Ask HN: Is it worth switching to a Mac? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is it worth switching to a Mac?

40 pointsneovive181 comments

My current Dell system is in need of replacement and I'm considering switching to a Mac with VMWare. I am a long time Windows user and my work involves mostly web development, research and technical writing. I use Eclipse, UltraEdit, SQLYog, WinSCP, TortoiseSVN, Adobe CS3, Camtasia Studio, MS Office and a local WAMP server for most of my work.

I've done quite a bit of research on hardware/software, but it's been hard to find objective opinions on switching to Mac. I'm especially interested in experiences from other web developers that recently switched to a Mac -- did you notice an appreciable improvement in workflow to justify the learning curve (OS, keyboard shortcuts, etc.)? Has your overall experience been positive?

Edit: To clarify, I would prefer using native Mac software over the VM wherever possible and have found equivalents to everything except Camtasia Studio.

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I do a fair bit of coding on Mac, Windows and Linux (usually ubuntu) If you switch, be prepared that it will take you a bit of an adjustment, as many of the basic actions that you do without even thinking about it will change.

However, I think over time you'll find that it is not a change you'll regret. I find that in general, you'll get things done faster, and learn new things quicker. It's definitely the platform that I have tended to gravitate to for most of my work.

Plus, the new macbooks are solid.

Important point here: you WILL have an adjustment period.

You'll have to learn the quirks of the OS. (Where's the damn menu bar!)

You'll have to find similar apps to the ones you've used in Windows. (Assuming you don't want to VM everything -- and if you do -- maybe you should question why you're moving to Mac.)

One more data point. I switched and found it very painful to internalize keyboard commands while still having to do Windows work (i.e. switching back & forth). Once I went "mac-only", it got much easier, but now I suck at using Windows again.

Was it worth it? No. You can be fully productive in which ever platform you choose: Windows, Mac, or Linux. Each platform is fully mature. Productivity comes from your commitment to learning your tools and practicing.

There is an advantage to Linux as it allows you to truly learn (freedom). But you do loose time tweaking and yak shaving.

My day job has me coding on Windows for 9 hours a day. My home computer is a Macbook Pro. I don't have any trouble switching between the two every day, except for the occasionally accidental keyboard shortcut (e.g. hitting alt-t in Windows Firefox instead of Ctrl-t).

But then, I use a dvorak keyboard layout and run into qwerty all the time, so maybe I've trained myself to easily switch gears.

I too run different platforms between work and home. Linux at work (Since id prefer to use linux over windows and I have the choice where I work) and a Macbook Pro at home.

I found my biggest annoyance was the keyboard shortcuts, and i solved that problem by remapping my Control Key on my linux work machine to be the alt key (next to the space bar), in the same place as the mac, and it is SO much easier to switch between platforms reguarly. It also makes emacs less painful as an added bonus

I found equivalent apps for everything except TortoiseSVN (Versions or SCPlugin seems like a fit). I would only use the VM for testing on IE and a few Windows-only apps.

Keyboard shortcuts are one of my big concerns -- I'm a big Ctrl key user on Windows.

Depends on how urgent your development is at this point. If you're trying to bang out some code for a goal or deadline, don't bother switching now.

You'll only frustrate yourself when your flow is constantly being interrupted by having to figure out how something works on a Mac when you know exactly how it works on a PC.

That's not to say don't try out a Mac, I'm all for new perspectives because I believe more perspectives are the foundation for creativity and successful problem solving.

> Keyboard shortcuts are one of my big concerns -- I'm a big Ctrl key user on Windows.

You get used to it pretty quickly - and I swap back and forth a fair bit.

OSX will let you remap important keys any way you like - but I think it's generally easiest just to stick with the native mapping (otherwise you jump on another machine and get lost).

I found OS X applications generally seem to have slightly fewer keyboard shortcuts than Linux/Windows.

They're there, but for example I think menus are easier to access on Windows (still possible on both though!).

Would svnX fit your needs? Does wonderful for me.

I recently switched from linux to mac, and I would not pay the apple tax again. I force myself to use the fisher price os they call osx, to justify the apple tax i payed for the hardware. But being a windows to mac user may be a better transition. For those that say use Vmware.. why not just buy the cheaper hardware and run windows. The hardware is all commodity, and you are not getting any benefits from the hardware, compared to x86 vs ppc days. Mainly is a software point of view. From what I've found in ubuntu repository any software I ever wanted or needed I could find for free. To make osx usable for me, I've had to pay for quite a bit of software. I find it much less productive.. my best example is .. on standard keyboard layout .. press ctrl + c , and notice how your hand is shaped. Its already in an extended position for the next key. Now on mac to copy its command key (apple or win key) + c ... you hand is curled into like a ball.. and no matter how long you use it, its still awkward, and not as natural when typing. For me I wanted the *nix environment + the stability, and osx does deliver, but the price is your computing freedom.

Actually one thing I really love about OS X is the placement of the command key. Keyboard shortcuts like Command+Q and Command+W are much more convenient then something like Alt+f4. Keyboard shortcuts in general in OS X have been a one of the great advantages in my experience. I also switched from Linux to mac about 4 or 5 years ago. At first it seemed very awkward. I think any change like that would be, but I was instantly appreciative of how seamless the system worked overall, and how much less I had to mess with it to get it to work right (Like I said, this was a few years ago). It's not perfect, though. I would suggest that anyone who is interested in making a jump to a new OS to try and get their hands on it before buying and see what they think.

I was going to go into a rant here, but I don't feed trolls anymore, I'm too old for this shit.

1. Map control to caps lock, like you should be doing on any keyboard you have.

2. Use the 'enter' or 'return' key to make paragraphs.

3. Use your left thumb for the command key.

4. Stop pretending that this is an Ubuntu box. It's a mac, treat it like one & give the mac versions of software a look first, before running back into RMS's hands. That's the rational thing to do on any platform.

5. You'll notice you'll be paying for software. You'll also notice that you're a crap-ton more productive.

6. Apple doesn't sell low-end hardware, get over it. Then again, hackers usually need more machine than the low-end crap.

"Then again, hackers usually need more machine than the low-end crap."

Microsoft did that. Look how well their OS runs on low-end hardware.

I don't do client side programming anymore and I am _very_ happy with my Atom-based netbook for work. When I get home, I just hook it up to a giant monitor and happy I go.

And, BTW, Zope and Django run acceptably on it, so, I won't be seen migrating to a backbreaker notebook anytime soon.

I find OSX somewhat uncomfortable to use for me (a lot less than Windows - boy, why do people subject themselves to that?) mostly because it's Unix to a point and something completely alien beyond that. The problem for developers is the Unix half is very traditional 80's Unix and things have evolved a lot since that was cutting edge. I like my package manager to help me reassemble my box the way I want it to be and do so in servers in a repeatable way.

If your hacking is only around programming and reading Office documents and you don't touch system configuration at all, the Mac can be for you. If not, I would consider a vanilla PC with Linux as the superior choice.

> You'll also notice that you're a crap-ton more productive.

It's not a given that using a Mac will make you more productive.

well i wasn't trolling, just an honest opinion 1. never heard of this before. 2. sorry 3. never heard of this, i was using my pinky or ring finger to try to hit it. 4. a comparison is comparing one os to another and the software available. I said, I pay for software and so i do use mac versions first. But for the most part i use mac ports, or command line clients. A mac is unix hacker man. 5. paying for software != more productive.. for a hacker you should know this. 6. hardware is commodity. so its a comparison on os, and available software. realistically i can run linux on high end machine as well for cheaper price.

So anybody who doesn't like Macs is a troll?

it sounds like you're trying to use your pinky to hit the command key. it's a lot more comfortable if you use your thumb to hit the command key.

it's a lot more natural to hit the command key for me, since i only have to curl my thumb in a little bit to hit the command key, whereas i can't reach the control key with my pinky unless I shift my hand.

From what I found out in this typing course I took if you're pressing Ctrl + C you're meant to use the pinky on your RIGHT hand and hit C with the LEFT (middle finger).

The same applies to Q, E, W, and all other keys on the right side of the board. Switch it the other way around (pinky on the left Ctrl) if you're hitting P, O, K or any other keys on the right side.

That's the "proper" way of typing, but it's not always easy to remember, especially when you're holding the mouse on the other hand and copy/pasting on the fly.

Also, I'm not sure how this properly translates on a mac (i have a mac at home but i'm on my work PC right now ...)

It also doesn't work as well if one of your hands is on the mouse (as is common for many graphics editors).

I force myself to use the fisher price os they call osx

The thing about OSX is that it may look simple, but when you tell it to do something, it does it. I've lost count of the time I've left my Windows PC to do some long running task only to come back and find it's actually done nothing, it's waiting for me to confirm that I'm really, really sure. Or it's simply ignored me or failed silently. That is worth paying the "apple tax" for. It's paid me back many times over.

You can buy alternative keyboards, you know...

I will definitely continue using my Microsoft Ergo keyboard -- the Apple keyboard is definitely not as comfortable for me. Interesting point about the Crtl key vs command key positioning. I agree that the control key is positioned better for editing. I just noticed this thread in Apple support (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8238419) about modifying the control key to simulate the command key. Not sure if this would impact anything else.

yeah its amazing that apple touts themselves as pro-user but their external keyboards are without a doubt the most craptastic worthless keyboards on the market. they look cool but are utterly useless for prolonged use

and yes apple takes your freedom and will slowly turn you into an idiot. we're software developers damnit, we're supposed to be interested in how the computer works under the hood, not looking to put a gramma-friendly interface on everything. i don't understand developers who look for "just works" at the expense of "show me the code"

I don't like macs because they are gramma-friendly, I like them because I can run a real bash rather than cygwin. You want to know how a computer works under the hood, you should prefer OS X to windows.

It's rather unfortunate that you need to pay for Mac hardware just to run bash, don't you think?

In my case my employer pays for it ;-) Otherwise I'd be running Ubuntu!

You want to know how a computer works under the hood, you should prefer OS X

no, i should prefer linux or freebsd, which i do, ON (SANITIZED AND LIBERATED) APPLE HARDWARE.

Hey, you are quoting just part of my sentence! I said prefer OS X to Windows. I agree with you.

not every developer wants to develop on their os. rather, I would like computer that "just works" so that I can do my development work.

yes it's cool to be interested in what's under the hood, but once you've tried to get your wireless working for hours on numerous occasions, you start to appreciate when things just work. i got sick of wasting my time.

not every developer wants to develop on their os

uh....okay-doke

I think what they meant was, "Not everybody wants to develop things for only their current OS".

A good deal of OS X is open source, but that's beside the point. I don't really care that XNU, etc, are open source, because I don't want to develop an OS -- I want to develop for that OS. If you're so bothered about everything being open, then I suppose you are using OpenBSD, not Linux or anything else, because it doesn't contain binary blobs? Seriously, I don't understand why you're so bothered about things being open that you'd never change anyway.

On the other hand, Cocoa is a better API than anything available for Linux or Windows, and that does matter to me. So do the consistent and logical keyboard shortcuts across all apps, the high level of UI design absent on almost every other OS, how all my hardware just works without having to edit configuration files, and loads of other detail that Apple pays attention to. There's a lot more to good design than being grandma-friendly, and not many people except Apple get it right.

I'm bothered about things being open because I prefer the idea of a future where improvements can be built upon all previous knowledge, rather than a future where everybody has to start from scratch implementing their own basic proprietary versions of everything.

I prefer the idea of a future where improvements can be built upon all previous knowledge

pretty much nailed it on the head there. A lot of developers really miss the point while getting sucked into these flamewars..

almost as annoying as the vim vs emacs bickering.

If you truly believe you should have to look at the code and that things shouldn't "just work", then you must not know about modularization and encapsulation. If I have to know about how the C linker works in order to install a program, then the OS I'm using is a terribly leaky abstraction with a poorly designed user interface/API.

I want my basic tools to just work so that I can concentrate on developing my own programs and tools.

modu-whaaa? encapsu...lishion???? wow you must be one of them professor types!

Any mention of Apple sure gets your dander up, doesn't it?

yes, i get particularly pissed by so-called counter-culture hipsters pissing all over the unwashed masses yet slavishly dedicated to the hypocrisy of crass consumerism when they think its "cool". the appletards go miles beyond any shopping-zombie i can think of in their pursuit of buying shit. and yes, it is shit. its stunning that there are morons buying the new macbooks for $2k!!!...i mean, you have to be braindead.

but the icing on the cake was when i bought the 3rd gen ipod nano. previous ipods were recognized by linux and various tools. but oh no, steve had to encrypt the firmware, thus pointlessly complicating what should be a trivial task - mounting a usb device. WHY???? what do you FUCKING CARE steve that i am trying to plug this into a linux box??? is it a problem that i don't buy into your end-end slavery? i replaced it with a cowon...at least they aren't going out of their way to fuck over users who don't goose-step a certain way

You can get the kernel source and much more here: http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html

> its stunning that there are morons buying the new macbooks for $2k!!!...i mean, you have to be braindead.

Do you have a car? By your logic - if you drive anything above a Geo Metro you must be braindead. If you don't, do you pay for the bus? You could walk - you must be braindead. Do everything yourself, pay for nothing! Don't put money into making yourself happy with the things you use most of your waking life! What a weakling!

You seem pretty upset about this stuff. I think you're over generalizing about Apple users. Everybody buys things for different reasons.

i also vent on the other hypocrites who piss on people for buying bottled water yet are sure to lease a new mercedes every nine months

The latest flat aluminum Apple external keyboards are the best I've ever used, and I've been a keyboard snob for decades.

I can't stand them myself. But other people I work with use them more regularly than me and seem to love them.

No proof of anything, but possibly more useful data.

+1 I LOVE this keyboard- only wish the wireless one had a numeric keypad also

ask anyone occupational therapist if the apple keyboard is recommended over, say, the kinesis advantage pro. if you aren't using a kinesis or one of its real competitors right now, you are not a "keyboard snob"

the apple keyboard:

- has no discernable key travel

- is not split and contoured

- is too small

its probably the biggest ergonomic nightmare out there. fortunately few people actually use them after buying the computer

But if I can fly on this keyboard (and the ones like it such as the MacBook Air) with no problems for years, why should I worry about the "ergonomic" keyboards?

If you want to go native, this list of Mac counterparts might help you:

  Eclipse - There is a Mac version.
  UltraEdit - Coda or Textmate.
  SQLYog - Sequel Pro.
  WinSCP - Cyberduck, YummyFTP. Tons of clients. Check out ExpanDrive for some real fun. 
  TortoiseSVN - Syncro SVN.
  Adobe CS3 - There is a Mac version.
  Camtasia Studio - Screenflow. 
  MS Office - There is a Mac version.
  WAMP - There is a similar MAMP. Then again, you are running on a platform 
         that has all those goodies pre-installed and ready-to-go!

Anyone have some additional suggestions?

PS: Virtualization has a cost associated with it. I only fire mine up for testing. Make sure you max out the RAM you get on the machine.

Instead of looking for an (S)FTP client, you can use FUSE and just mount the remote servers. Writing your own FUSE file system isn't all that hard either, I'm currently hacking together one that allows me to mount my MySpace developer account as a disk to edit things directly :)

I would recommend Komodo edit (http://www.activestate.com/Products/komodo_ide/komodo_edit.m...) over both Coda and Textmate. Mainly because it does almost everything they do (the only thing that seems to be missing is built in svn support), plus a great VI mode all for free.

Might want to use iWork (Word->Pages, Excel->Numbers, PowerPoint->Keynote) instead of the Mac version of Office. I have Office 2008 for Mac, but rarely use it. It's much easier to use iWork or Office 2007 for Windows through VMWare Fusion.

If you're going to learn a new office suite (and even MS Office for Mac is going to feel different), use OpenOffice. It's exactly the same where ever you go.

I like Transmit for FTP/SFTP. It's worth the price.

I also like iWork over Mac Office. If someone really needs 100% perfect Word documents, the company can buy it.

I'd add Aquamacs if you are an emacs user.

Personally, I prefer GNU Emacs (aka Emacs.app) over Aquamacs.

I have a rather large .emacs that's followed me faithfully from Solaris to Linux to Windows to Linux to Windows, and Aquamacs refused to work with it. I spent about a week trying to get them to work together, but gave up and switched to Emacs.app and got everything running in a day.

So, just a warning. Aquamacs is fine for simple .emacs, but might throw a tantrum if you want to do things like have a non-standard color scheme or keep your .emacs OS and Emacs version independent.

I'd advocate GNU Emacs over Aquamacs. He did say he's an Eclipse user though so this isn't likely an issue.

With Fusion on a 2.8Ghz iMac, I don't see any particular slowdown running WinXP vs running native.

I use CocoaMySQL, Dreamweaver, and Transmit.

For me, I made the switch because I think Macs are cheaper after about one year of use. If my time equals money, and I value my time at $50/hr (which, yes, is a bit arbitrary), and I assume that I will spend less time configuring, defragging, cleaning, or anti-virusing my Mac than my PC, then it gets to be a real simple equation.

I took a look and just sort of estimated how much maintenance time I put into my PC over the course of a year. I estimated it to be at about 2 hrs per month (which I think was, actually, not enough to keep it secure), or $1200, so the total cost to me, of ownership is whatever the price is of a PC plus $1200.

I find that that maintenance time on my mac is significantly less right now than it was or ever has been on my PC.

So in the end, my answer is: yes-- get a Mac. At the end of the day, they're cheaper.

What do you do to your PC to "keep it secure"? Windows has automatic updates?

Updating other apps can be a pain (java, Firefox, Flash, etc.), but I don't think OS X does that automatically? The OS that DOES do that automatically for a lot more apps than Windows or OS X is Linux (Ubuntu). That for me is reason enough put Ubunutu on the noobbooks in my family.

I had read a similar story elsewhere on the 'net.

Yes it's worth it to switch. Took me about a month to get completely comfortable, but a lot of it is trial and error. It's like learning to drive on the opposite side of the road.

The keyboard commands aren't hard to master but by default, a lot of the keyboard options are turned off in OS X. System Settings > (Full Keyboard Access) [x] All controls

I can't live without Quicksilver, but the learning curve for it is pretty steep (more advanced commands).

http://osx.iusethis.com/ <- Good site to browse to discover OS X apps.

Hey if you have specific questions, email me and I'll be happy to answer them. I've helped a lot of people switch. Lots of times, you just need some tips to feel comfortable.

actually if you are not doing any iphone development (or mac development) i dont see the point. i am on a dell inspiron (bought early last year) and is very solid. running fedora 9, only log in to XP if i have to (around once a month).. cost of hardware is lower (id say atleast 10%-20%) and you have a lot more freedom with what you can do without running into the JobsWall! plus for webapps i can get it to mimic the production environment almost as is.

Yes it is not as "cool" as a mac, but hey if I wanted my machine to look hot Id have gone into fashion design.

It's a lot more than 10-20% for a lot of desktop users because Apple doesn't offer a middle of the road desktop without a monitor built in. Personally I already own two great LCDs, so when I went to pick one out, my options were the mini (which has only one video jack and is pretty weak by desktop standards, though small and silent and therefore great for casual use or probably as a media hub) or some ridiculously expensive beast of a Mac Pro. So the price jumped from like $650 to $2,8000.

If I could have gotten something with iMac-like specs but minus the monitor it still would have cost more than a Dell, I'm sure, but at least only by 10-20%.

No mac user's going to argue that Apple's got good selection in hardware :-) If what they've got fits your needs, you're good. Otherwise...

> So the price jumped from like $650 to $2,8000.

Wow, what kind of Mac are you buying for that kind of money:)

I just looked on Apple.com, that was the starting rate for a Mac Pro. It was a beast though, with 2 Quad Cores. The rest of the specs were woefully unimpressive, but I guess it's like a Lexus where they know that if you're spending that much money, you'll have no problem ordering the upgrades, and they just put the base price there to lure you in.

> I just looked on Apple.com, that was the starting rate for a Mac Pro.

Sorry, I was making a joke about the extra zero you had in the price. You had put $28,000 rather than $2,800:)

Ha. I guess that's if you get the solid state drive.

you can buy an i7-based desktop from dell for $1300, WITH A 24 INCH MONITOR. the i7 is at a minimum more than 200% faster than the mac pro's processors. don't believe me, read tomshardware or anandtech

for $2800 you can get one of the dell gaming i7 boxes that is tricked out far beyond anything apple offers hardware wise, once again, a minimum of 200% performance improvement

the mac math once again does not hold up. and where is their snob appeal? they don't even have an i7 box on the market

Clearly either Moore's Law has been broken or you're mistaken.

or should that be "if i wanted my machine to look COOL".. but you get the point..

I recently made the switch and my #1 objection to doing it: the keyboard shortcuts. I've actually mastered most of the shortcuts in about 1-2 days.

The main reason I made the switch is because I am going to do iPhone app development and that's pretty difficult on a PC.

So far it's been pleasant. I am pretty impressed by OSX, definitely some advantages over XP and this is pretty much understood and repeated, but Apple goes out of their way to make everything work nicely. My freakin' keyboard lights up when the room gets dark. That's pretty cool.

Since you mention eclipse I would say "proceed with caution". There are two issues:

a) Eclipse itself is less usable and less stable. I have colleagues who are unable to debug, experience crashes etc. which I never see on Linux / Windows.

b) probably you are doing java development. Java itself has very weak commitment on the Mac and often lags years behind the latest releases and even then may have issues. If you make your bread and butter doing Java stuff, you should probably run an evironment that natively has first class support for it.

Of course, if your Eclipse use is just incidental then these may not apply.

I have to agree with this. I do a lot of java development zmimon is correct in saying that eclipse is less stable, particularly with the UI, which looks terribly out of place on a mac (you'll see a lot of blogs criticizing this) because it is essentially a windows application ported across.

MochaCode [http://syntori.com/mochacode/] is good but nowhere near the level of eclipse, but then again I haven't used it in many months.

Fortunately, you can always use IntelliJ IDEA on a Mac.

It's simply the best Java IDE around, and as such, easily worth the price.

As someone who recently switched from Windows to Mac, the only software I really miss on my Mac are Word and Excel -- the Mac Office 08 versions are vastly inferior to the Window Office 07 versions, imho.

I had thought I would miss a lot more, though. So when I first switched I bought Parallels and installed XP. For awhile I was running XP with FeedDemon (NetNewsWire has some annoying features I couldn't figure out how to turn off), Digsby, and a few other Windows-only apps I thought I couldn't find Mac replacements for. Eventually, though, I found replacements for everything (save Word and Excel).

Plus, I can now use TextMate, which has made my like a lot easier.

I still own XP and Vista machines and use them fairly regularly as well. But my main computer has become by MacBook.

I made out a list last month of all the things I love and hate about the Mac after a couple of months using it. It might be helpful for you: http://mockriot.com/post/58997722/my-mac

Great list. Thanks.

I think I am actually a little less productive on a Mac than I was on Linux. However, if you are developing web applications that will be hosted on a *nix server, OS X is much better than Windows.

I'd only be more efficient on Linux because it doesn't support WoW.

Except that WoW runs fine on all three platforms...

A great reason to go OpenSolaris!

And seriously, (IMHO) it's actually pretty good.

I switched from Windows to Mac about 2 years ago and never looked back. My main reason for going to OSX instead of Linux at the time was because Photoshop wasn't available on Linux and GIMP makes me cry. I used Photoshop a lot. Still, I'd do it again at this point.

I found the adjustment period to be quite short, but then again I had been working on both Windows and Linux for quite a long time so I was already used to using multiple platforms and switching between them easily. My Mac experience has been nothing but positive; no defective hardware, software has always just worked, etc. From all the detractors, I'd say I might be a minority. Mac notes:

* There is some seriously great software for OSX. Yeah, you have to pay for it most of the time, but it's well worth it. There are also tons of free apps which are still leagues ahead of their Windows/Linux counterparts.

* The user experience is so much better I actually enjoy using my computer now. No more fighting Windows stupidity or Linux incompatibility / quirks. Well, I still use Linux for all my servers, but that's another story.

* Fusion / Parallels provide very robust and mature virtualization. I use Fusion to run a single Windows app 24/7 and also use it for IE testing. Best of both worlds.

* Specification-wise, stuff is still overpriced. Prices are coming more in line with what you could make yourself, but you're mostly paying for guaranteed compatibility and the OS at this point.

* It seems Apple have had some serious quality control issues recently, especially with laptops. I continue gaining anecdotal evidence that suggests the new laptops are awful. I have an old-ish Macbook Pro which I don't use heavily anymore (though did for about a year) and a Mac Pro; I have never had an issue with either machine.

So there you go. Macs aren't perfect and they aren't for everybody, but I maintain they are a hell of a lot better than any prefab or hand-rolled Windows box (except for gaming of course) and still hold advantages over Linux, at least for those of us who use software not available for that platform. As far as Linux goes, I like KDE a lot and detest Gnome. Maybe that will give you some insight into my opinions.

Just remember: The camp that says there's no reason to go Mac over Linux are just as bad as the one that says there's nothing better than Mac. Choose whichever one suits your purposes better.

"Just remember: The camp that says there's no reason to go Mac over Linux are just as bad as the one that says there's nothing better than Mac. Choose whichever one suits your purposes better."

Well put. Now convince the hardcore fanboys to take that approach! ;)

Great objective advice. Perhaps, I should also give Linux another try as well -- it's been almost 3 years since my last Linux desktop experiment.

If you don't do any Mac development, don't use any "rare" apps that have no Linux counterparts, and don't mind some nagging compatibility issues (admittedly, driver support gets better every day and Ubuntu is really on top of this stuff) I highly recommend giving it a try before diving into a much more costly solution.

Worst case scenario, you still aren't a huge fan of the Linux desktop and you can give Mac a shot. The Linux desktop has come a LONG way in the past 3 years, though. Just use KDE ;)

Don't get me wrong; I'm a huge Mac fan, just not a traditional fanboy. There are viable alternatives.

I think the real answer depends on the role you play.

For work I use character terminals, remote screen sessions and web browsers for everything that matters which leaves me free to use just about any laptop/desktop/os combination I want. Although in theory I'm free to go with whatever I like, I find in practice that using the same working environment as my co-workers helps everyone on the team be more productive because everyone quickly learns how to help each other solve unanticipated problems. As a consequence I did the dual-boot windows/linux thing for several years and later switched to OSX because that's what my fellow developers were doing at the time.

At home where my role is different (I'm pretty much the sole source of technical support for my family), we all have Mac laptops running OSX because our time is important to us and I've found keeping several OSX laptops working properly is trivial compared to other operating systems.

Software aside, when I was looking for a laptop I simply couldn't find anything even remotely close to Macbook Pro's LCD screen. All PC-based laptops feature what seems to be an exact copy of some crappy, cheap, glossy 6-bit panel with low contrast and distorted colors, only sizes and resolutions are different. Those crappy panels, I suspect, is #1 reason why laptops suddenly got so much cheaper lately.

Don't get me wrong, new MBP's are also glossy, and their panels aren't 8-bit (i.e. only 262K colors, just like everybody else), but they still have decent contrast ratios and reasonably well calibrated.

Keyboards are another matter. Only Lenovo Thinkpads and new generation of Dell Latitude seem to be well-made, everything else feels like an oversized Texas Instruments calculator.

With all that said, I find I'm most productive on Gnome-based Linux distros. PC industry just stopped manufacturing laptops I can put it on. Hopefully, it's temporary.

I just bought one. The lack of home/pgdown/pgup/end is still frustrating. I must say, it's a great piece of hardware and the double tap/corner "right click" is a great addition. Frankly, the hardware is wonderful.

The software? Frankly, I'd be happier on a "just works" linux, and I'm tempted to research reverse engineering the touchpad for linux - it's quite a nice addition and it would be a best of both worlds scenario.

A quick googling turns up:

http://www.starryhope.com/tech/2006/mac-os-x-home-and-end-ke...

Yeah, something that should work by default, but it is at least fixable.

The frustration is all of the chording for things that seem to merit their own key in my world. Fn-up, down, left, right could better handle screen and keyboard lighting, and put page up/down/left/right up there instead. I mean, the freaking computer controls the brightness anyway, why even bother with single touch? And play/pause and fast forward/reverse?

Home and end don't bother me as much as page up/down, really. I hate finding my place again after scrolling up and down, and option-up/down is annoying to me.

Yeah, what's the deal with home and end! I just got a mac and I'm still trying to get to the begining and ends of lines. Any solutions?

Also why does iPhoto open every time I connect my iPhone? That's pretty annoying.

Cmd-Left, Cmd-Right are the traditional Mac keys, or you can use Emacs-style Ctrl-A, Ctrl-E.

iPhoto preferences, General. "Connecting camera opens: No application"

> you can use Emacs-style Ctrl-A, Ctrl-E

Most people don't know this, but yes: any Cocoa text view responds to many Emacs c-key shortcuts.

Far as I know, Home = Cmd+Left and End = Cmd+Left

Also, to stop iPhoto opening, open iPhoto > Preferences, set 'Connecting camera opens' to 'No application'.

OSX + VirtualBox + XP is a far better Unix/Windows hybrid than XP + Cygwin.

Agreed, I hate Cygwin. Having to convert between Windows and Unix paths is incredibly annoying, among other things. It just doesn't feel nearly as seemless as OS X.

That's not a fair comparison. The equivalent would be Windows + VirtualBox + Linux.

Heh, I am comparing the two things I actually have :-)

A valid comparison would be OSX + VirtualBox + XP vs. XP (Putty, Xming) + VMWare + Ubuntu (server)

I switched from being a long-time Linux user to a Mac sometime in 2005, and have been overall satisfied with the results.

Pros: - Can play well with both Windows and Linux/Unix. - Things like printing do 'just work'. - Ability to test my apps on all platforms via VMWare. - Cut and paste works. - Drag and drop works in a very intelligent fashion. - Multilingual interface is a snap. And it works. - MacPorts works well enough to not make me pine for apt-get. - Having a consistent interface is surprisingly neat. - Spotlight makes life much easier. - I have a real Bash shell, just like under Linux. - Lots of neat little shell bits are integrated into the OS; like ssh-agent knowing how to interact with the Keychain. - I can no longer live without Expose.

Cons: - The Finder needs improvement. - Much slower than Linux. - Not quite as stable as Linux. - Hardware is more expensive, with fewer choices. - FileVault and Time Machine don't really play well together.

I am a long time mac user, not a new switcher, but I am a web developer on a mac. If you are going to heavily rely on VMware to run all of you windows apps you might want to grab a pro or the top of the line macbook, the bare minimum is to juice up the RAM. I have an older white macbook and I love VMWare, but just for running on operating system at once, I usually have a ubuntu server going and when I try using a winxp system it does get a little sluggish on the computer.

In terms of mac version of the software they are equally good, MS Office for mac is usually pretty responsive and doesn't crash. In my experience massive excel files sometime bomb out excel, I'd say the PC version was a little more stable. People have also said the newer version of Adobe CS seem to run better on PC then mac. I have not really had a problem, though. I never heard of mac version of UltraEdit, SQLYog, WinSCP, Camtasia Studio, Although for Camtasia there are some decent mac screencast recorders, but not to my knowledge ones as feature rich as camtasia.

I know a few people who have asked for my advice for buying a computer and being a good apple fanboy, i've recommended macs, once they got the hang of it and the little differences they've really liked it.

I know for me having access to the unix underpinning/programs is a great thing that has help me as well as being able to install pure linux programs, pending dependencies and all that. I've gone the VMWare route for running my windows things and not using boot camp. If I wanted to use the windows side of things for longer periods of time I would use that setup.

All that said, with more market share that macs are gaining it's great using one because most of the system is well thought out and can be pretty powerful when you need it to be. I can develop sites on my system like I am developing on the linux box I am going to deploy to, test sites with in safari, firefox, ie6, ie7 and have a generally secure computer that I can kill any process or program that is freezing up on me.

Just my thoughts

I would definitely like to avoid using the VM wherever possible. Just need to keep it around for website testing in IE 6/7.

You'll love this then:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21E...

Images with pre-installed, pre-activated versions of Windows XP SP2 and SP3, running Internet Explorer 6, 7, and beta 8. Microsoft has them automatically expire in January, but they're pretty consistent with making updated images by then with later time bombs. Keeps you from buying XP for your Mac...

As a developer I like running software that is similar to my production environment. OS X is close enough to Linux that most applications work the same. This makes me more productive and makes development easier.

When I switched it was frustrating. It took me 2 weeks before I felt comfortable navigating the OS.

After that 2 weeks things began to feel comfortable. I feel much more productive on my Mac now than I ever did on a Windows box.

The OS X UNIX backend is definitely compelling as all of my web apps are hosted on Linux. I was thinking about just switching to Linux, but the Linux desktop just doesn't seem as polished as Mac or Windows. Although, I will be switching my old Dell into a Linux test server running CentOS.

No. Just switch to Linux. At least that way you'll learn something and won't have to deal with the ctrl/alt dyslexia.

Will you be doing ANY mac work?

If you're just going to be running everything in Windows anyways, you can get more machine for your dollar by buying another Dell or a Thinkpad.

I use Mac, Linux & Windows at home; most of the development I do is Windows based though, so I use a Vista / Ubuntu dual boot laptop (Thinkpad T61P. I LOVE it.) for when I need to go on-site.

The best part of Mac OS X? The Cocoa text subsystem has a pretty wide set of built-in Emacs commands (including even c-U prefix), which you can customize.

See http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/Site/Cocoa%20Text%20System.... .

I'm with you. I've been using PC's since we got a single desktop PC in elementary school. So I'm VERY comfortable using Windows.

I still can't stop feeling that I'm wasting too much time yak-shaving with it though. And the fact that all of my programmer buddies have switched to MacBooks (and half of them own iPhones) that I'm missing out on something big.

Being a relatively young entrepreneur, money is still the deciding factor. It would take quite a bit to convince me to save above and beyond the price of a PC, and aim for a Mac.

I am also a comfortable Windows user. I was 'forced' on to a Mac when I started my current job and had quite a few difficulties (although some were related to the fact that, as a UK-er, I'm used to a traditional British English keyboard layout). Although I stuck it out for several months, I still found myself LESS productive than I was on Windows (or Linux) and my boss bought me a new Dell.

Although this was just my experience, and you may very likely differ, I thought you may benefit from the experience of a fellow Windows user. Don't believe everything you hear about how working on a Mac will suddenly make you 10 times more efficient.

This old comment of mine on another post expands on the things I found annoying/difficult: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=337842

I recently switched, and didn't find it took more than a week to adjust. OSX is great and the laptop I bought is undoubtedly a beautiful machine. I've found servicable replacements for all of my favorite software, and have come to love a few mac only applications. One caveat:

Most people I know agree that hardware reliability is poor. Anecdotally, everyone I spoke with when deciding strongly recommended getting apple care. More objectively, friends I know who work in the IT support groups at large tech companies, said that they see roughly 3-4 times the number of hardware related problems compared to thinkpads (which run about half the price).

Many people tell glowing stories about the great service and support they receive. When my new macbook pro shipped with a defective optical drive, I WAS impressed with how friendly support folks were, but I was NOT unimpressed that the fix took 9 business days even when at an AppleStore and after paying for apple care. Note: getting a new machine with upgraded RAM was an estimated 15 day turnaround including shipping the machine back to the factory.

I think the only answer anyone can give you is whether or not a switch was worth it for _them_.

Will a switch be worth it for you? I don't think anyone can answer that. You seem to have done your homework, so... maybe?

To actually answer the question you asked... I think it was worth it, for me. As some others said, expect to take a little while to learn new shortcuts/OS behaviors.

I switched from Linux to OS X several years ago. I tend to live on the command line so my experience is a bit different.

First, I installed Fink which brings dselect and friends to MacOS X. Fink let me install all the packages from Linux that I use. For giggles, I installed the Apple X server and ran KDE from Fink. It worked but felt sluggish. I also realized this was very pointless and stopped doing it after 5 minutes. Running X apps with the Apple Window Manager in rootless mode feels fast.

I have Virtual PC on my G4 Powerbook. It isn't fast but lets me test stuff in Windows when I have to. I used to work off a Macbook Pro in an old job and found VMWare Fusion and Parallels were fantastic when I needed to do work in another OS.

Overall I like it because its a UNIX I don't have to spend time administering.

I notice your usage patterns/programs are different than mine. Hopefully the perspective helps at least. Good luck!

I tend to live on the command line so my experience is a bit different.

then why would you go to an OS that mandates the use of the mouse??

My last experience with a MacBook Pro, my friend used the keyboard 99% of the time. The few occasions he used the touchpad, it was almost entirely composed of 1+2+3+4 finger gestures for switching between programs/tabe, scrolling, and so on. This actually became a selling point for me, and why I'm considering a MacBook for my next laptop.

And at this point, I need to learn to stop feeding the trolls. But I thought my point would contribute to the discussion anyhow. :-)

OS X is great in terms of productivity, I would recommend it highly. There are a number of limiting factors, though.

1) Not everyone needs this, but you won't get absolute compatibility with MS Office - MSO'08 for Mac can't read some stuff that MSO'07 for Windows created - I had severe problems with theme colors, sorting, etc.

2) Out of mine and friends' experience, the hardware sucks in terms of reliability. It seems like every other logic board or battery fails at some point. I'm speaking of pre-last generation macbooks and macbook pros.

3) Applications that you need may not be there. You said you can't find a substitute for Camtasia Studio. I can't find any substitute for Paint.NET (apart from Photoshop that is comparable to my monthly salary in cost) and that's very frustrating. GIMP, being non-native (run through X windows manager), is ten times more unusable than it is on Ubuntu or Windows.

Unless you need it for gaming (direct x mainly) then yes, go mac.

I have gone mac for lots of my development but still roll with vista mainly for games and some development mainly game relates.

With the rise of consoles and even Microsoft's own XBOX 360, it is removing the "gaming machine" deciding factor as well with lots of games going online, multiplatform (blizzard), mac ready.

I switched for Unity3D as it was only available as a dev platform on macs and it is a good thing that happened. Having *nix as the base of your desktop OS is really nice. Unity3D, XCode, iPhone dev, and all the goodness of language support like python, ruby, c, etc working as it should is just good.

Here's Paul Graham on the switch to Mac:

http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html

I switched from Windows to a macbook pro about 9 months ago and have mostly been happy. I'm irritated by the behavior of cut and paste regarding subfolders and files, and the different hotkeys slow me down. On the plus side, Terminal and shell scripting make the dos prompt look like a cheap toy. The hardware itself is beautifully done. There are far fewer instances where OS X annoys me, and I've yet to have a virus or spyware issue on OS X, and I haven't had to pay the antivirus "tax" of speed and money.

Overall, I prefer it to Windows, but I'm still thinking of switching to Ubuntu.

Think about the software too. I see you use Adobe CS3 and MS Office, so you'll have to buy new licenses of each of these, unless you're running them in a VM.

I looked at moving to a Mac just like you are and after looking at the hardware and software costs, I could by myself a separate linux server as well as a new PC for about the same price as a Mac. You're also limiting yourself in the hardware you can buy by using a mac, no more upgrading the video card if you feel like it, or getting a $40 digital TV receiver, no more plugging in a RAID array on the weekend, the number of third party accessories is smaller and there a lot more expensive. Also the amount of free utilities for the Mac is a lot less (I use a bunch of little free PC utilities, that have seeped in over time, and would take a lot of time to replace). I have 2 monitors at the moment and thinking of getting a third - can the Mac support a third? not sure. There's a lot you take for granted in the PC world that you give up if you move to the Mac world. The Mac hardware is a closed proprietry system and all the negatives that come with that are there, but I do agree it's nice and shiny and I just want to touch them :-).

So I'm buying a little Mac laptop to play with (officially for the kids) and keeping my development on PC's. If you want to dip your toes (to see what all the hoo ha is about) the Mac mini could be an option too. hth.

Let's be honest, you will NOT want to run CS3 in a VM. Image processing requires full use of your RAM and CPU.

That was probably my point moving to a Mac from a PC is a large investment, you'd need to have very good reasons to do so. Personally I spend so much time in applications/ide's that the OS really doesn't matter much.

In two years of owning a Mac, I have made more progress in improving my personal productivity than I made in the ten years prior to owning a Mac. If that sounds worth it to you, then yes, it's worth it.

But then, I got my Mac for the solid "just works" UNIX implementation, not for the nice UI. From that standpoint, Windows pushed me onto the Mac platform, and Mac OS X pulled me. Carrot (Mac UNIX) and stick (Windows, um, Cygwin? Cough). You didn't mention what your impetus for switching would be, so YMMV.

It's really difficult to tell in advance whether a Mac or Windows System will serve you better, though your list of software is a good start - no AutoCad, Visio, Outlook or other platforms lockins.

There are three software tools that have kept me chained to Windows XP:

o Visio (Yes, I know OmniGraffle, but it's a Visio world where I work. I have a reasonably recent MacBook Pro with Maxed out RAM - but it still is a little laggy - and the controls just don't work the way my finger memory expects them to on a Mac) - Which is pretty mandatory if you do a lot of network diagrams.

o Outlook Calendar - Entourage / booking resources - just didn't have it nailed last time I checked it out.

o Lookout - Spotlight/Mail search isn't horrible - but when I need to search for a keyword or two in 145,000 email and get an answer back in 1/10th of a second - Nothing beats Lookout. I use it 20 times a day. It truly is the google of mail searching (Ironically Google's Outlook index isn't that impressive)

With that said, I absolutely love the MacBookPro - best laptop I've ever owned. And, I spend my entire day in a terminal - and, you may mock me for saying this, but I personally have decided the cost of OS X and a good portion of the Macbook is justified by the terminal client alone. It puts Putty/SecureCRT to shame.

So - my solution has been to do both - I have the two keyboards (probably ergonomic nightmare) - one in front of the other, and do all my visio/lookout/outlook calendar on my five year old Precision 650 (Rock Solid workstation BTW), while Everything else is done on the MacBook Pro. Two monitors - a cheap 20" LCD for the Precision 650 and a 30" Dell for the MBPro.

I have zero issue switching back and forth - when I'm on the mac, Command-Space comes as natural to me as Ctrl-Escape does when I switch back to the windows system.

I recently (<1 month) switched to Mac from Debian. As others have suggested, the initial comfort period might be lil difficult to cope with, but it wont feel like a curve. Things are pretty the same (Eclipse, dir structure, shell etc.), but I havent regretted the "change" yet.. plus the community is good, with nice treatment for apps as in Ubuntu..

I switched a few years back. first with my laptop via a macbook g4 runnin tiger. that whetted my appetite for mac and allowed me to realize the potential of the platform as a development environment. ultimately i moved my entire development operation over to a mac pro tower loaded up with 16gb ram and a few tb of space specifically so i could develop on whatever platform i wanted through the use of virtual machines.

for most of us that are doing web oriented software development, the ability to run multiple versions of client side browsers not to mention multiple versions of server installation through a virtualized environment is a major boon to productivity. if as a developer you are researching a platform to use as your main development you should really take that into account. if you are a device driver developer or working closer to the hardware thats another story.

also, ask yourself: are there any developers contemplating switching to windows?

I switched from Linux to Mac last month. Definitely love OS X: I spent way less time tweaking the machine, so more time is put into real work. Everything works perfect.

P.S. Anyone noticed the trend that apps developed on a Mac tends to be prettier and less clutter than those dev'ed on a Windows? I think OS X must be part of the reason for this ...

The rumor seems to be that Mac hardware runs Windows the best, so if you intended to change nothing else about your workflow, it still seems like that's the machine you want.

Having said that, there are some favorites I use, such as "vim" and Xcode, and SCFinderPlugin (for Subversion integration into the Finder, similar to TortoiseSVN on Windows).

I've chosen a handful of graphical 3rd party software that has made the Mac infinitely nicer than its out-of-the-box config. DragThing is probably the most significant, so I can ignore Apple's horrid Dock and create truly useful docks.

It is also very important to take OS differences with a side of salt, because many things that people gripe about simply aren't set in stone (so you can't discount an entire platform because of them). For instance, who cares if someone doesn't like "the Mac way" to use the keyboard for X, Y and Z, because the OS lets you change key mappings.

Hey PG, on Firefox on Ubuntu Linux all the text on this page scrolls about 2 page to the left. First time I've this on YC. Obligatory screenshot: http://timony.com/mickzblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/yc.jp...

A couple people tried to make bulleted lists (maybe a Windows user thing), which News interpreted as code.

http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

I should figure out how to catch these.

I was wondering what it was. U could always validate the input and check for the particular characters in that sequence and remove them? Hmmm, might be a good question for YC, how do people validate input from users?

Same is true with FF3 on OS X.

Pretty ironic that as soon as I came home after posting this question, my Dell greeted me with a blue screen.

I started with Linux and some windows, went to Mac, and have gone back to Linux (with windows for gaming).

For you I'd recommend it. Everything is just that little bit easier and more consistent. You do seem to spend more money but I think it's worth it in time saved.

My main reason to avoid the mac is wanting to avoid lockin - I've decided to move as much of my computer use as possible over to open software and file formats with the goal of being able to retain my data for longer and use it in more ways. You can go a long way towards this goal on a mac, but it's not quite as natural as doing it on Linux.

For me, I got annoyed with Unix software not having quite as nice an experience on OS X as it does on Linux, but it doesn't sound like that'll be a problem for you.

I went from Windows at home, Linux for work to using my Macbook both at home and the office. (At the office, it's hooked up to an external keyboard, mouse and monitor.)

Most of my work involves programming, but I ssh into another machine and do everything from the command line. My workflow has changed very little - it's just prettier and behaves much better. I think of OSX as being the prettiest Unix has ever been; it is everything I wanted Linux to be.

I'm not sure how this maps to you. Eclipse supposedly works on Mac, http://developer.apple.com/tools/eclipse.html, but you might want to look at Xcode.

DOS/Windows for a long time was a gaming platform. By which I mean that the only reason to have it installed around was because some very good games worked only on it.

Suddendly, I noticed that I'm keeping an OSX box around the house for the same reason. http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

Pointless anecdotes aside: map your requirements. If you absolutely need an application or a game that works best on platform X, choose platform X. Otherwise, it's Linux. Then you only have the tiny problem of choosing a distro :P

(oh and the emulators on Linux are pretty good these days)

Made the switch earlier in the year; though I'm a poor student, so ended up downgrading from a decent Windows machine to a 2006 CoreDuo 1.83Ghz Macbook Pro — but even then, its defiantly been worth it!

I'd never switch back to Windows, and I prefer to run Adobe products natively, so I don't want to use Linux (however I like the unix enviroment). So really its just a good compromise between both — the commercial side from Windows, and the open source and unix side from Linux. Perfect! :-)

For tortoisesvn there is scplugin. Last time I tried it was not as good as tortoisesvn. I just learned the command line commands and now I don't miss tortoisesvn. http://scplugin.tigris.org/

For SQLog you can run it on OS X using Wine. I have a written a guide on how to do that http://www.manu-j.com/blog/run-sqlyog-mac-os-x-wine/148/

Except some stuff like proper java 1.6 I am very happy with my Mac. Switching from windows to mac is a good choice. If you would have been a Linux user, I'd say maybe stick with it :)

Eclipse works like a charm on OS X.

Instead of VmWare you might consider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels,_Inc. ... or well, actually you don't need any virtualization at all for what you are using?

When I went to college a few year ago I got my first Mac -- a Powerbook G4. I had only owned PCs before then but used Macs in the computer labs at school. I loved the Powerbook and didn't look back.

Of course, at work I have to use a PC so I can't speak too much to web development on the Mac. In general, though, I have to deal with a lot less of "trying to get things to work" on OS X and a lot more "working with things".

When I first started my job (where I am now) they put on a Mac. My biggest pet peeve as a developer was having to use a keyboard shortcut to get # instead of being able to press 1 key. (There were other keyboard issues too, but these were specific to me as a UK-er; can expand if necessary.)

If you're already using the mac os in a VM, I don't see the learning curve/adjustment period as being THAT big.

Having all the power of unix and a nice interface is great. Its slightly harder to sell if you are not a command line addict but if you are developer though you should be one.

My experience has been pretty positive. I can focus on coding and not have to spend all my time holding my OS's hand or hunting for settings buried in some maze of dialogs or some undocumented config file.

I use a Mac, and it's quite tough to get used to it. Here is the setup I've built, so I can keep my development in windows: http://www.essien.org/blog/2008/12/02/setting-up-your-develo...

Terminal is nice, spaces is nice, expose is great. Having an OS that can suspend/resume is really nice.

But it's just not Windows. My favourite apps aren't here, I don't know my way around the filesystem, all the Windows-specific tools I know are meaningless. When I stray too far outside Safari, it's pretty bleak.

I just wanted to thank everyone for all the great advice. It seems that everyone's experience varies in some way -- both positive and negative. I'm going to test drive a friends MacBook for a few days to give it a true test (keyboard mappings, etc.). I also plan to give Linux a try as well.

I use similar apps, plus emacs. I switched about a year ago and have been happy with VMWare, though you do need to max out your RAM. Swapping can take a few seconds sometimes. I use a Mac Mini plus double-angle keyboard and external monitors bigger than any laptop screen. I wouldn't go back.

By end of the day.. just use whatever your comfortable with. If you want to experiment with OSX, just spec and build yourself a hackintosh osx86 with an apple keyboard. Once you get the feel of OSX and you're comfortable with the dev software, get yourself the real deal.

I was almost in the same boat as you, but decided to get a MAC so I can do some iPhone Development as well. If you are not planning to do iPhone or Mac Development I dont see much benefit in context switching apart from the fact that it's cool to own one ... my 2 cents.

I switched to a Mac after spending 15+ years mostly on Linux, and haven't looked back. It really improved my productivity, because most things Just Work. It isn't perfect, but it is significantly less broken and insane than either Windows or Linux.

if you not experiencing any problems with your dell, then i would suggest that you stick to it. you already have the software needed and it will cost you when you have to buy everything again for your mac.

i switched to mac because i got tired of using cloned (home-made PCs) that failed 3 times in a month. i decided to get something more "robust". my choices were either Thinkpad or Mac. Thinkpad is as expensive as Mac and has the boring Windows (used Windows for years prior to the switch), so i decided to get a mac and explore the new OS.

When it comes to programming, I found Xcode to be a much nicer IDE over Visual Studio. On the downside, I can't find many games for the Mac at my local stores (*I don't want a dual boot or VM).

There's less yak shaving on a mac vs. linux/windows. If linux had minimal yak shaving and a really good quicksilver replacement, (and a bit more elegance to their program suites) I'd go there in a heartbeat. But there is always tons and tons of yak shaving and i've found laptop hardware support to be painful.

You can get a refurb macbook pro with comparable specs to a dell laptop for the same price right now. And the macbook pro has a better build quality. Worse comes to worse, you can install windows xp on it and get a better machine out of it. Macbooks also keep their resell value a lot better than the typical laptop too, so you can sell them used for alot higher vs. an equally specced dell.

katapult - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katapult

and a really good quicksilver replacement

yeah we call it xmonad. why make keyboard shortcuts a slapped-on app when they can be your entire desktop?

But there is always tons and tons of yak shaving

wtf are you even talking about?

actually one thing i forgot to ask was, was there anything "bad" about your Dell system?? If you were satisfied with the Dell, why ceven onsider the Mac? Dont get me wrong I am not anti mac (you could even say I am jealous of mac users out there), just asking because i will need to be upgrading my dell in about 6 months... so seeing if there is a clear pain point that i am in denial about that could be totally alleviated with a mac replacement..

Overall, there really isn't one specific pain point in particular that I have with Windows. However, OS X seems to offer some enhanced functionality for web development (e.g. UNIX underpinnings, MAC-only development tools). There also seems to be a lot of momentum for web development on the Mac these days, but I didn't want to switch systems based on that alone. I'm looking for gains in productivity.

My Dell Dimension system is about 4 years old (Pentium 4/3.2Ghz running Windows XP) and has required a new power supply, RAM and the HD seems to be next. The power supply failed at around 14 months (I only had a one year warranty -- bad move in hindsight) and Dell support sent me around in circles for a month to get a replacement. I ended up finding one on eBay. If I ever purchase another Dell, it would be from their business division (OptiPlex or Precision) which seems to offer much better support and use standard parts.

ah so technically its not a tool (i mean software wise) related issue... again dont want to start any flameworks... if you are interested in a unix-y environment you might as well go to the source and use linux (i use fedora but more hard core users may recommend debian or free bsd, both of which are exceptional)... point is if you dont mind the non-cool look might as well have your dev box be as much of a clone of your prod environment, like a couple of others who mentioned that..

as i was saying if you bring in iphone or mac dev into the scene then you dont have much of a choice unless you want to play around with installing osx on a PC and all that headache (which i do plan to do myself in order to avoid forking out a fortune on a mac)

yeah productivity is very subjective so cant comment on that... for example in linux i love it that when i do an alt-tab the window currently in the alt-tab "round" gets a highlight so it is quick and easy to spot. i tried quite a few task-switching plugins in windows and have still not stumbled on this feature... silly isnt it? amazing what little things can can do to productivity...

I switched to mac and couldn't have been happier, but admittedly I was a Ruby programmer on windows, which Ruby on windows has always kind of sucked, so I left.

I was in your position recently and decided to switch. 3 months later and I'm back with Windows - it is simply more efficient for me. I'm really big on productivity, so I really tried to customize every tool I've listed below. To give some background, the main programs I use are:

1. (http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/04/09/launchers.h... "Launchers - SlickRun vs QuickSilver + Butler/Launchbar")

a) Ported all current bangs from SlickRun to QuickSilver.

b) Tried Butler, Launchbar to quickly launch artists, songs. Ended up sticking with Launchbar.

* SlickRun is marginally faster, minimalistic. Support different use cases.

* Felt frustrated in QuickSilver's scripting language trying to do simple stuff like "Open new Window (not tab), ssh to this hostname."

* Tie as I'm prejudiced.

2. Terminals - PuTTy + cygwin vs Visor + Terminal, iTerm, x11... + Gnu-darwin, fink

* I heavily abuse remote (Ubuntu) session screens to do all my work. (I'm usually a Rails dev using VIM.)

* Needed 256 colors, package manager, bright (as opposed to bold) colors. Prefer no tabs.

* I have no idea why the native Terminal program doesn't support 256 colors. Entirely silly.

* Package management is a pain. Ended up doing all my work on my remote Linux box.

* I really prefer PuTTy. Every single terminal program I used on OSX either didn't fit in visually or were missing some feature that was provided in PuTTy.

* Spent way too much time frustrated while trying out everything. At then end, still frustrated.

* I understand this might just be due to my prejudices, so tie.

3. Virtual desktops - VirtuaWin vs Spaces, Witch

* Spaces has huge numbers of problems. Especially when combined with CMD-TAB. Spent way too much time frustrated. Gonna give this one to Windows.

4. Browsers - Firefox vs Firefox.

* Lack of right click drag mouse gestures. Large drop in productivity I never managed to replace. Windows wins.

5. Music - Winamp vs iTunes.

* I really learned to hate iTunes. A lot. Ended up bugging out on my giant music library and crashing a ton for no reason. ... Spent even more time debugging/Googling. Frustrating.

* Tie, lots of people like iTunes. I prefer my Winamp + Python script to update m3us.

Every other program had a relatively easy replacement. Here are my other gripes:

6. Hardware - Right click.

* 'nuff said. Everyone trying to justify this design decision is probably a fanboy.

7. Keyboard shortcuts.

* Three months later, I'm completely used to the keyboard shortcuts and hate them passionately. Does anyone honestly like the Apple bindings better?

* They lie! Changing bindings for applications like Firefox in the "control panel" does not work at all. Another frustrated day.

Conclusion:

* If you spent a lot of time becoming proficient on your platform of choice, you probably can only lose on OS X.

* It is incredibly frustrating trying to make "minor" tweaks. They turn into massive battles that remind me of my days trying to tweak my Linux desktop box.

* If you aren't an efficiency freak like me, you might gain by switching.

For someone who used a Mac for 3 months, I'm surprised you never figured out there is a right click... there's been a right click for a long time. I use it constantly.

"If you spent a lot of time becoming proficient on your platform of choice, you probably can only lose on OS X."

Until you spend a lot of time becoming proficient with OS X... it goes both ways. I don't understand how people come to these conclusions.

I know that, but for someone using mouse gestures in FF, I can't do a right click+drag left/right/up/down, etc.

"Until you spend a lot of time becoming proficient with OS X... it goes both ways. I don't understand how people come to these conclusions."

Right, it goes both ways. So if you spent a lot of time becoming proficient with OS X, I wouldn't recommend you switch to Windows. But if you spent a lot of time becoming proficient with Windows/Linux, I wouldn't recommend you switch to OS X.

Did not read you comment yet, but does this markup have to break the layout of the page? Makes the discussion not so nice to follow with too long rows.

I remember someone else also complaining about this lately... Why is the PRE-tag used here and how can I get around this?

Upvote this thread on the feature-requests perma-article:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=229095

Install the Stylish Firefox extension and add a whitespace: pre-wrap rule for pre tags on this site.

I have to agree about the shortcuts. They are killing me inside.

I particularly hate how fn+arrows and command+arrows change between applications. With no documentation.

We can't ignore it. It's shoving everything off to the right.

#7 is because Firefox isn't a real Mac app, I expect; it's a cross-platform app that tries to copy the mac look and feel.

You can also use Crossover to use many windows apps on Mac without a VM. Performance is very good in my experience.

How about the linux to mac switch? Has anyone tried that before?

I switched from Linux to Mac in 2003. I had a laptop stolen, and really liked the idea of a slick PowerPC laptop running Unix. I figured if I didn't like OS X, there were several PPC linux distributions I could choose from. It turns out, I liked Unix, and OS X served my needs better than Linux (all of the Unix utils plus significant commercial application support. Three more Macs later, I don't even think about it when buying a laptop.

I've seen fink mentioned above, but I prefer MacPorts.

Its great to see where things have come in the last few years.

I didn't switch from Linux to the Mac but I did buy a mac(book pro 17") because I got sick of my Linux laptop not being able to connect to encrypted wifi and having suspend/restore break randomly.

I do about 70% development on Linux and the rest on the Mac. I'm really happy with my Mac now, but it did take a long time to get used to it. Particularly getting the keyboard to work reasonably similar to Linux so I didn't have to totally retrain my fingers for Emacs, and getting GUI Emacs (Carbon) to use the same keymappings as Emacs in the terminal. (Doublekey helps with that.) Other things that are still irritating are the impossibility of focus-follows-mouse and the single menu bar at the top of the screen.

Anyway, I'm really happy with the Mac now and it's great how nice things like fonts, functioning accelerated video drivers, and general work-out-of-the-box-ness are. I'd definitely buy another.

I highly recommend Screenflow as a replacement for Camtasia.

iShowU HD might be a suitable replacement for Camtasia.

Yes.

YES

I've used both and find OS X preferable. For me it's really OS X vs. Linux, and I like OS X because you get so much shiny stuff, you can run consumer software on it, and it's not really that much work to make OS X really really hacker-centric.

YMMV.

Anyway, in terms of the question, workflow, yes, overwhelming improvements in workflow. You get all the shiny goodies of a consumer GUI OS and all the power-user magic of Unix. I'm much, much faster writing code on my Mac than I was on Windows - better editors, imho, and a much better command line.

hacker-centric?

Why doesn't anyone ever mention andLinux as an option? I have it installed on my over-a-year-old vista laptop with 2 gigs of ram and it runs great (I have a bash terminal window, photoshop cs3, dreamweaver, intype, and firefox open right now). I program with Rails nearly every day on this machine, using the terminal for all of my scripting needs and have never run into a problem. All I really need from Linux is the command line anyways...

Are you running Linux in a VM or dual-boot?

In short, no.

no, you are just trading an "uncool" closed platform that bends you over for an apparently "cool" one. their hardware is unimpressive commodity stuff, and i don't even think osx is interesting. if you can't figure out ubuntu, maybe developing software isn't for you. the day is coming when people will reject steve jobs psyco-level control freak pointless upgrade cycle and macs will be uncool again...just get out ahead of the trend now and look that much hipper later.

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