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Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

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Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#671

Post by tnone »

freehunter wrote: post #502
Razengan wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Option+Up? Nope that selects the next folder up. Control+Up? No, that made all of my windows do something weird that I don't know what that is. Ah, it's Command+Up. In macOS, generally: ⌘ Command = App-specific shortcuts. The primary modifier key. ⌃ Control = Global shortcuts. App-specific shortcuts will not generally have Control as the sole modifier. ⌥ Option/Alt = Something to with the keyboard, selection, or se…

And most of your solutions are incredibly non-obvious, just like Cmd+Up. Right click on the folder icon in the title bar? Hold down option to change the right click menus? This is exactly what I'm talking about. Explorer is terrible but it's better than Finder because you don't need to read a manual or tweak the defaults in order to make it work in a predictable manner.

You can right click on the folder/document icon in the title bar in any app, and you can left click it to drag it. The icon, not the window. What's bizarre is how Windows has trained people to see icons as non interactive stickers instead of reactive proxies for the underlying object. The fact that many labels in Windows still don't update until you close and reopen the dialog is ridiculous, as is the continued use of "ok" "cancel" preferences.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#672

Post by anst »

The interesting thing is not only the article itself, but also the vote count here on HN. I can't stop thinking that professionals, once strategic target for Apple Computers, appear to be dumped by Apple Inc in favor of high-end consumers. It might be stock-wise OK, but it's a significant evolution. And if I care a little less about a breathtaking design and more about memory bus speed and GPU, soon I'll have to buy or build a PC. That's a pity.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#673

Post by netzone »

chm wrote: post #634
phaed wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on a beast of a machine that I could only dream of when I was stuck inside the Apple ecosystem. Granted there were a few of annoyances I had to find workarounds for, but nothing unsurmountable, we are devs after all. There was a lot I had to relearn the-windows-way, old habits I had to drop, new ones I had to adopt. But with experience comes expertise, and you get used to the new way. I now have that handicapped…

I understand your point about having to give an honest shot at Windows - I bought a Win10 license some months ago. It's fine. Until I wanted Emacs. Until I wanted to uninstall software. Until I wanted to setup a VM in VirtualBox (set up a Win2k12 Server VM tonight, and it simply failed to boot 3 consecutive times, then booted up in a "repair" mode, and then failed to boot again, just to boot up again after the 5-6th…

The only actual _windows_ problem of those you listed is that uninstalling software is a hassle. That said, it isn't a walk in the park on Mac either.

Can't use Emacs on Windows? Use any other editor. Can't setup VM in VirtualBox? A VirtualBox (maybe) problem

If you go on Windows expecting the same environment as OSX or whatever OS you're on, you're going to have a bad time. Booting up a fresh Debian install feels better because you know what to do already.

Booting up a fresh Debian install for anyone else is likely to be an almost impossible undertaking without reading some kind of guide, if you're wanting to setup a proper dev environment.

There are problems in any platform you chose, you're probably just subconsciously sidestepping those in your process of setting up, while the Windows ones stick out to you.

Example problems I notice on Mac that are fine on Windows; Docker is extremely slow, I need to run it inside a Linux VM for any kind of proper developing Window management is horrible Installing software

Now, I'm no advocate for any OS, I love running Arch Linux with i3wm, I love OSX and I love Windows. I don't see any reason at all to hate any OS, I can setup my dev environment on practically any platform I could want with little or no difference. The only things that change are the things around my environment, the simplicity of i3wm, the task bar on OSX etc.

In my opinion Linux is the outlier here, which provides the greatest change in environment, not a bad one mind you, just a difference. Mac and Windows are mostly interchangable, I can switch betweem them with little overhead.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#674

Post by rleigh »

akio wrote: post #325
CJefferson wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> macOS has never been more stable or developer friendly * I have to turn off gatekeeper to run unsigned apps. * I can't write into /bin or /usr on my own machine without flipping some magic option * I can't run gdb without some complicated signing dance I have to do every time I update it. * I can't run dtrace without rebooting and switching some secret flag off. I have to tell other people to turn they same thing o…

> I have to turn off gatekeeper to run unsigned apps. Right-click on the unsigned app and select "Open". You only need to do this the first time you run the app.

If you're a developer or tester, this means every single time. Because every start is the first time for that build...

Regarding the gdb signing, it's painful. Even more so is the privilege escalation--it's impossible to debug over ssh with gdb or lldb since the GUI prompt is on a different machine. Not having the prompt in the terminal where the debugger is being run is asinine. I had to switch to debugging on FreeBSD to avoid the pain of all this; it's madness.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#675

Post by reitanqild »

comex wrote: post #425
reitanqild wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In macOS, generally: Back when I used it, 5 years ago, it was a solid mess IMO: Jump one word forward or backwards? Windows/Linux: ctrl + arrow Mac: depends on which program you are currently using IIRC our resident Mac enthusiast explained that it was because some was written in carbon and some in cocoa or something but I don't care. Opening a file upload dialog box in one browser window would block other windows fr…

> Jump one word forward or backwards? > Windows/Linux: ctrl + arrow > Mac: depends on which program you are currently using I don't know what the deal is with Carbon - it was already dead 5 years ago, even Photoshop transitioned in 2010 - but everything I use uses option-arrow. Even the terminal. > Opening a file upload dialog box in one browser window would block other windows from the same browser forcing me to use…

Though to be honest, I don't understand why you needed to keep file upload dialogs open… why would you click the button to pop the dialog if you weren't intending to immediately select a file?

Would finding and copying a somewhat long folder path from the internal wiki qualify as a good reason?

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#676

Post by throwanem »

andai wrote: post #489
throwanem wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear it's Command-O.

Oh! Thanks. ⌘↓ works as well (and ⌘↑ to navigate to parent directory).

Yup. Finder's still not the greatest for keyboard navigation, to be sure, but these shortcuts do make it more comfortable to use.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#677

Post by dualogy »

saghm wrote: post #241
dualogy wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UI remains a convoluted Escher'esque nightmare. Totally disagree. I hopped from OS to OS for over a decade every other year or 3 (Win, OSX, Linuxes with various DMs/WMs) and it's always, always an adjustment period from "WTF is this" to "totally productive with this now", usually a matter of 1-2 weeks. Happy with Fedora/Gnome right now but have to say just Explorer itself beats Finder and Nautilus (rebranded as…

Linux file explorers (Nautilus, etc.) aren't exactly a pleasure to use, but then again, as a Linux user, if I have to open a GUI to do something with my files, I'm usually not happy about it in the first place.

> but then again, as a Linux user, if I have to open a GUI to do something with my files

Well I'm kinda visual/directional when it comes to files and other data structures. Even before I had a PC that could run Windows, ie living in MS-DOS and certainly being aware of navigating and operating the file-system via CLI, I much preferred the blocky-ASCII-GUIs (with menus and "windows" and panes, usually both mouse&keyboard-capable) of Borland, MS and many other software vendors incl "commander"-type fie managers. So.. probably a very longstanding "habit" thing.

The irony is in those days the "power-user" in general was adamant to get as quickly and as far away from the CLI as they can, even though they need to know some basics to automate script and launch stuff. Other than the odd GNU beard. Whereas the 2017 generation loves the CLI, would never have predicted such a thing! =) I've found time and again that once one operates with more than 1 or 2 dozen commands, it's disturbingly often `command --help` or `man command` first because there are only words (that vary from command to command) absent a program based on and supporting the rich set of commonly-used, de-facto-standard spatial gestures and interaction primitives that have evolved over the years.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#678

Post by rusk »

rimantas wrote: post #655
rusk wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but who wants to be some lame "fan"? We want the best tool for the job, too get that job done and we're willing to pay for it. The tools are no longer up to scratch or functioning as expected and we are voicing our concern.

People declaring they are fans? Did you even read the comment I was replying to? > The tools are no longer up to scratch or functioning as > expected and we are voicing our concern. That's bullshit and you know it.

I'm sorry I re-read GP and I'm still unclear what you're talking about. For as long as I've been using Apple it has always been because of the superior experience. Its with regret I have to say I am let down by (in particular) their software quality recently. I've gotten to the point where I'm fairly certain my next phone won't be an iPhone. I can't ... understand your line of reasoning .. that as an Apple user that means I should have some loyalty to them if what they're selling me doesn't fulfil my needs. I'm really interested in knowing where you're coming from but your snarky tone is making that difficult.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#679

Post by pjc50 »

ams6110 wrote: post #500
bradgessler wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too have become annoyed recently at really basic stuff not working in macOS, like I can't drag and drop a picture out of Photos app into Pixelmator to edit. In fact, dragging and dropping a picture out of Photos into any application is completely broken and doesn't work. Its as-if the Apple QA team no longer tests to make sure their applications play nice with each other in a way that has been fundamental to deskto…

At the same time, Windows 10 on my Dell laptop will heat up, spin the fan noticably and something called "Service Host: Local System" will consistently use 48 - 52% of CPU when the laptop is sitting doing nothing at all, with no applications open. I really can't understand what it's doing but have a hard time taking it seriously as an operating system.

Svchost.exe is a bonkers bit of design that goes against the simple, basic separation of concerns that OS-level processes provide by running multiple "services" as DLLs loaded into one process. This makes it extremely hard to pinpoint which service is faulty.

Apparently the magic runes are

    sc config wuauserv type= own

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#680

Post by Klover »

tnone wrote: post #670
bradgessler wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too have become annoyed recently at really basic stuff not working in macOS, like I can't drag and drop a picture out of Photos app into Pixelmator to edit. In fact, dragging and dropping a picture out of Photos into any application is completely broken and doesn't work. Its as-if the Apple QA team no longer tests to make sure their applications play nice with each other in a way that has been fundamental to deskto…

I recently discovered the detailed and amazingly accessible Aqua Human Interface Guidelines from their golden years have been completely gutted and replaced with the macOS guidelines that cover only the basics. They've abandoned years of accumulated wisdom. Luckily the old versions still float around in PDF form, the first few chapters are just good timeless UI design advice.

http://interface.free.fr/Archives/AquaHIGuidelines.pdf In case anyone else is interested.
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