Comment by nirvana | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nirvana | Hacker News Reader

The idea that Apple has her data all locked up is completely asinine. Frankly, saying so is dishonest. Apple has been careful to not do what she describes. It's hypocrtical to say that Linux which stores stuff in a directory structure is good while, Macs, which do the exact same thing with the data she's complaining about are "opaque"

Mountain Lion was the first of a once-a-year update cycle, and contrary to "not even talking about it anymore" they are updating it more frequently than ever. (we're due for the announcement of the next version in a few weeks.)

iTunes - Stores music you ripped in standards based format, AAC or MP3. It's easy to get at as it all lives in folders on your machine that aren't exactly opaque (it even organizes your music by artist, etc.) The database file is just an index of the music that keeps track of play counts, etc. You don't need that.

iPhoto - Again, stores all your images in standard formats. You can export the photos with all your changes if you want. They, again, live on your hard drive in a reasonable standard directory structure, and if you want you can export within iPhoto. Not only is there no opaque database it is QUITE trivial to get your data out.

iPhone Syncing- you don't need a machine to do that anymore you can do it online, including backing up to the cloud if you wish. Maybe because she deliberately hasn't updated its software it doesn't have that feature, but that's her choice, not a problem with the product.

iCloud- the idea that you'd have to be "crazy" to do that is BS.

Her saying the mac isn't good for development makes me question her tech skills. Either that or she just cant' be bothered to discover homebrew or to notice that all the open source projects support the mac for development these days.

Sigh, just another mindless, dishonest, ant-Apple rant.

The thing is, if Apple was so bad, you could bring up legitimate criticisms, rather than use "I can't be bothered to spend 2 minutes goggling therefore it cant' be done" type claims.

My tech skills are sub-par. 10 year old children code circles around me. I sob when I see a command line. Circular data structures make me dizzy.

I am a fraud.

Well, you did call a directory structure that is easy to navigate "opaque", and all of your criticisms are like those from someone who hasn't bothered to even try and figure out how to accomplish what you claim to want to do.

It would be better if your tech skills really were sub-par, because that would mean your integrity isn't called into question by the dishonesty in your post.

Ah, I'm disreputable and dishonest, too. Got it.

This sarcasm isn't adding much weight to your argument. Though I'll agree the parent's criticisms are unnecessarily rude (asinine?).

For my own needs I feel like I've been following a similar path as you were. I've consolodated more and more of what I do around Mac and Apple. However I don't yet see the problem as you appear to have.

I'm very happy with it as an all around platform and as a connected ecosystem. While far from my ideal vision of a tech enabled future, it still seems to be better than anything else I could cobble together today. As far as being a decent development environment I have few problems, I use Iterm2, zsh, tmux and VIm (not macvim) and rarely leave the shell for anything other than Chrome. Homebrew is great too (sort of reminds me of when I used Gentoo, but with far fewer hiccups).

I also love a few of the well designed apps that I use which are Mac only too. Sparrow is heaven sent for e-mail (too bad about the acquihire though). Fantastical + Google Calendar makes working with appointments better than anything I've ever used.

I know that I'm probably getting a bit locked in and one day I may pay a price for that. For now, I'll gamble on today's convenience amortized against tomorrows pain. When (and if) that day eventually comes, the entire technology ecosystem will have practically turned over, the decision I make will be different for reasons I couldn't even guess at today and I'll be (hopefully) a smarter person. Maybe it will be Linux I pick again, but I'm happy to kick that decision one down the road with Apple for a bit.

Apparently you just don't do well when people challenge your preconceived notions. Given that you seem completely unable to defend some of your assertions, it's understandable that most people write you off as plain wrong. It sucks too, because you seem to be a pretty good writer. Unfortunately, you don't take the time or effort to supplement your article with any meaningful technical detail.

> I needed a development box again. My Mac wasn't cutting it, and so my Linux box was returned to active duty.

Why? Absolutely no discussion of why OS X wasn't cutting it as a dev environment for you. Given that tons of devs use OS X machines as their primary coding machines, this just seems completely off the wall.

Then some more stereotypical ranting about how Apple's going off the rails with SJ gone, again without really any meaningful analysis of why this is true. Lion and 2010 era Apple products are supposedly terrible, yet you refuse to upgrade to versions that fix the problems. I'm sure that Linux never needs upgrades.

And then you just go off the rails. AAC files with XML based meta data is so proprietary and will SOOOO difficult to use in *nix, same with JPEGs. EVIL EVIL CUPERTINO! DUMB PHONES FOR EVERYONE! TAKE THAT GOOGLE! Life is so much freer now that you're using desktop linux again! No configuration ever! Everything's trivial!

Except everyone on HN knows that's a joke. You may be wonky, but you're not any meaningfully more "free" (who knows what that means) and now your sarcasm comes just comes across as hand-waving over the lack of any technical detail in your writing.

http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/09/13/opt/

and

http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/09/14/mac/

Lack of technical detail, that's me, all right.

Love the continued one-liners that really never answer the questions people are posing.

Namely, the HN posts that you link completely call it: Why do you insist on tackling any problem that you encounter with exactly the same toolchain and/or mindset that you would on Linux? And then, when inevitably different approaches are required, you complain that Apple/OS X (but usually any other BSD alternative) is terrible. Well, yes, when you go into any situation expecting failure, don't be surprised when it turns out that way.

I'm looking into your radar issue, but even you note that's been fixed. Won't be able to take advantage of those type of fixes if you never upgrade OS X, there will you? Can't go down that path that even you admit "you don't want to follow".

Thanks for the background read though. I guess you're pretty popular around these parts, must have missed it. I'll now know to avoid trollbait articles that rehash tired cliches about Apple's downfall, why Linux's way is always the best way (compromise be damned), and the lazy end users.

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