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Comment by forgotmypw17 | Hacker News Reader

I used to get annoyed by the differences between platforms and apps. I had my Windows desktop tweaked out just so, and I knew how to set it up that way on a new install in a matter of hours. It kept me tied to Windows for longer than it should've. Then I went switched to Apple and stuck with it for many years, learning a new way. Then, just like with Windows, the rug was pulled out and I had little say in it, and I finally went to GNU, where I have some choice.

Over the years, I've been through so many platforms and apps, back and forth, so many times, all with their own conflicting shortcuts and different input modes day-to-day, that I've just accepted it as part of my "mindfulness practice" to always be aware of where and how I am before I press or click anything.

Reminds me of Altered Carbon, just a much more geeky version.

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I've got this way with e.g. Typescript and Rust syntax. They're similar in a lot of ways and I write a lot of typescript in my day job and at times my hobby projects are primarily Rust. Typescript uses semicolons at the end of each field definition in an interface, while Rust uses comma seperators between each field in a struct, and each time I switch from one to the other it takes a while for my brain to remember what language I'm writing (similarly for -> vs : for return type specification). Java, which is the other language I use a lot in work is sufficiently different that I don't seem to run into this.

> Typescript uses semicolons at the end of each field definition in an interface

You can use semicolons, commas, or newlines: https://tsplay.dev/wXR7om

What made you switch from Windows to Mac? Was it the Metro UI everyone hates? Because you can get rid of that in 5 minutes and forget it ever existed after that.

I switched from Windows to Apple around 2010, after using Windows 7 for a year, and away from Apple a year or two ago, after Mountain Lion.

With Windows and Mac both, it wasn't any one thing in particular, just a "death by a thousand cuts", so to speak, of a general feeling of the platform changing shape without me having any say in it, without any bi-directional feedback, just changing at someone else's whim, and having little power over it.

Not only was it changing, but it was continuously disempowering me, with more and more things becoming controlled by the OS system, also without me having any say in it.

In the beginning, with Windows there was the seemingly additional friction of the whole drive letters and backslashes thing, and my doing most of my development in GNU-land... But then I realized that Mac GNU is almost as far away from what I develop on anyway, and I found it more comfortable to use a GNU/Linux VM to write code on anyway. I only used Mac for stuff like media playback and low-risk web browsing.

After that, it was only a matter of time.

Stallman was right, and I'm so grateful to have this wonderful platform which works reasonably the way I want it to, doesn't upgrade without my consent, and is infinitely configurable and meldable to my liking. Sure, there's a whole slew of crap being grafted onto it like systemd, Wayland, Chromium, etc... But it's all optional, and I don't have to use it. Thank you, GNU, thank you rms, thank you all the devs! I'm forever grateful to you for all your hard work.

> Mac GNU

There’s no such thing as "Mac GNU", since the userland and outermost kernel interface is of BSD lignage.

Which does a double whammy on the "GNU/Linux" pedantry, since the Linux-based system described above has only a very limited part of it that are actual GNU projects, or even GPL licensed.

That is, unless I’m mistaken and parent uses a system without Xorg, and only lives with bash, glibc, make, GCC, coreutils, and emacs. GNU/Linux is quite an ascetic system these days.

> There’s no such thing as "Mac GNU", since the userland and outermost kernel interface is of BSD lignage.

first thing I install on my macs are the gnu coreutils. bsd are so useless in comparison

You call it pedantry while writing a three-paragraph comment about why the term I used out of convenience and habit is not precisely correct. Bravo!

Haha okay thanks, gotcha, sounds like you're pretty happy with Linux :) glad it worked out for you!

> Sure, there's a whole slew of crap being grafted onto it like systemd, Wayland, Chromium, etc...

But... you don't have to use any of this

(in fact, I can't even use Wayland at all, even if I wanted to [because of Nvidia])

That,s almost word for word the next sentence in my comment.

Probably employment, that was my case.

I preferred Windows over the Mac by far, and worked as a developer on Windows for over a decade and a half. Then I had to start using Macs.

The state of the Windows UI now is a disgrace. Its design defects and lack of organization confound users of every expertise level, and its defects make every task a day-ruining ordeal.

Microsoft even took away one UI facility that always made it superior to the Mac: user-definable color schemes. WTF? I was using my own "dark mode", a charcoal color scheme, since the early '90s. Now I challenge you to find the color-scheme editor in Windows. Just as everyone finally realized that inverse color schemes are stupid, Microsoft started forcing one on you.

And it doesn't look like Microsoft has any inclination to overhaul its failed mess. But really, what motivation do they have? Who uses Windows now who doesn't have to do so for work, using some specific software?

Even Visual Studio, which I held out as the gold standard for IDEs, suffers from the same dumb defects it did 25 years ago. They were tolerable then, but now everyone else has caught up and surpassed it. Even Xcode.

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