon bad, Cocoa good" and then dismiss a valid point with "don't care about the name."

Wil talks at great length about the 80 lines of code he must write versus the four lines he thinks he should write, yet when it's pointed out that Wil's proposed methods silently fail, he claims that it's "best" to return a simple "NO" (boolean) rather than specific errors like "no camera" or "no gain on this camera," bumping his total to only five lines. Wil complains about the lack of information given to developers by Carbon documentation, yet changes his mind when it comes to the amount of error information a failed function returns. Everyone writing software would rather be told why something failed rather than simply "NO." Don't be silly, Willy!

The cherry on top for many comes when Wil launches into a massive defense of Delicious Library's speed - or lack thereof - as a design decision he needed to make to ship on time, then brags for awhile about how well it's selling. What do those have to do with the point? Ah, yes, they're Wil's favorite argument tactics: erect straw men, shift goalposts, or swear and call people names. We've got at least 2-for-3 here. Rosyna simply said Cocoa apps tend to be slower; Wil's app is one example. If you're going to label something a "myth," you don't get to change your mind later, agree (in the name of "we must ship now"), dig up the goal posts, and pretend everyone was talking about how well an application sells!

After that, Wil mounts his egotistical horse to say "If you think Delicious Monster is a success and you'd like to see how I did it, read my blog. Otherwise,] DON'T FUCKING READ MY BLOG!." (the last bit paraphrased). Someone should tell Wil that the point of a FUCKING blog is to encourage discussion, not to provide a place for everyone to suck up to you. If one truly uses Wil's blog as a way to "see how he did it," then apparently the path to success in indie Mac development is to be an angry, brooding, ignorant ranter who swears at anyone who disagrees with them, regardless of their pedigree or the knowledge they present as argument.

Wil does not get to say things like "If you disagree, fine, but don't attack my shit. It's just not cool." Not after attacking the shit of others, he doesn't. Nor does he get to publishing ignorance and then completely change the topic when challenged on that ignorance. The Mac developer community isn't that large, and it's rather well self-policed. If you want to argue your speeding ticket in a public court, go ahead… but I don't suggest swearing at the cop and telling them that your car cost more than theirs in court. The judge (non-biased readers, potential or current customers) will clearly see who the buffoon is.

An anonymous poster pokes fun at Wil for shipping a version of his application with headers containing his serial generation code, allowing anyone with half a brain (a list which may or may not include Wil at this point) to generate licenses for Delicious Library. Wil then tries to claim that releasing this code was a good thing because it lets him block published serial numbers rather than accidentally blocking a valid customer's serial number and because some pirates may eventually buy the software. Wil "supports" his new theory by saying (roughly) "I did an EXTRA $12,000 because of my ignorant mistake!" I'm sorry, but releasing your serial number generator code to people at large is not a "win" by any measure. It's a mistake and should simply be owned up as one, not played off as some brilliant marketing ploy to protect customers and gain new ones. This is "my shit don't stink" at its finest, folks.

While spraying his shit with as much Febreze as he can find, Wil manages to slip in a dig at Microsoft, calling them WindowsGenuineAssholes. Most little kids punch things, cry, or otherwise act out when they're frustrated because they lack the vocabulary to verbalize their feelings. In adults, oftentimes that translates into needless swearing. Wil earns a double-bonus by needlessly swearing and name-calling at the same time.

Or perhaps Wil figures that because this is a Carbon vs. Cocoa rant, Windows developers aren't reading, and thus can't disagree with him.

Wil finishes by saying "So, yes, if you'd like to keep flaming me with an oversight I made two years ago regarding header files and key generation, go ahead. But I can't help but feel I got the last laugh here." If he has, that laugh is more the variety of the raving loon than of a person who's actually right.

And that's his conclusion. He responds to very few of Rosyna's seven points, and of the ones he does respond to, each is either misdirected to a straw man or a set of goalposts that didn't exist prior to his rebuttal.

I've seen Wil at WWDC. I've never spoken with him. This isn't a personal issue, but rather what's apparent to me as an interested (in Mac development) observer. I "FUCKING READ" because I'm interested to see what this baby of a man says next. It's entertaining. And I suggest to Wil that if he doesn't want me - or Rosyna or anyone else with more of a clue than him - to FUCKING READ [HIS] BLOG that he simply not PUBLISH A FUCKING BLOG.

The world would be a better place without the extra ignorant negativity that man puts into the universe.

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