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Comment by BudVVeezer | Hacker News Reader

Or there's people like me who get a MacPro tower from work and promptly install Windows on it because it compiles huge projects significantly faster than XCode...

Seriously, it's about getting a job done -- use what works. Who cares what the name of the OS is? I don't care whether I'm using a Dewalt drill or a Black & Decker. I care whether the drill works. Why is a computer any different?

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Because the interfaces and their intricacies are pretty different as one switches OS. When you switch drill brands, it works exactly the same way; you pull the trigger and the drill drills. On Windows or OS X or whatever, you have to log in a certain way, open a program a certain way, install things a certain way, and so on.

Not so much a problem for people who use this site, but a problem for the layman.

It can get to be a pretty big problem for hackers, as well. When I'm on Linux, I use the Awesome tiling window manager and Emacs, both of which are tweaked far beyond their usual configurations. Using Windows or OSX (or even Linux without my configuration) is very jarring for me, and will only become more so the more I customize my UI.

I agree, it's about getting the job done. We have both Windows and OSX in our house. Most people (not to mind hackers), have no problem switching between both OSs or using both concurrently and that includes my wife yet she never uses the Windows machines.

Whenever I hear people getting uptight about or tightly espousing one OS/Platform over another I'm baffled. The differences I can perceive are miniscule and marginal.

That said, Umberto Eco's 1994 essay on the Mac vs. Dos Holy War [http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_mac_vs_pc.html] does resonate with me to a certain extent.

  Most people (not to mind hackers), have no problem
  switching between both OSs or using both concurrently

I was working this way without any problems for a couple of years: Mac at home, Win/Linux at work. And only when I spent significant amount of time working on Mac exclusively I started really appreciate all those tiny and not so tiny differences.

Could you elaborate on this? Would love to get an insight into the differences you're talking about. That's not to say I don't notice any differences but I struggle to see the multitude of tiny differences that, on aggregate, would make genuine and appreciable positive difference to how I work.

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