Concerning the price I don't think it is a strong argument. I have never been a mac user, but I have friends who had quite old macs that were still performant enough after 8 years for running recent software. They paid more, but it lasted more.
Also for me spending time on a computer _is_ my job, so I don't mind spending some money on this for having good and professional material. I just bought a Dell Precision 5520 — 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM extendable to 32GB, UHD touchscreen, 8-10h battery lifetime, professional series, linux-compatiable http://dell.com/developer — that cost me at least as much as the equivalent by Apple I guess. But with such laptop I can be productive and I'm probably fine for years to come. It is worth investing in your professional tools IMHO.
>but I have friends who had quite old macs that were still performant enough after 8 years for running recent software. They paid more, but it lasted more.
The article is about building a desktop, I do not see how building a desktop with latest components and maybe getting double RAM and HDD with the same money you pay for a Mac will last less then the Mac.
Sure buying the cheapest laptop will last less then buying an expensive laptop.
I'm a long time OS X user. Macbook Pro as my work laptop and Windows 10 at home as a gaming/browsing desktop. Had Windows 8/7/Vista/XP/2000 as my home desktops prior to that, I actually dig building them. I don't get the drama. Yes, for vast majority of the users Windows 10 is pretty fungible for OS X. What do the majority of people do? That's right, launch the browser, maybe open Outlook. Would I use one for work given a choice? Nah, cygwin just doesn't cut it for me as a substitute for having a real UNIX underneath, especially since 50% of my work day is in terminal. Could I pull it off if I was forced to? Probably. It'd take awhile to set up all my keyboard shortcuts a la Quicksilver, find a substitute for Spotlight, sort out all the editors and such, but it's doable. Nothing is so critical these days as to be a complete show stopper. Just pick what works for you and stop having buyers remorse.
> cygwin just doesn't cut it for me as a substitute for having a real UNIX underneath
Windows 10 has WSL, which replaces cygwin. It's a wonderful compromise which lets me can execute unmodified ELF binaries on Windows 10. Realistically, this means I can install almost anything via apt, do bulk file management using scripts, use native linux rsync binaries for backups, etc.
WSL is a great idea and I think Microsoft is onto something super cool with WSL, but after a week of serious use I found that it was not a viable replacement for cygwin. The major problem with WSL right now is that you can't effectively edit files in both Windows and WSL. For me this was very limiting because I could not interact with a git repo via WSL and then also open the files from that repo with a Windows IDE. In cygwin this would be no problem though.
I don't know how long ago you used it but that's exactly what I'm doing right now. The files just have to be on the Windows file system. I edit with Visual Studio Code and use WSL (Ubuntu) to manage the repo.
From linked post:
Note: Your "Linux files" are any of the files and folders under %localappdata%\lxss - which is where the Linux filesystem - distro and your own files - are stored on your drive
It does say later on that storing files on windows filesystem and accessing it via /mnt/c is ok
I'm not the person you replied to, but I use WSL regularly on the Windows machines I interact with (and have been since it launched via the Insiders program). As others mentioned, the key is keeping all of your files in the Windows filesystem (/mnt/c in WSL).
When I set up a new machine, the first thing I do after installing WSL is to remove all directories from my home folder on the WSL filesystem, then symlink the directories in my home folder on the Windows filesystem. This way I can avoid accidetally saving files within the WSL filesystem, but don't have to prepend all paths with /mnt/c/Users/me (almost all my work occurs within my home directory).
There were a couple of very minor hiccups in its early days, but for the last year I haven't had any issues with it at all and it certainly makes developing on Windows a whole lot more convenient.
It also has powershell, where everything has help and examples, the naming is consistent, and it neatly separates content from presentation so you pipe to 'select' and 'where' and don't scrape with regexs all the time. WSL is great if you don't want to learn anything but you can happily do everything you need in the powershell / Terminus.
The combination of Virtualbox and Vagrant is very powerful. It ends up being my daily driver for anything I require as far as Linux environments are concerned.
I have been told that the combination of Docker and Windows 10 / Hyper-V is mature enough to invest serious time and effort into learning it. But I haven't done this yet.
These type of posts are only about how _they_ feel using something and don't go into any useful level of detail on how they do things exactly. Just tell or show me how you do it, and I will decide if it's for me.
It reminds me of commercials that show two people having fun on a boat in the middle of the ocean. After 10 seconds it turns out it's about perfume. What? The marketing trope of "don't sell a product, sell a promise".. Please miss me with that.
Does the presence of the pattern mean anything? To be fair, albeit admittedly whataboutist, the anti-Windows blog posts are fairly formulaic as well. I'm not sure the pattern is worth pointing out, unless you're saying there isn't much to refute that hasn't been done before, to which I agree but the frequency of angst alone may have value.
haha these articles just tend to make you (me) resort to the same kind of complaining really. I agree, while not being most informative, I wished the author got some relief and insights. Building your own PC is so nice tho, you should start with this (?). Just use what works for you I'd say. I have difficulties with win/osx/linux/.... So I use all of them, according to my needs. This is not ideal, nor idealism, nor practical. Maybe my mode of using is best described as 'opportunistic computing'. Therefore, I will never make a hard switch, I remain in flux but contribute where I can, willingly or not ;(.
Isn't that telling in some ways though? Apple has made some wrong steps lately, in some people's eyes. Will there eventually be enough people changing to make Apple get concerned? We'll have to wait and see.
I'd argue that they're no different in all honesty. It's taken them a while, but the likes of Lenovo and Dell have upped their game, so what were once niggles with Apple's offereings appear worse. I've been an Apple user for close to 30 years and the issues we're seeing are nothing in comparison to the Performa days.
As for removing and changing ports etc., they've always done it. Long may it continue as it more often than not forces industry changes for the better.
People won't abandon Apple in droves unless the media start trashing them to the same degree they've been praising them. They've effectively given Apple billions in free advertising over the years, so I'd guess it would take a lot of trashing.
1) Introduce myself by explaining how emotionally attached I was to the first Macs I bought
2) Complain about price
3) Complain about price some more
4) Did I mention price?
5) Windows has caught up to MacOS (which assumes Mac was ever ahead of Windows to begin with)
6) I'm an "x", and I do "y". I can do "y" just as well on Windows
7) Since I can "y" on Windows, let me bring up again how Macs are expensive and how I shouldn't have to drop that kinda of money for one