Interesting historical trivia. But it's worth noting that Apple's 1990s developer strategy was almost a total failure, whereas Microsoft's "talk to actual developers" approach was much more successful.
Note I'm not making some sort of Mac/Windows analogy because the whole communication space has changed radically. Just making the point that the title "evangelist" implies more of a marketing role.
Well, Apple's 1990s everything strategy was almost a total failure.
But yes, I could write volumes about the ways Apple could improve developer relations, and a recurrent theme would be the one-way nature of most interactions. Even big developers have a tough time of it, sometimes.
The labs at WWDC are valuable. And the tech talk tours sound like an attempt (have not attended), but it's a long-standing, systemic problem that is probably insoluble without extraordinary effort.
On the other hand, Cocoa is beautiful, and it all works out well in the end.
Sure. And I should make clear the 1990s are a fundamentally wrong analogy because 1990s Apple barely understood that PowerPC chips needed a compiler, much less create Xcode or a developer productivity tool like Swift.
In my mind it's mostly a matter of positioning. An "Evangelist" is there to sell me something. A "Developer Something" is there to listen to me bitch.
Speaking of Cocoa, from what I've heard about NeXT, it was a small company and the developers were one step away from the customers. Perhaps it is 'beautiful' because of a lot direct feedback.
Note I'm not making some sort of Mac/Windows analogy because the whole communication space has changed radically. Just making the point that the title "evangelist" implies more of a marketing role.