Why Doesn't Anyone Give a Crap About Freedom Zero? (a new Mac is a "giant hardware dongle")
codinghorror.com
codinghorror.com
http://www.zedshaw.com/conferences/cusec2008.html
Finally I watched Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror fame talk about what a lot of other people have said and why you should blog. I completely agreed with everything Jeff said, except for a tiny bit of hypocrisy he didn't fess up to until asked.
See, Jeff's talk was obviously changed up to compliment mine. He basically said what I said, that if you want to do software go work for a software company. Don't go work for a company that doesn't do software to make money. They won't respect you.
That's true.
He also talked about how blogging is something all programmers should do. Being able to write and influence people is important since that's how you get your ideas across. Nobody reads code but they do read English.
Also true.
However, then someone asked Jeff what he does, and he said he works for a .NET consultancy doing software for other people.
Sorry Jeff, that's not a software company. A software company actually sells software to people. People buy the actual software from you and if they don't your company fails. Jeff basically works for a consultancy that builds software for other people to sell. While he's probably the money maker, I'm betting that he's really not on the same level as his peers at a company like Microsoft.
As a consultant, it also speaks volumes about the second point: Being able to write and influence people is important since that's how you get your ideas across.
I'm not seeing how his stance is necessarily hypocritical.
Sure, you'll need a Mac if you want to run the Mac OS (legitimately). But to call it a dongle is a bit of a stretch in my opinion.
Of course, the entirety of this comment is pretty much divergent from the author's main point. So, feel free to disregard the above.
As for Freedom Zero, there are few places you'll be able to achieve that comfortably. But that's not what Apple is about, and plenty of people are happy with that, myself included.
I have to reply because a lot of people seem to be making this mistake. You precisely described a dongle in that paragraph. A dongle is a piece of hardware which is necessary if you would like to run the software. It doesn't necessarily mean the dongle is worthless, it just means that you can't run the software without it, which is what you said.
There are already plenty of viable alternatives if that's what you want. I don't see the point in further complaints. This isn't the 80's or 90's.
Why would cross-platform developers use an operating system that only runs on on Macs? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with being productive? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with being productive! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a blogger ranting about being productive, and I'm talkin' about Freedom Zero! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense!
Apologies to South Park.
This argument has been going on forever, of course. But that doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. It would be nice if you could run OS X on any old cheap hardware you chose, rather than the overpriced machines made by one company. That's the normal state of affairs for virtually every other OS people care about.
Personally, I'm getting my MacBook Air thanks.
Steve Jobs: "Then build Nine MacBook Pros for every one MacBook Air."
I'm getting the Air for the backlit keyboard, the multi touch support, lighness, and lack of a dvd drive.
No no no, that's not how it works - Tell me, why should anyone give a crap about freedom zero?
Shouldn't these be called out as dongles as well?
Why aren't they?