For most purposes the leading three (including minor variations thereof) are all good enough to get the job done. OSs have essentially become commodities, just like web browsers and relational databases. Who cares. Let's move on to something that really matters for application development.
Coding Horror: Douchebaggery
31–39 of 39 posts
Re: Coding Horror: Douchebaggery
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny, because I remember that before Apple switched to Intel, the only reason I could see to buy one was that the machine/OS looked cool . Now their hardware is considered superior (at least for laptops), so all the nerds love them, but I still have the stigma in my head that anyone using a mac is just a trendy hippy (or hipster dufus, as you put it) trying to show off how stylish he is. I'm slowly giving up on…
I don't think it's accurate to say Macs win on hardware. There are clearly some Windows OEMs who make hardware that's generally better (Lenovo for instance) though I'll give Apple credit and say that they're pretty good.
I've yet to see (in a store near me) a laptop that even comes close in features with what a MacBook Pro offers and that doesn't look like it was designed by monkeys.
If you know of such a laptop, would you mind posting a link to it? I would definitely take it into consideration if I finally decide to get rid of my MBP.
Re: Coding Horror: Douchebaggery
#33Y Combinator is (we hope) visited mostly by hackers. The proportions of OSes are: Windows 66.4%, Macintosh 18.8%, Linux 11.4%, and FreeBSD 1.5%. The Mac number is a big change from what it would have been five years ago. ( http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html ) The percentage of Mac-using Y Combinator founders appears to be even higher. Actually the majority, I think.
I'm guessing lots of people access HN from work, skewing results towards Windows?... (I don't doubt Windows would still be quite dominant though).
You're probably right. Personally I refuse to work anywhere that would require me to use a Windows desktop for development.
Re: Coding Horror: Douchebaggery
#34Douchebaggery, indeed. In my experience, the people who get tweaked when someone like DHH expresses a strong opinion, are usually the same ones to suck the creativity and excitement out of any room they enter. Unless you're planning to work with DHH, what do you care what he thinks about your laptop? Learn to deal.
when someone like DHH expresses a strong opinion It's not a strong opinion. He's saying something stupid and stupidly arrogant: I would have a hard time imagining hiring a programmer who was still on Windows for 37signals. If you don't care enough about your tools to get the best, your burden of proof just got a lot heavier. Whatever. I could find you some old fogeys who wouldn't hire you because you didn't love Open…
I'm fairly convinced that anybody who thinks Windows is a better desktop machine has never used Ubuntu.
Just think of how long it would take you to install XP from scratch on a machine and get all the drivers, service packs, updates and tools you need installed. Then imagine being able to get all of that done in under 45 minutes.
Imagine having better eye candy and performance than OSX or Vista on hardware that is less than half the price.
Throw in the benefits of developing on the same platform you deploy on. Welcome to Ubuntu!
Re: Coding Horror: Douchebaggery
#35Y Combinator is (we hope) visited mostly by hackers. The proportions of OSes are: Windows 66.4%, Macintosh 18.8%, Linux 11.4%, and FreeBSD 1.5%. The Mac number is a big change from what it would have been five years ago. ( http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html ) The percentage of Mac-using Y Combinator founders appears to be even higher. Actually the majority, I think.
I'm surprised FreeBSD is that high...
Re: Coding Horror: Douchebaggery
#36I guess the main issue is, people who are too much into free software may sometimes loose their grasp of reality
You frequent slashdot, this site, the serverside and number of other FOSS wikis and blogs, and you start to think that most ppl would agree, that x is better than y and that MS is evil
But in real life, most ppl havent heard of slahdot, or arc and think python is a myth
And this is why DHH for them will definitely sound like a douchebag, and to be fair, if you compare RoR to a product like Sharepoint (yes you can use RoR to create stuff you can create with Sharepoint) if Sharepoint can do it, Sharepoint will be light years ahead of RoR.
Re: Coding Horror: Douchebaggery
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
when someone like DHH expresses a strong opinion It's not a strong opinion. He's saying something stupid and stupidly arrogant: I would have a hard time imagining hiring a programmer who was still on Windows for 37signals. If you don't care enough about your tools to get the best, your burden of proof just got a lot heavier. Whatever. I could find you some old fogeys who wouldn't hire you because you didn't love Open…
I'm fairly convinced that anybody who thinks Windows is a better desktop machine has never used Ubuntu. Just think of how long it would take you to install XP from scratch on a machine and get all the drivers, service packs, updates and tools you need installed. Then imagine being able to get all of that done in under 45 minutes. Imagine having better eye candy and performance than OSX or Vista on hardware that is le…
Ubuntu's a fine OS, but it's not really to be compared to Windows or OS X for general purpose computing, mostly because it's not popular enough to merit serious 3rd party investment.
Wake me up when I can apt-get install photoshop-cs3
PS: I code all day on Ubuntu.
Re: Coding Horror: Douchebaggery
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm fairly convinced that anybody who thinks Windows is a better desktop machine has never used Ubuntu. Just think of how long it would take you to install XP from scratch on a machine and get all the drivers, service packs, updates and tools you need installed. Then imagine being able to get all of that done in under 45 minutes. Imagine having better eye candy and performance than OSX or Vista on hardware that is le…
Ubuntu's a fine OS, but it's not really to be compared to Windows or OS X for general purpose computing, mostly because it's not popular enough to merit serious 3rd party investment. Wake me up when I can apt-get install photoshop-cs3 PS: I code all day on Ubuntu.
try apt-get install gimp :)
Re: Coding Horror: Douchebaggery
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's accurate to say Macs win on hardware. There are clearly some Windows OEMs who make hardware that's generally better (Lenovo for instance) though I'll give Apple credit and say that they're pretty good.
I've yet to see (in a store near me) a laptop that even comes close in features with what a MacBook Pro offers and that doesn't look like it was designed by monkeys. If you know of such a laptop, would you mind posting a link to it? I would definitely take it into consideration if I finally decide to get rid of my MBP.
I'm a pretty big fan of Lenovo Thinkpads (don't think they sell their good line in stores). Most Mac users I know who've owned both agree that Lenovo kicks ass in terms of hardware. You probably won't like the design aesthetic as much though, but in terms of PCs, they're the top dogs right now.
The T series is probably the closest competitor to the MBP.