
The old guard of Mac indy apps has thrived for more than 25 years - PretzelFisch
https://www.macworld.com/article/3327502/macs/mac-indy-apps-thrived-for-more-than-25-years.html
======
makecheck
I’ve maintained my Mac project for 20 years for free (despite paying $99/year
these days) and I can say quite a bit about the experience.

It is a tremendous amount of work, far more than most people would imagine,
just to _keep up_ (i.e. zero features, just keeping the code base in sync with
the platform). I ported the entire code base from System-6-style to Mac OS 8,
complete with fancy Appearance support and a lot of different callback
mechanisms and other OS features of the day. I ported networking code away
from deprecated layers. I ported from 68K to PowerPC, to Intel 32-bit, and now
64-bit is required. I ported file management code multiple times to entirely
different APIs. I added tons of Objective-C. I migrated compilers from MPW, to
CodeWarrior, to GCC, to LLVM. I replaced, painstakingly, _thousands_ of lines
of Carbon-style code with entirely different Cocoa idioms. I redesigned
interfaces that were once described by Rez input files, to use Interface
Builder (multiple times, as IB kept changing). I added code-signing. I split a
single-application architecture into sub-processes with OS services. And these
are just things I can pick off the top of my head; I am sure there are many
more. Again, this is just to _keep the damn code working as a nice modern app_
, before you even _add_ work to make it do whatever it’s supposed to do.

Also, in every single case, it is noteworthy that the OS features I worked so
hard to adopt were _eventually thrown out by Apple anyway_. This means I fully
expect 10 years from now that even today’s code isn’t going to “last”. Some of
the changes were particularly insulting, I would add, since Apple at the time
made bold statements about those APIs being “the future”, and such; for
instance, after completely redesigning an application to use the Mac HIToolbox
“properly” in every possible way, it _really hurt_ when Apple just decided
they didn’t give a damn about Carbon to the point where it _wouldn’t even
compile anymore_ a few releases back.

I am fine with this because this is the kind of thing I like to work on. I do
wish though that more people would realize how much effort software
maintenance really is. Unfortunately, a heck of a lot is hidden behind simple-
looking UIs and most programs will be a lot more effort to build than they
appear to be.

~~~
gdubs
As an iOS developer, I feel the same. To quote Steve Jobs:

“This is a field where one does not write a principia, which holds up for two
hundred years. This is not a field where one paints a painting that will be
looked at for centuries, or builds a church that will be admired and looked at
in astonishment for centuries. No. This is a field where one does one’s work
and in ten years it’s obsolete, and really will not be usable within ten or
twenty years.”

~~~
joefourier
That seems by design more than anything. Outside of iOS, plenty of software
doesn't become obsolete in ten or twenty years. Even on the Mac itself, you
still have all the classic Unix utilities. Will grep ever become obsolete?
People are still using vi/m after 42 years despite all manners of new text
editors and IDEs popping up.

When it comes to hardware (which is probably what Steve was most concerned
about), there's still plenty of electronics that can stand the test of time.
I'd say the IBM Model M will be admired and looked at in astonishment for
centuries - no modern keyboard has managed to make it obsolete it in the last
35 years.

If there's Amigas running infrastructure and DOS boxes still working in the
wild, I'd wager there's still some shop somewhere using an Apple II as part of
its inventory system.

~~~
scarface74
_Even on the Mac itself, you still have all the classic Unix utilities. Will
grep ever become obsolete?_

But you can’t run 68K Mac software or PPC software on a modern Mac. Should
Apple still include 68K and PPC emulators in MacOS.

------
stevoski
For 11 years I’ve been selling a Mac app I created. It does get monotonous
working on the same code base for so long. I find it unenjoyable having to
update the app to keep up with modern UI trends, and to cope with changes to
the OS.

Things that have happened in the last 11 years include the death of PowerPC
support, the introduction of GateKeeper, the introduction and apparent
temporary neglect of the Mac Apple Store, the switch to make codesigning
effectively required, and the end of life of Apple’s own Java distribution
(which was bundled with macOS until a few years ago).

Dealing with these takes time but doesn’t really make my product better. I
typically need to have an update ready by the time Apple releases a major OS
update, or I’ll have frustrated customers.

This is something I didn’t realise I was committing to when I created version
1 back in 2008.

~~~
coldtea
Isn't that part and parcel with running a business? Else it would be "write
once in 2008 and print money for eternity".

~~~
csallen
It's easier developing for the web, where your code is less likely to break or
require drastic changes over time. But yes, almost all businesses need at
least some ongoing maintenance.

~~~
Aloha
Try running a PHP app from 2008, today, and let me know how that works for
you. There are decent odds it wont run well on modern versions - I can go down
and look at every other web technology and point out the same thing - no
computer program lives in stasis (except possible on z/OS)

~~~
rpeden
OTOH, an ASP.NET web app written in 2008 and not touched since then would
probably still run happily now if you bumped its version up to .NET 4 or 4.5.

C# has had Linq and lambdas since 2007 so there's a decent chance the code
would be decently pleasant to work with, too.

Some devs might find 2008 Web Forms apps a bit crufty in 2018 but if you
squint and pretend your .aspx is inside a render method issued of a separate
file, the mental model isn't all that different from a SPA.

~~~
cm2187
With .net core the writing is on the wall that the full .net framework will go
the way of .net 1.1 (the .net team highlighted that it is too burdensome to
maintain both frameworks in parallel). I am not sure that the new Microsoft
has the same commitment to support legacy code than the Microsoft of the last
20 years.

~~~
oldmanhorton
They've made it clear that .NET Framework will be supported for many, many
years. It just won't be getting as many new features. The point of the
discussion here is about depreciating and removing and breaking existing tech,
which will almost certainly not happen with .NET anything. Note that even
VBScript still gets security updates. It's unimaginable that anything
targeting .NET Framework will break (short of a bug) for at least a decade,
and probably much longer.

------
neurobashing
I've been using BBEdit since OS9. I love precisely 2 things about it: it takes
care to not break, and it takes care to avoid trends.

Everyone used TextMate, then everyone switched to Atom, then Sublime, now VS
Code. I've played around with them and it's always a question of spending time
trying to get the keymaps "right" and which plugin do I use on X to replicate
the functionality of X-1.

You want to yell at Bare Bones and say, you must implement .tmLanguage or
.tmTheme support now! You must support Python as a scripting language and get
rid of AppleScript! You must, you must, you must!

But BBEdit doesn't break, and when it does release a feature comparable to the
rest of the pack, it's solid and "fits", aesthetically and functionally.
(Their recent "command-p-alike" is great, for example)

It doesn't have a giant themes or plugin site, but it can open files as big as
your available RAM while staying fast. I'll give up a nice TM theme for
"always works and never crashes".

(Please make JavaScript for Automation the defacto over AS!)

~~~
reaperducer
_but it can open files as big as your available RAM while staying fast_

This is BBEdit's (and TextWrangler's) biggest asset to me. When other text
editors on any platform on any machine choke on large files, BBEdit just
doesn't care.

~~~
cimmanom
Older versions of BBEdit and TextWrangler used to be able to open _enormous_
files (larger than entire system RAM) while remaining incredibly performant. I
don't know how they did it, but it was magical and a killer feature.

Unfortunately, that stopped being the case since they refactored the text
display UI somewhere around version 9.

~~~
enos
Are you sure it was that good with large files? I used to be a TextWrangler
evangelist until I noticed it was mangling large files. You'd change one
character but the saved file differed by far more than one character. Medium-
sized nowadays, hundreds of MB TSV files. About 10 years ago.

~~~
cimmanom
Yup. About 15 years ago, doing search/replace on multi-hundred-MB log files
and SQL database dumps.

About 3-4 years ago it stopped being nearly as performant with large files
(even a couple MB).

I’ve never had a problem with either BBEdit or Textwrangler mangling files. I
can believe there may have been such a bug at one point, but I must have
sidestepped it - perhaps it was caught and fixed quickly.

------
reaperducer
For a lot of platforms, a company will produce a single piece of good
software, and then milk it forever.

For the Macintosh, especially the small developers scene, there is a group of
companies that consistently produce outstanding products. If they come out
with a new program, you immediately give it weighty consideration because of
the quality or utility of previous releases.

BBEdit, mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, is one of those. I'm also a
big fan of Panic. I mention Panic because I spent the morning working with its
terminal emulator Prompt on my iPad. I also use Transmit and Coda2 at work.

Can anyone recommend other companies worth keeping an eye on for new products?

~~~
danieldk
_Can anyone recommend other companies worth keeping an eye on for new
products?_

Anything coming from OmniGroup is generally great (if you need it).
OmniGraffle has absolutely been a life-saver for me. When I have the time, I
like doing slide diagrams in TikZ. But I've found that I can typically do in
OmniGraffle in ten minutes what would take me hours in TikZ. So if time is a
constraint, I will use OmniGraffle to create graphs.

I have also used OmniFocus for a while, which also worked great. (Though it
was too strongly focused on GTD for me, so I switched to Things.)

~~~
heyjudy
Omnigraffle is why there's no Visio on Mac, which is probably a Good Thing™.
;)

Also, Omni has a cool name logo that almost reminds me of AVID's.

------
mmahemoff
This AMP link is barely readable on PC - this is the regular URL:
[https://www.macworld.com/article/3327502/macs/mac-indy-
apps-...](https://www.macworld.com/article/3327502/macs/mac-indy-apps-thrived-
for-more-than-25-years.html)

~~~
jetrink
Why do these amp pages not automatically redirect on desktop? They are
becoming a plague.

------
thaumaturgy
Notably absent from this list is Ambrosia
([https://www.ambrosiasw.com/](https://www.ambrosiasw.com/)) and Panic
([https://panic.com/](https://panic.com/)).

BBEdit was my first "real" text editor, maybe along about 93 or 94. When it
came out, it was far, far ahead of any other similar tools on either platform.
It introduced a lot of future programmers to regular expressions -- whether
that was a blessing or a curse might be debatable.

~~~
porphyrogene
I tried to make a purchase from Ambrosia last night and it appears that their
payment and fulfillment systems are inoperative. I had heard that was the case
but I was being optimistic. They may have gone defunct without warning at some
point in 2018.

~~~
mminer
It’ll be a shame to lose gems like Escape Velocity. I know several people
(myself included) have asked about acquiring the rights to the games but
received no reply. It appears Ambrosia is indeed defunct.

~~~
phaedryx
You may be interested in [https://endless-sky.github.io/](https://endless-
sky.github.io/)

------
EamonnMR
If you're interested in this sort of thing, there's a lot of coverage in
[https://secrethistoryofmacgaming.com](https://secrethistoryofmacgaming.com)

------
MattRix
Good article but I gotta ask why it says "indy" in the title and then "indie"
in the article itself? Using "indy" is so obviously wrong.

~~~
bobochan
There is also no such institution as “Dartmouth University,” so I would guess
that editors are in short supply over the holidays.

~~~
schuetze
Well there was, but it was taken down by Daniel Webster in front of the US
Supreme Court.

It’s a surprisingly common mistake though. I think I see Dartmouth University
more often than Dartmouth College when reading non-Dartmouth materials.

------
rauhl
It’s been twenty years since I last seriously used macOS, but I’ll always have
a place in my heart for BBEdit. I still have the BBEdit T-shirt I got when I
was in high school, and proudly wear it when I work out. I even have print-
outs from back then (remember printing things to read them offline?).

It was an _amazing_ text editor way back then, before I discovered Emacs &
when my computer was too slow to run Alpha (and honestly, I don’t think that I
really appreciated Alpha at the time). BBEdit was fast, flexible and did
everything I could want.

I wonder if they still have my name in their customer database? Maybe my
license is still good …

------
theonemind
I started using BBEdit in the last few years, and mostly prefer it. I used
emacs and vim for a couple of years each, so it's not because I haven't
seen/used "better" editors. I think using only AppleScript as a scripting
language really holds it back from a broader audience, and personally, I just
don't script it, although I do use the option to _run_ scripts on my text from
menus, etc. (Any language, Python, perl, whatever.)

------
dev_19
I love BBEdit to death because it is the exact opposite of what things like
Atom and VSCode stand for. A lightweight, bomb proof text editor that can
scroll through 100k+ line documents without a sweat.

------
josephhurtado
Nice article indeed. Two amazing products missing, probably because they came
with OSX OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner; both classics that keep innovating and
nowadays also run on iOS:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omni_Group](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omni_Group)

~~~
misnome
”Innovating” ways to make you pay more when you buy Omnigraffle on iOS, and
six months later find it doesn’t work any more, but there is a “new” version
you can pay full price for all over again.

~~~
josephhurtado
That sucks for sure. I bought both for iOS. But hardly use OmniGraffle,
OmniOutliner has worked like a champ though.

------
asix66
I understand people like BBEdit, and this article is more than just about the
popular editor. FWIW, I tried it, but for me, BBEdit just can’t “defeat” vim,
even on mac. Vim is now 27yrs, and actively maintained, and once learned, its
power is unmatched imho. As for graphics conversion, I’ve never used the app
mentioned in the article, rather always turned to netpbm, which is available
in homebrew on mac. Still. Much respect for developers sticking to, and
maintaining their well liked apps for the long haul.

------
ErneX
Rogue Amoeba is another one
[https://rogueamoeba.com/](https://rogueamoeba.com/)

------
NelsonMinar
How many of these fit in the Mac App Store with its sandbox restrictions?

~~~
yardie
I know BBEdit, GraphicConverter, and Fetch use some system hooks to integrate
with Finder. I've never used PCalc and can't think of a reason it wouldn't
work in a sandbox.

------
lostgame
No mention of Panic here - they’re definitely the first group I think of when
I think quality indie Mac software.

~~~
setpatchaddress
Too recent. Panic was very late 90’s, IIRC.

------
oblib
Hmmm... I just noticed my name is listed under "unindicted co-conspirators" in
the "About BBEDit" menu box on version 11.6.8.

I'm pretty sure that's not me, unless it's a "easter egg" trick that shows a
registered user's name in there.

They did, however, add a feature I requested in BBEdit 7.0 (rectangular text
selections) which I still find kind of astounding and use almost daily.

I don't remember exactly when I first bought BBEdit, but it was in the mid-
late `90s so it's been more than 20 years I've been depending on it.

Honestly, BBEdit is the main reason I still use a Mac. I'd switch to Linux in
a heartbeat if BBEDit made a version to run on it.

------
torstenvl
Like many, I really appreciate the role that BBEdit has played on the Mac.
There's just one thing about it that really gets on my nerves, and that's the
fact that auto-indent... doesn't.

------
b3b0p
Another I fondly remember is Red Sweater: [https://red-
sweater.com](https://red-sweater.com)

------
nvr219
Add Little Snitch and Transmission to the list :)

~~~
4ad
Transmission is not an indie mac app, it's a cross platform open source
program, free both as in free speech and free beer.

Little Snitch is a malware vector, pretty much like PC "antivirus" software.

~~~
CharlesW
> _Little Snitch is a malware vector, pretty much like PC "antivirus"
> software._

Wait, what? I personally found it annoying and poorly designed to the point
that I uninstalled it, but I'd like to see the receipts on "malware vector"
please.

~~~
nvr219
yeah malware vector is quite an accusation

