Frequently Asked Questions
If you have a question that you think might be a FAQ, you can send it to me. If it indeed becomes a FAQ, I will include it here.
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Why did you write this book?[expand all] [collapse all]
If you have a question that you think might be a FAQ, you can send it to me. If it indeed becomes a FAQ, I will include it here.
Why did you write this book?
This question is best answered in the preface. Let me repeat the relevant portion here since this question is quite a FAQ.
After working on, programming on, and extending several operating systems over the years, I was introduced to Mac OS X on April 1, 2003. I was soon curious about the structure of the system. Despite the availability of several good books on Mac OS X, I was dismayed to find that I could not learn the details of Mac OS X internals from a book—no such book existed. Although the existing books play important roles in making Mac OS X accessible, the core architecture and implementation of Mac OS X and its components have remained mysteries. To make matters worse, besides the lack of information, it is common to find misinformation on the composition of Mac OS X. Consequently, the system is often misunderstood because of long-standing myths and stereotypes, or is perceived as a black box.
Therefore, I wrote this book to deconstruct and demystify Mac OS X by describing it from a system-design perspective. I used an implementation-oriented approach to explaining the system.
How long did it take you to write this book?
This is a somewhat complex question to answer accurately, but the short answer is "about two years, with a year-and-a-half of active writing." I wrote the book in my spare time, while I had a full-time job at IBM Research. (Yes, it was not easy.)
I was first approached by Addison-Wesley in January 2004, shortly after I published an online document called What is Mac OS X? on my personal web site kernelthread.com. By the end of February 2004, I had signed the book contract. I officially began writing the book on March 1, 2004, and officially finished on November 8, 2005. During this while, I spent most of my free time on the book, barring a two-month period when I did not work on the book at all for family reasons. Since the book took so long to publish after I had submitted the manuscript, it was never really "finished" because Mac OS X is such a fast moving target—I kept revising the manuscript long after November 2005.
Using which software tools were the illustrations in the book drawn?
I drew the illustrations using Adobe Illustrator.
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