Windows to OS X Part 1 – There Is No Registry

When you port an application from Windows to OS X, you might ask yourself “How is OS X like Windows?” Put another way, you might ask “How will my knowledge of Windows help me program for OS X?”

The answers are “It’s not” and “It won’t.” You may not like the answer, but that’s how it is. There’s no disrespect meant to Windows coders – you could reverse the questions and you would still get the same answer – at least today.

There’s a natural human tendency to understand new things in terms of things we already understand. You can see this when you introduce widely experienced coders to  OS X; every time they see something that looks familiar, they’ll say “Ah, OS X works just like fill-in-the-blank.” That’s a trap that will mislead even the best: coding for OS X is not like anything you already know.  Well, unless maybe you were a NextStep or  SmallTalk coder, but even those only help in a general way.

Actual question from an actual Windows coder: “What’s the OS X equivalent of the Windows registry?”

Actual answer: “There is no registry.”

If you can get your head around that, you will start to learn, Neo…

Tags: Apple, Development, OS X, port, registry, Windows