More on apps, shelf space 1052

Actually, in this case, it sort of is. Coming up with a whole elaborate system that only blocks *some* approaches to tricking the user into running malware is basically the digital equivalent of putting three dead bolts on the front door, and leaving the windows and the back door open.

Uh, I don't see how this is particularly different from what Safari does.

That's neat, except that it's very obvious that many types of 'content' -- most desktop applications, in fact -- could not reasonably work within the limits one would have to set to keep the system secure. You know, things like "No writing to the user's home directory".

Applications?

For the sort of user who doesn't know, there's not much difference between the two.

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The cluttered bits where users will probably never have to install anything.

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This actually isn't such a bad idea.

Except there would be one bundle per software package, instead of a few hundred cryptically-named files in a cryptically-named folder. And it wouldn't break.

Yeah, I've been agitating for that for quite a while. I believe we had a discussion some years back, actually, where I suggested using DB-like file system features extensively to manage installed software.

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The registry enables the OS and other software to find various things. Shared code just happens to be one of those things.

Um. There's no way to provide a mechanism that does all of the things you just mentioned that's reusable in any *meaningful* way. A Spotlight plugin just does a very different thing from a dashboard widget. The only thing that could be usefully shared is the discovery mechanism, which is what we've been talking about.

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-- "Those who enter the country illegally violate the law." -- George W. Bush in Tucson, Ariz., Nov. 28, 2005