A long time between Macs | Hacker News Reader

A long time between Macs

blog.jedwhite.com

12 pointsjedwhite29 comments

One coder's story of why he switched back to Macs after years on PCs, Windows and Linux.

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How many times can the exact same stupid article be written? Congratulations, you use a Mac. This is hacker news?

Yeah, I like my Mac and all, but I wish no one would ever submit one of these stupid articles again.

if you cant say something nice...

" Pitching on a PC sends a subtle signal of dowdiness and "unsexy"."

I know this is just this guy's opinion, but does anyone else here share it? I don't.

I do think that Keynote blows PowerPoint out of the water, but I think it would blow PowerPoint out of the water on any platform.

I think it's more than just Keynote though. Keynote blows Powerpoint away because it is philsophically different, and that philosophy is inherited from its operating environment and the DNA of the company that made it.

I do. The last of my Microsoft friends switched recently. A lot of the best .Net development now happens in VMWare, believe it or not.

Although rather than "dowdy and unsexy" I'd say the signal you're sending by pulling out a PC laptop is that you either can't evaluate good design or you don't see it as a priority.

> the signal you're sending by pulling out a PC laptop is that you either can't evaluate good design or you don't see it as a priority.

You could also argue that by pulling out a Mac laptop, you're sending out the signal that good design is the only thing you're capable of evaluating.

I agree that Macs are good-looking machines, and that OSX is aesthetically superior to Windows and Gnome/KDE, but surely that shouldn't be the main driver for choosing an OS or a machine over another?

There isn't a day that I don't wish my Linux desktop looked better, but I still use that over the Mac because I find it a better development environment, even if it doesn't give me a warm glow inside each time I look at it.

I've been using Ubuntu as my main development environment as a while (mostly Eclipse with Rails/Python and still a bit of Java), but having started using a Mac for my notebook again, I have to say that as a development machine it is pretty sweet. Everything is well integrated and you spend a lot less time keeping the environment running.

Now I know with Gnome/KDE that half the appeal IS that you have real control over the environment. But as a result you spend a lot of time futzing around setting it up the way you want, and a lot of time managing just keeping things running together.

I still haven't had time to figure out all the things that broke after moving to 9.0.4 (like Google Gadgets and Flash in Firefox for a start).

Don't get me wrong cause none of that is hard and I love playing with that stuff as much as the next guy. But there is no question that you spend a lot less time worrying about those things (because you like it or not) coding on a Mac.

If the pitch is for a great product that people want to use, does it really matter if it's on a Mac or Windows laptop? Substance is more important than style.

I use PowerPoint, but I design my decks using the principle of "austere minimalism". Each slide makes one point with the minimal amount of material. Keynote wasn't better or worse as a presentation tool when I had a Mac.

First it's annoying that people call Apple computers "macs".

Second isn't this more of a case of devs picking "*nix laptop that doesn't suck" rather than choosing an apple.

Especially all those guys from Apple :)

Anyone else made the switch recently and had any problems with it?

I use a Mac at work, and I have, essentially, three problems.

The biggest problem as I run up against it all the time is the mouse tracking. I tried switching mice, Microsoft's Intellimouse software for Mac, and finally settled for a custom setting widget that lets me boost the mouse speed to 10x (!) that allowed by the default controls. This is a bit of a personal thing, but I like sensitive mice, and I dislike needing to move my arm to cross the screen. The weird acceleration curve that I am stuck with is very frustrating.

The second problem is Mac support. If I find something on the internet, it usually has a Windows version. And a Linux port. And maybe someone ported it to Mac. It's not always a problem, but it happens often enough that I don't want to reinvent the wheel to try a new program and I wish I were using another OS.

The third problem is cost- $1200 for 8GB of RAM? http://store.apple.com/us/memorymodel/ME_IMAC_AL_20_G3 There are times when you don't need to go to Apple for hardware, but when you do, you get taken to the cleaners, and that's after spending quite a bundle on the software.

You can buy RAM for Macs from non-Apple sources for much cheaper.

The multi-touch trackpad is a real boon for browsing and reading, but for anything pixel-related I find having an external optical mouse is useful still. Price is still the big issue all round - especially as PC hardware just keeps dropping.

8GB of RAM isn't exactly a great example though, 4GB DDR3 SODIMMs are expensive nearly everywhere. Going through Crucial is still almost $1k.

http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=836DF3A...

After trying half a dozen solutions to fix the odd mouse acceleration curve, I found an app called SteerMouse that actually does the trick. If you're one of those odd people who's sensitive to this (like me) I'd definitely recommend it. http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/

I miss the ability to maximize windows. When you first switch to a Mac and try to ask for help with this on a Mac forum, you get responses like:

"You can drag a window to the full size of the screen, but more often than not you simply won't bother. It's rarely helpful to have a window at full screen anyway. I know your mind is screaming "No!" at this, but try it for a couple of days and you'll see for yourself. Just drag a window to the size you want it to be, and leave it at that. "

"If a web page only uses 60% of the width of your screen, what's the use in having the window at 100% -- covering important desktop icons, other windows, etc.

Windows uses an "application-centric" approach to windowing, while Mac OS X uses a "document-centric" approach to windowing -- where no one window should monopolize the entire screen."

"On the Mac, because of the universal menubar you really don't have to take over the entire screen since you'll always have access to the menu at the top of the screen, unlike the other desktop environments that have them per window which can get confusing for some users."

"Another reason for not going fullscreen is because it makes it easier to drag and drop components from one application into another. "

---

So yeah, apparently I don't want to maximize a window, I only think I do. However, software like WriteRoom (http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom), a full screen text editor receives terrific reviews:

"WriteRoom — Distraction free writing. For people who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter, but live in the digital world. WriteRoom is a full-screen writing environment. Unlike the cluttered word processors you're used to, WriteRoom is just about you and your text."

"So yeah, apparently I don't want to maximize a window, I only think I do."

You need to be re-programmed to accept the Macintosh way.

Well, I think we all have to accept as a basic precept that Mac is a cult, and once you do that then this all makes sense :)

You may like Mega Zoomer http://ianhenderson.org/megazoomer.html

Personally though I agree with most of the comments you quoted. I've only found fullscreen mode useful for cutting out distractions in apps like Terminal.

Lots of keyboard/keystroke mapping differences.

Home/End do what they're suppose to instead of what everyother computer platform I've ever used does.

Page up / Page down, seriously WTF! Why would anyone ever want them to work that way.

Various other oddities like ctrl arrow

Half the typical ctrl bindings are Apple key which is in the alt-key position.

Window manager issues:

No consistent focus follows mouse. No raise on hover

No way to get select to copy -> middle button to paste(well you can get middle button to paste but then that is only thing in all apps your middle button will ever do.

I'm getting use to the multiple desktop ("spaces") but it still lacks features I've come to expect under Linux.

Can't for the life of me figure out how to get an icon that will open term and ssh into a particular box.

"Lots of keyboard/keystroke mapping differences. Home/End do what they're suppose to instead of what everyother computer platform I've ever used does. Page up / Page down, seriously WTF! Why would anyone ever want them to work that way. Various other oddities like ctrl arrow"

You can customize this if you like. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=448218

"Half the typical ctrl bindings are Apple key which is in the alt-key position."

You get used to it eventually. I've come to like this more than what having only the control key for most mappings because it allows for more consistent shortcuts (e.g.:, ⌘ is normally used for App/OS shortcuts, while Ctrl is used for Emacs/text-editing shortcuts in all apps)

"No consistent focus follows mouse. No raise on hover"

You can use this command to enable it for Terminal:

  defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse -string YES

For other apps, I found this with a quick Google search http://atomicbird.com/mondomouse (haven't tried it myself so I can't say how good it is).

"Can't for the life of me figure out how to get an icon that will open term and ssh into a particular box."

Try this:

  vim logmein
  i#!/bin/bash
  ssh my-box
  <esc>ZZ
  chmod a+x logmein

Speaking of that, here's a nice app for automatically inputting passphrases for ssh: http://www.sshkeychain.org/

Wow, what? Automatic pass-phrase inputting? Isn't that just ssh-copy-id? Why not use something that's already there?

Actually now that I look at it it appears that Leopard does this now with ssh-add -K.

You are correct, about 50-75% of the issues have work arounds.

I've done some keybindings.

> You get used to it eventually.

You don't if daily you use osX, XP, Gnome. two of those can be made 90-95% similar (GUI wise) the third only about 70%.

I've done that for Terminal. Amazingly I use more software than just Terminal ;). I've googled for hours, couple people who spent inordinate amount of time on this have documented that there is no, and can be no "No consistent focus follows mouse. No raise on hover" due to the way in which the framework works.

A bash script is not an "icon".

> A bash script is not an "icon".

At least on my machine, executables without an extension turn into icons that are run in Terminal.

I'm buying a mac very soon.

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