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Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

More like '5 reasons why Mac is no longer impractical for developers'. I think the only absolute benefit it offers (which is driving some people to it but curiously isn't mentioned) is being able to develop iPhone/iPod apps.

Not hating on the Mac, or anything - competition is a good thing. I just didn't care for the evangelista tone.

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The majority of this article seems to be the standard " OS X is Great!" talking points.

In my opinion, the real reason that developers switch to OS X is so that they can develop software for apple products (or in the case of web development, develop websites that are OS X friendly).

IMO, The real reason "most" developers switched to mac has more to do with hosting websites on Linux/UNIX than anything else. A true UNIX command prompt is a powerful tool for dealing with large numbers of other UNIX computers and computer files.

SSH + vi and suddenly your not just using your system but any computer your connecting to. The classic windows advantage of all those legacy systems stopped being relevant when many developers went back to notepad to update whatever new language they happened to be using today.

PS: The article mentioned Terminal, but it forgot a lot of the other out of the box UNIX tools like SSH / diff.

On the topic of ssh/dealing with other computers, doesn't PuTTY do that pretty well on windows? Though I may be misunderstanding the advantage you're pointing out.

Putty is just a ssh client. Terminal is a shell that has access to ssh so you can access your own files or redirect ports easily through a remote ssh session(you can do this with putty but you must go through some hoops, ie. loopback device and setting up some ports in the putty config), etc.... I love the tabbed terminals that terminal provides. I can ssh into a work computer and have my local shell in another tab. Very seamless.

That why I install Cygwin on every Windows box I touch.

None of the "advantages" sounded so hot to me except the desktop effects, which I haven't bothered to enable in Ubuntu anyway. I use a Mac regularly, and the interface hasn't stopped irritating me. I hate the stoplight window controls, and I hate using Command instead of Control. I love Apple's hardware design, but the software feels... obtuse. And apathetic. Like it has a hard time paying attention to me and doesn't feel like being helpful anyway. (I bought my Mac for four reasons: to try iPhone development, to run Adobe Lightroom, because I love my iPhone, and because I wanted to see what the fuss was all about.)

I'm positively drooling for Apple to release a tablet PC, though. Gimme gimme gimme please.... The multitouch stuff on the iMacs looks extremely cool, and you just know Apple will nail the tablet.

There is absolutely no proven market for a 'tablet PC'. None whatsoever. Despite them being available for years in various forms.

Because they're all terrible. They're all just small laptops with touch-sensitive screens and a few touch-screen software features. I've been itching for a tablet PC since at least 2003, but I've never bought one because I want one that doesn't suck. (Wait, I did buy a Nokia n800... sigh.) Apple's tablet won't suck, because Apple will 1) put a lot of work into creating a UI that works well with the form factor, and 2) have the guts to cut hardware features if that's what it takes to create a decent product.

Funny, I sound like an Apple fanboy, even though I came here to express my irritation with OSX. Right now, if somebody gave me an iMac, my first impulse would be to install Linux on it, but you just have to look at the non-Apple phones released since the iPhone launched to see that Apple is on a completely different plane when it comes to smaller devices. I can't wait to see what they do with tablets, though perhaps it would hurt their prestige to release a novel product for a small market... they wouldn't be able to keep the hype within reasonable bounds, and expectations wouldn't be met.

The iPhone works, because it's small enough to hold with one hand, while you type with the other.

I can't see anything much bigger working TBH. At some stage, you need a keyboard to type on, and to hold the screen at a good angle. And then it's not portable so you may as well have a netbook/laptop.

I typically move my 15" ThinkPad around by grabbing about (checking...) four inches of the corner with one hand. I admit it's a strain to hold it up and type with the other hand, but a tablet would be lighter and more compact. The ThinkPad is heavy and has a long lever arm.

Just like there was no market for a touch phone before the iPhone, or no market for portable media players before iPod.

By no I mean, lesser, much lesser.

OK, Go for it. What's the use case for a tablet?

There are lots of daily uses where it would be ideal to have a decent-sized screen and no keyboard. Web surfing in bed (or lying on the couch,) playing simple games in bed, using recipes in the kitchen, videos and news on the road (like an iPhone without the iStrain.) Put a notch in the back so you can hang it on a wall, and it's even more versatile (and even better in the kitchen.) Plus it would be a nice compromise for traveling when the iPhone isn't enough -- have a bluetooth keyboard in your hotel room for blogging and email, carry a nice thin tablet during the day.

Actually, that last scenario pretty much sums it up. It's a small laptop with no hinge, with the keyboard reduced to an optional accessory that you can leave in your briefcase, or in your hotel room, or on your bedside table, or wherever, except when you actually want to bother with it.

Of course, most tablets fail by integrating the keyboard, keeping the hinge, and not providing a decent touch-screen interface. Really decent tablet interfaces have been limited to special-purpose applications for medical entry, warehouse inventory, GPS, or what-not.

The kitchen is the only use case I can see working. A netbook/laptop is far more usable in bed than a tablet would be.

>> "have a bluetooth keyboard in your hotel room for blogging and email"

The bottom bit of a laptop isn't just there for the keyboard, it's there to hold the display at a nice viewing angle. So you'd need some extra device for that as well.

Maybe it'd take off, who knows...

I'd rather hold the screen with my hand. I hate the way my laptop jiggles around every time I shift my weight when I'm sitting on the couch. Plus, when I'm reading in bed I like to turn from my back to one side to the other side. A laptop kind of pins you into one position. Not really, of course, but it makes you want to stay perfectly still even when you start to get uncomfortable.

You can switch the stoplight coloring on the buttons via system preferences to all-grey. That worked for me. Also, you can switch key bindings.

Not at all. I think a lot would rather concentrate on building stuff, than trying to get their wifi to work in linux, or managing the latest updates that have broken gcc for some reason.

For most, I think OS X is linux but without the maintenance.

Not true, Apple breaks core features in minor security releases all the time. Most recently, they broke the system Perl. I don't use OS X for anything important anymore (only for watching videos on my TV), but back when I did use a Mac for work, things randomly broke for no reason all the time. (That doesn't even include the nightmare that is ports / fink / whatever, required to get modern versions of UNIX programs.) I use Debian unstable now, and it is a lot more reliable than OS X, for me anyway.

Also, the whole getting wifi to work thing is mostly solved now. All the wireless cards are Intel, and Intel pours a lot of money into making them work really well with Linux. So you pop in your Ubuntu or Moblin CD, install, and right click the little icon, just like on any other OS.

Basically, OS X sucks, Linux sucks, and Windows sucks. So there is no real reason to get super-excited about any of them -- they are all basically the same, with Linux marginally better in a few cases.

>> "Apple breaks core features in minor security releases all the time."

I've used OS X for 2 1/2 years now, and can't remember anything breaking :/

Before that I used linux on the desktop for maybe 8 years, and things broke every week. (Redhat, mandrake, gentoo, ubuntu)

(Redhat, mandrake, gentoo, ubuntu)

Well there's your problem :)

Try Debian stable, and let me know if it ever breaks. (Debian unstable definitely does break, but not very often, and it's usually easy to fix. It works for me.)

If it aint broke...

As I say, 2 1/2 years on OS X, and I don't miss linux on the desktop one bit.

I had one of those without beeing a dev even. Civ4 stopped working after a Quicktime update.

I agree with this. All three operating systems have their flaws, so it basically boils down to preference and ease of development. If you are developing a Windows application, you should develop in Windows; for Apple applications, use OS X; Linux applications, use Linux. One advantage of Apple platforms, which the article mentions, is that that they allow running of all 3 operating systems.

> Most recently, they broke the system Perl.

Incorrect. Security Update 2009-001 replaced a Perl component which some users had (inappropriately) upgraded themselves, causing breakage for those users. The "system Perl" worked fine as long as you hadn't touched it, though.

: The inappropriate part was touching the Perl install in /System. You don't do that.

What if you need the upgraded functionality?

Then you should have placed the updated copy in your home directory, or in /usr/local, rather than replacing the one in /System. This is really no different than if you'd updated the Perl install in /usr on a Linux system, and the package manager later replaced that with an updated copy - in both cases, the vendor's supposed to be the only one touching those files.

And those "OSX is great" talking points annoyed me a lot.

http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/five-reasons-why-thi...

Agreed. I tried, did not like. At least it is a viable solution.

My only big reason is because mac is a *nix under the hood. So I get all the nice scripting benefits and never have to deal with the windows shell scripting for dev purposes.

The hardware issue is a BIG fucking deal. I just got a mac mini at work for testing. ONLY ONE VIDEO PORT! So no dual screen. My PC? Oh no dual output? no problem a hundred bucks will solve that problem. To make it worse I can't upgrade my mini with a new card, gota get a new mini. (sorry just got = right before their new model was released)

So yea mac is a pain still. I want a nice motherboard like a PC has, and a nice case like a PC has, and as powerful/weak as a mac mini, for the mac mini price. If I need a new card Ill buy one. But that's not available, gota get me the $2000 power mac.

Now we are seeing the clueless wannbe, 3rd-time around "Why Developers are Switching to Mac" articles. I think this is analogous to your mother joining Facebook and "When taxi drivers are giving stock tips, it's time to sell."

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