Bocaloco Software LLC

Remembering Visual Cafe Mac

This was a great project. As members of the Symantec dev tools team, we were racing to provide the first visual programming environment for Java. The other side (a snarky bunch by all accounts) worked on the Windows version; we did the Macintosh. At the time, Java barely worked on the Mac. Barely worked may be too kind. Apple had recently adopted Java, but the VM team was sorely understaffed and the Sun-produced "port" of Java to Mac was full of bugs. We were racing toward some ridiculous Dilbert-land management deadline that had us finishing months before Apple got the VM working. We and Apple slipped in tandem until both products worked.

In the end, great projects come down to great people. We were blessed with the best. One of these days, I'm going to sit down and remember them all, but it would be entirely unfair