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The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

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Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#131

Post by h1d »

pbreit wrote: post #9

I just switched from Mac to Windows and had to move back. I cannot believe how miserable the Windows experience is. I mistakenly thought that since so much is browser-based, it's not a big deal. But literally every single little thing is slightly-to-much worse on Windows. Even stupid things like changing scroll direction, saving the 5 second preference for notifications to disappear, finding a wifi password, arrangin…

I feel sympathetic to Windows OS developers because the code must be a huge bloat to keep up with decades of backward compatibility and have to go through codes that many generations of people had written to even change a thing which made it pretty much stuck on its own weight.

But I can probably still be fine what OS I am on as long as it has quality third party apps but interestingly as a web dev, it's all on macOS and have no intention of moving away as it'll kill my smooth workflow.

Tried to check if I could use Windows for it a few years ago but figured it's a pain in a few hours. I can see MS is trying though, when they start including Linux in Windows. And I like their tooling very much, like VS Code and TypeScript but I don't see myself switching away at least for the next 5 years.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#132

Post by h1d »

euroclydon wrote: post #86
mdorazio wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows is somehow worse than it used to be. I have to agree. I use Windows probably 90% of the time, but I have to say it peaked with Windows 7 and started going downhill with 8. Now it's a game of "guess which config system has the option you need" + Microsoft forcing all kinds of things power users really should be able to disable.

I wonder if it’s because the older MS developers are retiring and the young blood don’t know how to keep the OS to the same quality.

I wouldn't blame the new people. You can't possibly keep up with a huge code base as Windows when you can't implement anything smart as it can always break something somewhere. You need huge tests just to change a small thing.

It would give them a better return to just make a new OS from scratch while keep supporting Windows for the next 10 years (maybe 20 for extended support) and let it slowly fade.

Or better yet, take the Edge route and use Linux underneath and change the appearance to MS' taste, have binary compatibility layer and call it Windows.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#134

Post by h1d »

spookybones wrote: post #84
rayiner wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing here. Sold my 2013 MBP and bought a Thinkpad X1 carbon. After a year of frustration, bought a used 2013 MBP. Windows is somehow worse than it used to be. There's two control centers for some reason. Much more notifications and intrusiveness. Taskbar auto-hide doesn't work consistently. Updates install without permission. The big thing is the apps. Apps are getting much less functional (just like how the Se…

I’m happy to see someone els lament a good alternative to Preview on windows.

I was using FoxIt PDF reader when I was using Windows mainly 15 years ago but does it not have enough compatibility?

Can't believe things haven't changed since then.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#135

Post by munchbunny »

jakub_g wrote: post #62

~20yrs Windows user and die-hard anti-fanboy of Apple, I'm almost considering switching to a Mac as the next corpo laptop (if not for unergonomic Mac keyboard layout and different shortcuts for everything, I'd have done it already). While I'm happy with my personal Thinkpad, being nearly the only front-end guy on Windows sucks (missing out on various tools, and regularly having to fix slightly broken scripts etc.). B…

For better or for worse, Windows these days seems increasingly designed for two main form factors. Surface products, and desktops. The hardware quality on a lot of other OEM laptops has really fallen behind.

I use both OSes, and the only Windows laptop I've found compelling over the last four years is the Surface Book line.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#136

Post by h1d »

hermitdev wrote: post #108
crispinb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't found it as bad as that, but agree it's a poorer desktop environment in lots of mostly small ways than macOS. I don't know how you work out it doesn't have a unix shell though. It does, in the estimation of many a better one by default than on macs.

WSL is pretty great, and if you're targeting Linux for deployment, it's somewhat superior than OS X. For one, it repects the case sensitivity of the file system on Linux (by default) while OS X is (by default) case insensitive like Windows (you can make OS X's filesystem case sensitive, but I've read it can cause problems with the OS and some apps that assume the default behavior. I've never really used a Mac much, b…

I never understand why people run a dev environment natively on macOS. Sure it may be what Google tells you and is easy with homebrew but small differences between production Linux certainly makes me uncomfortable to even think about doing that. I would either run a Linux VM locally or use "upload on save" feature on an editor and run it on a remote Linux machine.

These days you can prepare a completely isolated docker instance to each devs, so they don't even need to set anything up themselves and just let them upload on save and run whatever packages and daemons they want as root with the added benefit that anyone check their state as their code is always on a server.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#137

Post by h1d »

pier25 wrote: post #57

I tried switching to Windows in late 2016 for my every-day machine and I went back to macOS. It wasn't really a matter of familiarity. I've been using Windows since 3.1 and while I've been using mostly macOS since the Vista days, I've always had a Windows machine for gaming. I was really surprised the problem for me was the Windows ecosystem. Outside of the major players (Microsoft, Adobe, etc) most of the stuff you…

You're so me.

Mac's culture of 'I made something decent and I ask you only $15.' was a great start for OSX and had gotten better by App Store's presence to provide people the spot on experience of quality third party apps.

Windows, having only either of free but never too good or commercial offering that is bloated and expensive is getting old.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#138

Post by nwallin »

pbreit wrote: post #9

I just switched from Mac to Windows and had to move back. I cannot believe how miserable the Windows experience is. I mistakenly thought that since so much is browser-based, it's not a big deal. But literally every single little thing is slightly-to-much worse on Windows. Even stupid things like changing scroll direction, saving the 5 second preference for notifications to disappear, finding a wifi password, arrangin…

My biggest peeve about windows is how it sends my laptop to sleep when I close the lid. You're plugged into a docking station with a keyboard, monitor, and mouse connected. I have several windows open on the monitor. No windows open on the tiny crappy laptop screen. Why the fartnugget do you think closing the laptop means "go to sleep"?! I didn't buy a docking station, monitor, keyboard and mouse to augment the shitty laptop keyboard, shitty laptop trackpad, and shitty laptop screen, I bought those things to replace them (but still be able to function while traveling).

Also windows absolutely refuses to update. It didn't update to 1803 without downloading the install iso manually, it didn't update to 1806, and now it's refusing to update to 1903.

Windows (also visual studio, but that's another story) is incredibly just... Bad.

The reliance on the mouse and generally terrible keyboard shortcut story annoys me, but it can be fixed with third party software which is ok I guess.

Rant over. Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#140

Post by h1d »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #52
drevil-v2 wrote: post #51

I had to use a Windows laptop for about a week as my MacBook was getting the keyboard replaced. I hated it. It is hard to articulate exactly why I disliked it so much but I would guess it is almost entirely a visual thing. The font rendering is so much better on MacOS. This was Surface Book 2 laptop so the display resolution was not a factor. And I hate the amount of whitespace in Windows 10 user interface. There is…

Ironically, I feel like it's a result of designers trying to copy Apple's minimalism.

I don't call it minimalism. They cut off unnecessary parts and left what mattered, like unblaoted it.
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