Finder + Cocoa = Finder

Whenever someone complains about the Finder, someone else says, “The Finder would rock if it were rewritten in Cocoa!”

I feel the need to clear that up.

Were the Finder rewritten in Cocoa, here’s what you’d have: the Finder, only written in Cocoa. Big whoop.

Cocoa won’t take away the brushed metal, or make the Finder spatial, or fix the bugs, or make it faster. (It might be ever-so-slightly slower, actually.)

Cocoa is a wonderful framework—I use Cocoa for my software, and I totally love it. Like crazy. Madly.

But Cocoa can’t, on its own, fix problems with a flawed design.

The problem with the Finder is really a people problem: it will get fixed if and when somebody with the authority, resources, and will to fix it appears.

Cocoa is no magic bullet—there aren’t any magic bullets.

For people thinking about a Finder replacement—check out Path Finder. (Which is, by the way, written in Cocoa.)