Ask YC: Why do you recommend a Macbook? | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Why do you recommend a Macbook?

45 pointskirubakaran113 comments

I started my programming love life with Apple //c. After that, I've mostly used relatively inexpensive laptops running Linux / school PCs.

But I am seeing almost all 'budding hackers' nowadays coding on a Macbook/pro. Startup School is full of Macs!

pg said that Mac lets him drag and drop code from vim to repl - and he was very happy about it. Is it little things like that or is there a cumulative reduction in friction everywhere that justifies the bigger price tag? Is customizing a Mac easy or do they throw arbitrary hurdles at you like with the iPod/iPhone?

I currently run Gutsy on Lenovo T61 for dev. I don't want to miss out on the Mac if there are significant advantages.

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I switch between Macbook and Thinkpad/Ubuntu almost daily. Why? Because I get bored on either of them fairly quickly :-)

I love both of them, but my vote goes towards Ubuntu/Linux (and I mainly code on ThinkPad) for three reasons:

1. Most hackers' software is native on Linux, although nearly all of it exists for OS X. But nothing beats Debian/Ubuntu's aptitude: nearly everything imaginable is a few keystrokes away: can installed and pre-configured in seconds. And guaranteed to "just work".

2. Apple's hardware is no match to IBM's. UltraNav combo kicks ass, and I feel crippled and slowed down when using a touchpad of other laptops, including Apple's.

3. Linux is more flexible. It's not the "sysadmin carp" that some people from the 90s complain about, it's genuine flexibility that comes with choice. There are many more different terminal apps, different ways to manage workspaces, various window management plug-ins, screensavers even! OS X is more commercialized.

Besides, I dislike some of Apple's software. iTunes is number one on my hate-list. :-)

"3. Linux is more flexible. It's not the "sysadmin carp" that some people from the 90s complain about, it's genuine flexibility that comes with choice. There are many more different terminal apps, different ways to manage workspaces, various window management plug-ins, screensavers even! OS X is more commercialized."

Agreed. It'd be nice if there's an up-to-date binary repo of MacPorts packages. Flint has apt-get for binary packages, but a lot of them are pretty outdated.

I speak from limited experience with Macs, but I'd think that a lot of it has to do with the 'out of the box' experience. I'm running Gutsty right now too and I have it tweaked just the way I like it, but it can take some time / effort to get everything set up "your way". Of course, none of this applies if you're running the stock Gutsy config, but why would you want to do that? Essentially OSX is for people who want the benefits of *nix but don't enjoy, or can't spend the time, hacking their OS as much as hacking their code.

@robmnl: Expose functionality is built into compiz-fusion, and Linux users have been enjoying virtual desktops for god knows how long.

Because it's the best desktop unix machine available. Where else can you find true unix with a great user experience and full hardware and software support?

I don't use Linux because I no longer enjoy doing sysadmin crap. I also like the MacOS UI.

I don't think it's as good a desktop experience as OSX, but for a hacker, Ubuntu isn't half bad, and continues to improve by leaps and bounds. Less and less 'sysadmin crap' is necessary these days.

And you can get an Ubuntu machine from Dell that is very well supported.

I wouldn't recommend it to my parents, just yet (they're happy with OSX), but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Dell+Ubuntu to people here. It might not be as sexy, but it's a setup that works pretty well. I had a tibook a number of years ago, and while it was certainly a beautiful machine that got lots of looks, in the end, I'm just as happy with my ugly clunky (but cheap and well supported) Dell.

Yeah, if I was optimizing on price I would just get a Dell laptop and throw Ubuntu on it. (Although I would make sure that all the hardware is well-supported first. I have spent far too many hours patching kernels and adjusting parameters when using Linux with brand new hardware.)

You can buy Dells with Ubuntu on them:

http://www.dell.com/ubuntu

It was pretty cool to get it, open it up, and see it boot Ubuntu. I admit I did have to tweak it just a bit (about 15 minutes of googling and config files), but I think it was one of the first ones, hopefully they've gotten even better. I chatted with some of the guys working on it at OSCON last year, and they wrote down a few of the bugs I had found.

I got one of these right after they came out, too. Having had no experience with Linux before then, I've spent more than 15 minutes at a time figuring out how to get things to work. Right away, it was a couple nights on nvidia driver and wpa support. And since then, about once a month, I'll have to spend a whole night or two figuring something else out... last weekend it was something with generic vs rt kernels for ubuntustudio. Anyhoo, looking back, I wouldn't suggest it to any relative novices (like me) who really just want to use their computer to accomplish normal tasks, and who aren't into tinkering for the sake of it. Gnome/KDE in K/Ubuntu are really convenient and slick 29/30 days, but to be honest, I'm getting tired of fighting my computer and I'll likely pick up a Mac when I get a new desktop this summer.

Ditto. I also acquired a Dell+Ubuntu in 6/07. Switched to a Macbook in 10/07. If you are making decent contract money it just isn't worth the hassle to, for instance, try and get a decent music playing software w/ the appropriate codec support.

Well, if what you want out of a computer is simply and exclusively tool, then some proprietary system might well be better, although Ubuntu is getting close.

If, on the other hand, you relish the ability to open things up and hack on them if needs be (whence "Hacker News"), then the extra effort 'fighting' with Linux is often time well spent. It's a good feeling to know a system from the ground up, or (as is the case for most of us), at least be able to figure out bits and pieces from time to time.

Dell laptops are great if you consider maintenance and repair. I spilled a whole glass of red wine on my Dell Inspiron 1710. Order a $20 keyboard, pull off a piece of trim and undo two screws, do the reverse operations with the new keyboard, and I'm done! It wouldn't have been so easy with my G4 Powerbook! I know, because I've taken it apart a bunch of times, once to upgrade the hard drive. The thing has screws that could be used by watchmakers, and lots of them!

unless your using gentoo, you no longer have to do that much "sysadmin crap". as if OSX machines were free of "sysadmin crap". i used to use acquamacs on it, and it will constantly break after the monthly updates. from my experience, ubuntu is less work. (this advise is mostly for this crowd. i wouldn't push an ubuntu machine on gradnma. not yet at any rate)

The amount of "sysadmin crap" you have do to on a macintosh is directly proportional to the amount of "sysadmin crap" you do to your macintosh.

Every OS has its own version of 'sysadmin crap' to deal with... While I noted that OS X is easier to get up and running optimally, Ubuntu's package management definitely has it beat as far as maintenance goes. Automated software installation / configuration / upgrades goes a long way.

http://www.macports.org

I'm not saying the mac doesn't need any administration -- I'm saying that it's a lot less, and it's less annoying. I haven't ever had to recompile my darwin kernel nor sit around tweaking DMA and PIO settings.

Suggesting macports is like suggesting gentoo as far as administration time goes.

neither have I... that's the point I was trying to make regarding apt-get. Kernel updates, dependency installation / removal, (most) drivers, and even entire OS upgrades are 100% automatic. I'm not saying it's perfect, but Linux has come a long way in that regard.

I tried to switch over to a mac a year ago. It didn't work, so I switched back after three months. I found that a lot of little things were annoying, and made me spend more time than I needed on doing trivial things sucha as resizing of windows. On mac it can only be done from one corner, on windows from all four. There are lots of these little things that mean you have to spend three clicks instead of two. I see why they make sense if you're a beginner - it's almost impossible to do anything wrong. Other things that annoy me the fact that it is impossible to find a lot of the little shareware programs I use under windows, and that their equivalent of Outlook really sucks. And I simply don't understand why there is only one mousebutton. That alone was enough to switch back.

Overall my opinion of macs is that they are excellent for beginners, and for looking cool in the cafes but for me it simply didn't make the cut for serious work.

I don't code, but work in outlook, excel, word and a browser. This might make make a difference.

The pseudo multi-touch trackpad on the macbook is awesome. It takes away the pain of the one mouse button and makes scrolling a joy. After experiencing that trackpad, no other trackpad even comes close (though I bet the one on the macbook air is even more of a joy to use)

I code. I had the exact same experience.

This is two years ago and things might have improved. But the ports system did not have that much software, I didn't like the feel of the keyboard, it's a huge heat sink (and then in cold NY mornings it would be cold to the touch when I started it), I didn't like the anti-alising, I didn't like the default terminal program (and couldn't be bothered to get a new one ... that was the point of getting a powerbook in the first place - all the supposedly annoying sysadmin things I wouldn't have to do). java support was horrible too (that might be better - and besides this is not a java crowd)

I didn't like all the proprietary formats for iphoto, and itunes either.

oh and yeah. I have a lot of mail. The import into Mail.app took days. It was ok after that. But once again, the mail files use a proprietary tagging system to know when mail is read and what not. It wasn't fun porting that back to maildir.

try ubuntu. you might like.

incidentally, if anyone is interested i found this script to turn all my files from elmx into mbox (and eventually maildir). well written. works like a charm.

http://www.jwz.org/hacks/emlx.pl

It's interesting to hear a coder having some of the same experiences. And btw I had the exact same problem with porting mails, except it took me around three days to get working.

I'm actually dual booting w. windows and Ubuntu to try it out. And I like it.

Steve jobs hates buttons, I don't know about the other models but the MacBook Pro has two buttons, as does the mighty mouse, you've just got to enable it.

The mighty mouse only has one "button," but uses software to create the second click based on a sensor.

I guess that's just another example of just how much Steve Jobs hates buttons.

Also, not including the keyboard, the MacBook Pro has 3 buttons-- the mouse button, the power button, and the battery indicator button.

There is a right click, simply click while you have two fingers on the touchpad. This is much simpler than moving your thumb to click on the right button.

I'm generally a person that values function more than form, but I have to say it is a real daily joy to work on gorgeous hardware like a Macbook Pro. The reason Macs are more expensive because they only offer high-end hardware specs. A similar spec'ed Dell comes roughly at the same price. If you are hacker, always use the best tools there are. This is an invest in yourself.

Hardware aside, the real reason you should switch is OSX and the applications around it. Stuff just works. Sounds like a marketing message but its true. You can focus on accomplishing the task rather than wrestling with shortcomings and crutches of the environment. Application developers on the Mac also have the philosophy to integrate with existing services as much as possible, which makes a huge difference, because most of the stuff you use is able to talk to each other. Compare that to Windows where every application/service is its own island.

Imho, OSX is by far the best platform out there right now bar none. It's amazing to see how even non-hackers are blown away once they switch.

You should too.

Have you tried the latest Ubuntu?

Sure. Two problems with it:

1. Still fairly bad video hardware support. I spent two hours helping a buddy set up a mid-range ATI card recently, and we couldn't get full acceleration to work. The configuration just plain sucked.

2. Fonts in the X environment are so ugly that I can't stare at an editor window full of code. Good fonts are rarely open-source.

Ubuntu is nice, but it doesn't come close to the experience of opening a box, pushing the "on" button, and being able to start working right away.

1. fair enough. i can see how that could be a deal breaker. You probably know about the sad state of affairs with those vendors, and I guess reasons don't matter much if it doesn't work. all i can say is that it is improving.

2. it's not the fonts. check this out: http://ubuntutips.net/node/10.

in a nutshell, just put <match target="font"> <edit name="hintstyle"> <const>hintslight</const> </edit> <edit name="autohint"> <bool>true</bool></edit> <edit name="rgba"> <const>rgb</const></edit> <edit mode="assign" name="hinting"> <bool>true</bool> </edit> <edit mode="assign" name="antialias"> <bool>true</bool> </edit> </match>

in your ~/.fonts.conf file.

you won't believe your eyes. try it. :)

And this is why people like the mac. I can edit an XML file in emacs, I just don't want to have to figure out which file to edit and what to put in there.

here's one example that drove me up the wall:

== swapping ctrl/caps lock ==

* on osx *

http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~jfieber/osx/ -- i believe i ended up using ucontrol.

* on ubuntu *

go to System/Settings/Keyboard Preferences (xmodmap is still there if you're so inclined)

also, off the top of my head, it was a pain to:

1. add widgets to the menubar (on ubuntu i just add it)

2. rsync backups to an openbsd server because of the hfs+ tags

3. changing the buttons in Mail.app -- they were horrible

4. shutting down spotlight (can't even remember that one)

5. verbose booting

6. and my personal favorite: getting a cd out of the player when the power is off.

There are answers, I'm sure, to all these questions but you have to figure it out.

-utx

Or go to the Keyboard system prefs and click on Modifier Keys.

i mean, exchange the behaviour of the caps lock key with that of the control key.

ucontrol, and fkeys let you do that. both seem to be unmaitained though.

The Keyboard prefpane trivially lets you map the Caps Lock key to Control. I used that setup for a long time. Are you actually asking to keep Caps Lock around but map it to Control? I guess that really is tricky, but it never occurred to me as useful, because I never use Caps Lock, so I just happily have two Control keys.

Is that url your page?

no. i just found that whilst looking for ucontrol. should have made that clearer.

Thanks, will definitely give it a shot.

Wow I tried it and it looks great now! Thanks a lot!

>A similar spec'ed Dell comes roughly at the same price.

I believe that Macs are awesome. I want one! But the same price argument doesn't fly. When I bought a new laptop about a year ago, I ended up with a Dell 'cause the same spec'd MBP was double the price, and I couldn't justify the expense. Having a quick look on the respective web sites, that is still roughly the case today. That makes for a pretty expensive OS.

don't drink the cool aid and save your money. the last straw for me was a bsd socket problem that used to cause crashes on clisp (if you google it you'll find it. circa 2005) -- went back to debian, and i don't even know whatever became of that problem.

your dell is fine.

Devices always work on Windows first, and then drivers are eventually made for UNIX. Software that make hackers productive are always first in UNIX, and then eventually ported to Windows. A hacker who had to use one system for everything is faced with either the horror of having to use XFree86 or the horror of having to build an executable in Windows. Traditionally people got around the problem by having a Windows PC for the devices and a UNIX server for getting work done. With a Mac, you often get the best of both systems in one machine: devices just work, and compiling UNIX software is easy.

i almost bought a macbook pro for the screen. mac makes it easy for you to get a non glossy high def display. you can now even get LED backlit which should give brighter whites, better contrast, and longer backlight life.

the rest of the manufactures are behind mac in display tech.

i ended up going with a dell precision because of dells support for ubuntu, and i could get better hardware than the mac for $1000 less, with a 3 accident warranty. So basically for $2500 i have a machine that is faster, and will be replaced for free in the 3 years of its useful life, for $1k less than a mac book pro. in the end i could not justify spending $1k for an operating system. $250 maybe.

"the rest of the manufactures are behind mac in display tech."

I was looking at macbooks, but did not see one that had a 15" screen that ran 1920x1200.

I went with a Dell D830, for the 15" WUXGA screen and for the clit mouse (since I find trackpads distracting and less precise than the TrakPoint thingie).

I'm (more or less) happily running Kubuntu on it.

I have a macbook which I run linux on. I get the best of both worlds having a great laptop with lots of 3rd party hardware(and now x86). And all the fun of recompiling my kernel.

well there you go. although i don't know how much fun anyone can have recompiling kernels ;)

cheers.

My friends and I used to drink cold beer while the kernel recompiled in the background. Happy times. Almost 10 years ago! (Kingfisher (Indian beer))

I can see it now: "Dude! New kernel is out!", "I'll get the beer... Psssh, crack, glug glug glug"

Never before were nerds that excited about recompiling the kernel.

Us = geeks.

( geeks are nerds who can get laid ;) )

I did the same. Using Debian at my Macbook.

Is there a cumulative reduction in friction everywhere? I'd say yes. I've used Unix, PC and Mac for years and have always found I get more done and am happier when it's on a Mac.

Agreed, I feel the same way about my MBP. Basically, I've used all sorts of things for years (going back to CP/M machines, via DOS and every flavor of Windows, SuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, ... ) and the Mac is the right combination:

1. Stuff that I need to get done just works (e.g. sync my Bluetooth phone to address book, hook up to wireless networks, do backups)

2. Aesthetically pleasing. Don't discount this when it comes to hackers... we like elegant code and machines.

3. Unix underneath... no loss of power.

I run Arch Linux on my Macbook Pro. I don't like the hardware at all, it feels cheap in comparison to the Thinkpad it replaced.

I think many of you are missing the number 1, in my book, best part about mac laptops: Sleep! It works brilliantly. I close the lid and it sleeps, keeping the RAM alive for up to a week. When I wanna use my computer again I just open it up and within a couple of seconds I'm back at it. I know windows laptops can do something similar, but its not implemented anywhere nearly as well and is a deal breaker for me. I don't have experience with linux laptops, but I imagine its at best as good as windows laptops.

I cannot emphasize enough how useful sleep is. I go to the library, open it up, start working, close it. Move to another desk. Open it up, start working, close it. Go to the coffee shop with friend. Have a tea, then open it up to show him a plot from the hw, bring up the plot (without waiting for it to restore...), show buddy, and close the lid again. All this happens with minimal battery loss.

That is the biggest reason i love my powerbook. If I was going to get a "windows" laptop, I'd get a thinkpad and put ubuntu on it.

You're not missing out on anything, there are no significant advantages (specially not over a t61) I sold my powerbook on ebay, and I'm still happy with my t42 running gutsy as well.

Almost all of my coworkers use Thinkpads. I started off on a T43, and have recently been upagraded to T60. Would never trade it in for a mac.

Good for you. I started out on a T20 (I'm old). Still have it. Still love it. One of these days I'll move up to a T60 or whatever. For now, T42 still kicks a$$.

I still have a T22 with Libranet (Debian) Linux on it. The keyboard light was great! (Much cheaper than a backlit-keyboard, and accomplished the same thing. But I do everything nowadays on my old G4 Powerbook.

I started out with a Powerbook 140, and I don't think 26 counts as old here. I have a T20 too - 6th laptop I've owned. I've rebuilt it 3 or 4 times and replaced everything but the screen at some point. It's a good machine aside from having an annoying tendency to corrupt the contents of its CMOS chip.

I've noticed both Apple and IBM/Lenovo dropping in quality over the past 10 years or so. I have a Thinkpad 600X from 1998 or so - it's made mostly of carbon fiber, with a rubber coating. My Z61m is made mostly of cheap plastic, though it does have a metal frame and titanium lid. Apple uses either polycarbonate or aluminum, but seems to have a high rate of logic board failures. I'm not a huge fan of metal on the surfaces of a laptop that come in to contact with my body during use either - it transmits heat.

I was a mac user when macs weren't cool. Mac OS 9 was like that edgy indie band that suddenly became an overnight success. Sellouts! :-)

Hey, I remember upgrading from my thoroughly cool //e to my first Mac -- they were VERY cool at the start. Macs were more like a cool band that has a huge first album, kind of loses their way for a couple of records and then gets the mojo back with a monster record that leaves everybody nodding, "I love these guys!"

I got one of the first mac plus machines. A full 1MB of RAM.

People said, "you'll never run out of memory!"

Great machine, though. Hacked some assembly for the 86000.

You shouldn't make decisions like this based on hype or other people's opinions. It's personal thing. You are the one who has to be happy and productive on the platform -- no one else -- so why let someone else determine what you use?

Uh, he's asking for advice now before he spends $2000 or so on a MBP. Of course, if he buys it and hates it, he'll go back to what he is using now.

I use a MBP at home, because there's nothing within a light-year of Lightroom (or Aperture, which is pretty much an equivalent package) for RAW photo workflow. If it weren't for that single piece of software, I could switch to Ubuntu/Debian full-time and be quite happy.

When I'm at work writing code, it's 98% Linux, with occasional compatibility testing on a Mac or Windows system. Apache, Vim, Ruby, and PostgreSQL all run just as well on Debian as they do on a Mac, and a lot of other packages work much, much better -- plus, they're just an 'apt-get' away.

Yes, there is a huge advantage to using Macs:

http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9849949-39.html

When Linux can get it's GUI in shape, I will gladly move to it. I will miss TextMate dearly, but I will use Linux when the GUI (Gnome and KDE) people can get this one thing correct:

Separation between line editing commands, and GUI commands.

It is very simple. What happens on Linux when you are in Thunderbird and you do "^a"? It selects all! What happens when you do that on the command line? It takes you to the beginning of the line! Why a different experience for the exact same universal command?

On a Mac, "^a" always brings you to the beginning of the line, whether you are in Terminal, a Safari text edit box, a Mail email message, etc. "command a" always selects all, whether you are in Terminal, a Safari text edit box, a Mail email message, etc. The same goes for "^k", "^y", "^e", etc.

Cocoa uses basic Emacs bindings, and the user experience because of it is hands down better. I drove myself nuts on Windows for 3 months, then Linux for 8 until I told my employer that I either get a Mac or I leave. They gave me a Mac. My hands, brain, productivity, and my employer are all better off as a result.

I am speaking from hard customization aspect. I like MacBook better than MacBook Pro in this domain. It is relatively painless to replace hard drive and memory inside a MacBook. Of course I need to do some research to know the power consumption of hard drive and memory before I ordered replacement, so I can avoid overheat inside my MacBook. MacBook pro is great in its dedicated graphic chip and better range of view angle of its TFT display. But to replace a hard drive, it takes pain to remove all screws and lift up cables around the disk. And from what I read from Guy Kawasaki's blog, you can't return a beefed up MacBook back to Apple if you feel it is not what you want.

I went for MacBook because it is painless to add memory and upgrade disk. And I don't mind its less than perfect graphic performance and display because I use external LCD monitor when I can. It is smaller in size and light in weight so it is easier to carry around and it is 50% cheaper than MacBook Pro. I get what I paid for but also a little bit less hassle to mod it.

Aqua looks nicer than any windows manager has to offer. I run Ubuntu for my work desktop, and Debian for servers, but at home I have a macbook and a mac mini running 10.5. Before that I had a powerbook for 4 years. They are all awesome machines. I didn't have to spend time tweaking config settings to try to get the sound card working, or deal with updating and breaking everything. On OS X I've never had to fix something after an update, and sound always works. I'm not dissing any linux distros, but they are truly for hackers that want to spend time tweaking on things getting them to work and dealing with problems. OS X allows me to get more work done because I'm not dealing with those hassles yet I still have vim/emacs/whatever other unix app I want to install. The only complaint I have is that the packaging doesn't seem to be as good as Debian/FreeBSD/Gentoo. Maybe this has changed in the last couple years, but Macports and fink never really worked out all that well for me.

Once you have started working with a trackpoint, you will never want to go back to a touchpad. It feels like making a step backwards.

- A solid UNIX underneath. I don't care in the trademark sense. I care in the "beats Cygwin" sense. Real terminals. Most things you need from Linux will build.

- A solid GUI on top. Everything is largely cohesive. No half the apps running KDE themes and the other half of the apps running Gnome themes.

- Better supported by hardware and software vendors than Linux.

No need to mess figure out wireless, Bluetooth, power management, sleep/hibernate multi-button mice, free vs non-free drivers, multi-monitor mirroring/spanning etc issues. It all pretty much just works.

Someone said since this is "Hacker News", you shouldn't mind spending some time figuring it out. Bullshit. I don't have enough time to hack the stuff I want to hack, let alone the minutiae I don't want to hack.

I work with Linux all day. I don't feel particularly enlightened by knowing how to config X by hand (I am quite excited that we're past that point now) and how to use multiple mouse buttons with imwheel.

Funny how when you are about to buy something expensive as a Macbook Pro you do a lot of research and then you see other people asking a question like this for you.

I'm about to buy a Macbook Pro last-gen and I just thought that was weird!

If I'd never used Linux I wouldn't know as much as I so know about OS's, if I'd used a Mac all these years I'd probably know naught (or a lot less). But, that's part of the value of using a Mac, you don't need to know about the OS which is probably a good point for non-techie or non-geekie users.

I don't have a Mac but do think they're cool, hardware that works, OS that works, but I'd be concerned about the lock-in that comes from using proprietary software that comes with it; such as managing my 12GB photograph collection.

  pg said that Mac lets him drag and drop code from vi to repl - and he was very happy about it

you can do that on any OS with the GUI shell for Vim (with Vim running in Vi compatible mode if that matters) [edit]: actually it doesn't look like it's possible. i could have sworn it was though <.< my bad

i'm guessing the iPod has something to do with macs becoming more popular

I tried this now but it didn't work for me. I must be missing something. Please help.

I am running GVIM (I am at work so I am on Windows). I am trying to drag and drop a block of code to Python REPL. It is not happening.

Ummm... copy and paste?

Mac supposedly allows you to drag&drop code without explicit copy&paste.

That may be true but that is such a minor thing. I use OS X and Linux... definitely not something that ever makes a difference.

you don't mind not having page-up/page-down keys?

macs do have page up and page down keys

Really?

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/15839.jpg

Yes really, look at the up and down arrow keys.

what i meant is a dedicated key that when pressed will trigger a page-up/page-down event. on the mac you have to press a modifier key to make it go. most of the time this is ok (and i don't really mind it whilst in emacs ctrl-v/meta-v are basically the same thing) except that you can press ctrl-pageup/down on firefox to toggle the tabs. on the mac you have to press ctrl-mod-pageup/down ... same goes for gnome-terminal. i don't feel like turning my fingers into a pretzel for no good reason.

Yeah, not having home/end, pgup/dn, is a huge pain in the butt. I never realized how much I used them for navigating within textboxes. Especially in combination with shift and control.

In general expect to spend a good amount of time reacclimatizing on keybindings when going from PC to mac worlds. I find myself constantly guessing what modifier (shift, fn, cmd, ctrl, alt) to replace in this keybinding to get it to work.

Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V isn't exactly the same thing as drag 'n' drop...

On my Macbook, my windows often always overlap because the resolution just isn't high enough to "stretch out." So, I find that dragging and dropping is actually more difficult due to having to switch windows.

Select, middle mouse button click is copy and paste where I come from, and it's lack is the single most uncomfortable aspect of working in Windows or Mac OS X for me.

oops. i thought i had done that some times. i'll see if i can come up with any useful mechanisms to compensate for lying

allright. i came up with something but 1) it only works on windows and 2) you need an extra app. it's a really really good app though

the app is AutoHotkey: http://www.autohotkey.com/

and the script is:

  #SingleInstance Force
  
  #Enter::
      SendInput mr^a ;mark current spot in register r and select all
      Sleep 20
      SendInput ^c{Esc}``r ;copy, stop selection, return to spot

      ;if we have a REPL already, use it.  otherwise start a new one
      IfWinExist, Arc REPL
          WinActivate, Arc REPL
      else
          start_arc()

      MouseClick Right, 50, 50 ;open context menu
      SendInput p ;p for paste
  exit

  start_arc()
  {
      Run cmd /k cd "c:\\documents and settings\\blahblah\\desktop\\arc2"
      Sleep 100  ;wait for the cmd window to show before typing
      SendInput mzscheme -m -f "c:/documents and settings/blahblah/desktop/arc2/as.scm"{Enter}

      Sleep 200  ;wait for title to change
      IfWinExist, C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe - mzscheme
          WinSetTitle Arc REPL
  }

it's pretty simple. as you can see, it's for Arc, and it's setting a script to windows key + Enter. if you're editing some code in Vim, hit the hot key (when you're in command mode) and the script will ctrl+a -> ctrl+c the code in Vim and right-click paste it in the REPL. if there isn't a REPL open it will first open one and then paste it

you can make modifications such as only running what you have selected (would work well with visual modes,) only running the current paragraph (using the parentheses commands in Vim,) running what you have copied (i.e. Run-from-clipboard) and so on and so forth. you can also have a little window pop up where you can type some code and have it execute etc etc

I do use AHK for other things but never used it for this purpose, so, Thanks! I do my coding in my Linux machine though.

I can also do this in IntelliJ (using my Arc plugin).

stable, affordable, good user interface. expose and spaces are time savers.

big no is battery time.

I don't think you're missing out on too much if you primarily code.

1) Productivity. I get a lot more done.

2) Great UNIX implementation.

3) Great file/user/permission organization.

4) Super-easy backups, with no command line switches to remember.

5) Since I have a Mac, my boss steers me toward fun projects like getting started with iPhone development.

6) Feeling of investing in myself, making a commitment to getting a lot done. Turns out the Mac helps a LOT with that.

I find a macbook with 2 virtual machines (linux/windows) gives me the power I need, the operating system I love, and the flexibility to develop in any and all environments.

Plus, the size of the macbook is perfect when it's not your primary computer. It's the best piece of hardware I've ever owned.

It is physically well made. I beat the crap out of my macbook and it puts up with the abuse without problem.

It is fast and reliable. It is portable. I would pay double the price for how great it is.

The keyboard feels great on the macbook pros. The downside is the lame insistence on a single mouse button.

I would have agreed once upon a time, but now I either use my mighty mouse, or else the two finger tap.

The two finger tap is easier to use than a right mouse button, IMO.

mac programs avoid using right-click context menus as a primary interface approach. so what do you need it for?

for gaming you need to plug in a mouse anyway. otherwise occasional ctrl-clicking isn't hard, nor is the 2 finger thing.

OS X is often easier than Windows and powerful like *Nix/BSD.

The plastic case on the MacBook isn't the strongest, though.

Synergy of ...

- An apple interface (streamlined and beautiful).

- Awesome performance/security/organization of unix.

is this too old to still be considered valid?

http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsid=1798

There are some things about Macs that drive me a little nuts, same as any other system, but they do have the very most awesomest terminal program in existence. I can spend ten hours straight in ssh terminals on those things, and that makes 'em almost worth the price tag for me.

Not everything I do with a computer is programming. For everything else I do, a Mac is perfect. And it's a pretty good dev machine.

I don't recommend. I don't really. I tried, but I don't.

Coming from a long Linux history dating back to mid-nineties, I have used Macs for about three years. My first was a Powerbook P4 and now I've had my MacBookPro for about two years. Now my next laptop is going to be a Linux friendly non-Mac for running Ubuntu exclusively.

I liked the smoothness of OS X and how it all fits together. Then little irks surfaced: there's no decent system for installing/uninstalling applications, and absolutely nothing compared to apt in Ubuntu/Debian. Back to manual installations and manual upgrades. Ok, it was the Mac way and I adapted. Though, I started to avoid large software installations because upgrading turned out to be a real hassle. Uninstallation was different every time: it wasn't even as straight-forward as the ad hoc uninstaller mess in Windows. At least you can invoke that from one single place which helps in trying out applications.

DarwinPorts was easy but took forever to source-compile even the first installations of some essential applications, so I never upgraded them unless I had to. And I couldn't find everything I wanted from DarwinPorts. And it conflicted with some existing unix system software.

Luckily, I could build Emacs locally with --enable-carbon-app from CVS and at least the most important item in my toolchain worked pretty well, and looked nice.

Then various other limitations started to kick in. No decent terminal that could use the left Apple key as meta. Nothing major, but it really killed my thumb. Luckily I could configure carbon-Emacs to work like that so I started using terminals inside Emacs buffers... In a way I was in no way against that.

Eventually crappy window management started to stress me. I couldn't get my highly desired focus-follows-mouse from anywhere (or by installing any 3rd party utility!), or even keep certain windows on top while typing into a lower window. But I adapted and changed my working habits, trying to compromise with tricky virtual desktop configuration (with VirtuaDesktop or something).

Then utf-8 filenames between Linux and OS X turned out incompatible: Mac normalizes them and Linux doesn't. Boom, lots of problems with my version control running on a Linux server when filenames changed by themselves. I ended up renaming some of my essential files to plain ASCII, but I really didn't like the way where I was going.

And I don't even want to start with FileVault whose only purpose seemed to be corrupting my files and making logins take like half an hour after reboots. It may work for a few dozen Word documents and some configuration files but putting a heavy home directory of several gigabytes on it just doesn't work.

Eventually, the best desktop Unix didn't do unix for me well enough. I was basically having a huge hassle trying to run on OS X the applications I'd run on a Linux system. There was the desktop which was pretty worthless given that I couldn't run my stuff as easily as on Linux/X11. And try compile ogg123 on OS X! It worked on the P4 (Panther) but I never found a good binary nor working source code for MBP (Tiger). How's that relevant? The answer is cplay, the ultimate mp3+ogg+mod+sid player for any decent unix. Cplay is compatible with my directory-rather-than-id3-tag based music collection and it supports these exotic like playsid and mikmod players. I never got it fully working on OS X.

There was a pivotal issue, which I can't remember now, but which caused OS X to start sucking so badly that I installed Refit and put Ubuntu Dapper on my MBP at once. It had something to do with some bizarre software restrictions imposed by the OS X.

I had the usual hassle of configuring the Linux to work on the relatively alien Apple hardware but it took a day or two and then I had a Linux system that could hibernate and sleep just like OS X. I didn't compile a kernel for that, FYI. And at the same time I had all my good old applications working out of the box from Ubuntu's apt repositories. Installing the essential packages was a breeze and I got mostly the same desktop back that I had abandoned 2-3 years ago. System maintenance and hassle went immediately to zero. Filenames started working again, cross-installations. The unix had returned. Funnily enough, the same hardware has worked flawlessly for almost half a year now, running Linux. Sure, some parts don't work. Webcam - I don't need it. Most notably the fglrx driver sucks, failing at suspend/hibernate. I have to run Xorg with vesa and that doesn't give me 1440x900 but 1152x864, but it's still good enough.

As a reply to the OP: I don't know. Your mileage will vary: you won't miss out on the Mac unless you try it first. Then decide.

> 'budding hackers' nowadays coding on a Macbook

Why hack on a laptop? Why not use a desktop that's much cheaper, much more powerful, much more reliable, and easy to fix in one day? You can get two for the price of a new laptop.

If you're on the road with sufficient frequency that you actually need a laptop to work then you're probably a salesman or manager, not a hacker.

I can get to all my data from any machine: everything is on the web or accessible by ssh. I don't need to lug one with me. Paper works fine for the occasional six hour period away from a machine.

I do have an old laptop I sync to my desktop with unison to use on the road when need be, but that's just not very often.

To work with other people wherever they end up. We're not working in some cubicle day in and day out, we need to go to our co-workers and sit there next to them hacking on problems. I prefer hacking on my desktop too, but I could not operate without the ability to take my work with me.

> sit there next to them hacking on problems

This is high level design, no? It works fine on paper/white-board. You sit alone to refine it and do any implementation. You pair program on one machine if someone is clueless and being ramped up.

There are times with a sufficiently high level dynamic language, where you can usefully and quickly pair program your high level design. The ideal platform for this is a desktop on a table (not a concave cublicle desk, just a flat table) with a wireless keyboard.

I find that it can be useful to just be in the same room when working on dependent, if separate tasks. It's often necessary to nail down details as you're thinking through every possible different situation, which really only occurs once you're coding every possible situation.

I like to code in the bus. I have a 1 year $4.75 bus pass with which I can go anywhere around here (Seattle). I can sit by the window and code.

I used a PowerBook Ti 3.5 1Ghz for 4 years and I loved it. But since most of my programming is in java (whatever), I _had_ to switch. The last year I simply run ubuntu-ppc.

IMO:

The best of apple laptops: (1) long battery life, (2) bright screens, (3) very comfortable keyboards -if you remap the apple keys to control.

The worst of apple laptops: (1) they get burning hot -even new macbook pros; (2) the spinning beachball (of death) can get to your nerves -too much swapping; (3) their sharp edge will hurt your wrists -as opposed to a smoothened, curvy Thinkpad T60 (my current).

Personally, I got a macbook for the amazing hardware design. It is one of the few laptops I have seen which is sleek, beautiful, and very very effective. The laptop is very well designed. OS X is also well designed but for a different demographic. Thats why I use Linux for the software. Still, the hardware design is amazing.

for the GUI, macs are the best, it's not close

for the unixy stuff, macs do a good job, but they don't blow linux away

macs make lots of stuff more convenient. customizing is no problem for anything especially important. you can also download stuff to change, say, the builtin Dock, if you want.

i strongly recommend a mac. but consider a macbook (not pro) if you're worried about price. pro only has a certain limited set of advantages you might not need.

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