Comment by jokoon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jokoon | Hacker News Reader

if only they could serve warfare tested windows drivers.

I can't believe when people tell me my macbook pro 2009 with 2GB of ram is a "little too cheap" for mavericks or xcode 5. I can't even install windows on it because the superdrive is busted. I managed to install ubuntu, but there's ALWAYS a wifi/touchpad/heating issue.

Not to mention the hardship getting some C++ project working on xcode. (like ogre for instance). Making games on it seems to be a pain since you need to find a way to move around the displaylink.

I won't try to get a mac again. If a computer cannot be nice enough to build C++ projects with, I won't use it. You all are working on web based apps, but I'm clearly not a customer of this.

preference:

1. windows laptop 2. linux laptop 3. mac laptop

It's a shame because the hardware is great, but since apple force feeds you with itunes and doesn't really want you using windows, I'll pass. Their hardware is dedicated to their OSX thingy, and I don't want it.

Then don't use xcode as your C++ IDE. Xcode is for developing in the Apple ecosystem, but there are plenty of other options on OSX if that's not your target. Nearly every C++ toolchain and editor available to you in linux is available in OSX as well through brew/macports(/fink).

Also windows can be installed from USB nearly as easily as ubuntu.

> Then don't use xcode as your C++ IDE.

if the native IDE is not adequate, I don't think I'll find anything else. Most native apple things are cocoa-centric.

also the last version of Ogre3D engine is not even available, because of XCode and how apple builds its stuff. I hate hacking through galaxies of makefiles. I've lost patience :) It's just exhausting to rebuild everything everytime there's a xcode or OSX upgrade. I'm done. Microsoft supports backward compatility much better.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like Apple really focuses on any development outside of their platforms (iOS, OS X). It has naturally become a popular choice for web design and development because of the strong graphic design user base. Over time, the community has built a lot of great tools for web dev on the mac, though.

"Their hardware [being] dedicated to their OSX thingy" is actually a great thing for every day use. Their software (OS as well as other pieces) can be testing against very specific hardware and think that is a big part of why it is pretty reliable. That and being unix-based is a big win over windows IMO.

I tried to use OS X as my main OS, but I just couldn't get past what I considered "illogical" and "inconsistent" keyboard acceleration, keyboard navigation and user interactions.

For instance, in Windows and Gnome I can hunt through menus with the keyboard by simply press ALT and then the underlined letter of a menu (then use the arrow keys to look around and press ENTER or SPACE to pick one). This is consistent throughout those environments but on OS X you can't navigate like that, you have to memorize 2,000 hot-key combinations. Microsoft kind of ruined that nice feature with the "Ribbon" but the new keyboard navigation system for the ribbon is still more logical and consistent than what I've seen with OS X.

That's why I like to just put my Unix dev environment in a VM on Windows. I get the best desktop experience (for me) and when I need it, I have Unix.

Most of us define 'better' as 'what I'm accustomed to', me included. Explains the longevity of weird old editors etc.

But to be truly objective, there'd have to be some argument about ease of learning a system, or even ease of adjusting as the system changes. By that measure, Windows' switch to the 'ribbon' has disrupted a large community accustomed to menu interation etc. I'd call it a big step backward.

The ribbon is definitely a step backwards for people like me. (It works great on a touch device though - yay! for all those people not using Windows on touch devices...)

I decided to advance my vim skills recently though and I'm certainly glad that it got evangelized so much around here because it's pretty awesome for people who like the keyboard.

With my Mac in repairs, the most painful thing about using anything else (currently Ubuntu) is the mess of keyboard shortcuts.

On Mac, everything starts with Cmd. And it's like the Windows key, in that it doesn't conflict with anything in your terminal or elsewhere. (On that note, the Windows key is the most underused key ever.)

You're right - the only Windows key shortcuts I really use are Win+E (opens file explorer), Win+P (switch 2ndary display on/off/make-primary) and Win+Arrow-Key (snap window to edge or maximize/minimize.)

FWIW - There's an app call CheatSheet[1] for OS-X that will display the foreground app's shortcut keys if you hold down Option for a few seconds.

[1] http://www.cheatsheetapp.com/CheatSheet/

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