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Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

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Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#201

Post by m3koval »

kylewpppd wrote: post #173
robin_reala wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dump both macports and fink and use Homebrew instead: http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/

I fail to see how anyone can recommend homebrew as a viable solution to package management on OS X. You have to compile everything. Coming from apt-get or yum makes brew, port, and fink look like a joke.

Building from source isn't necessarily a bad thing: some Linux packages have the same behavior (e.g. Portage, on which MacPorts is based). There are pros and cons to both approaches.

Package management is definitely a disaster on OS X, though. Regardless of whether you use Homebrew, Fink, or MacPorts, packages tend to break often. Some of this may be unavoidable: there are enough differences between Linux and OS X that compiling programs developed for Linux for OS X is bound to cause problems.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#202

Post by fauigerzigerk »

Andrex wrote: post #169
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #55

I'm using OS X right now but I really hate all OSs at this point. OS X is a usability nightmare for me, slowing me down even after many years of using it and trying to adapt to its ways. Lion is buggy on top of that (never ending wifi troubles). Linux has huge driver issues and the package managers make me think like a data center sysadmin rather than the sole user of a dev workstation that I am. And Windows is horri…

> Linux has huge driver issues and the package managers make me think like a data center sysadmin rather than the sole user of a dev workstation that I am. Ubuntu was actually like the first desktop OS with an "app store," and Linux in general has taken all the hardware I've thrown at it with gusto. For instance, I have a USB Wi-Fi dongle. Windows 7 x64 couldn't use it, but all recent version of Linux have done just…

I'm always running Linux on some systems and it works very well on servers. But on all the laptops I owned in recent years (MacBook, Acer, Dell, Toshiba) Linux was a hot, noisy battery hog. I learned a lot more than I ever wanted to know about powertop, CPU states, generations of power management daemons and kernel modules, USB drivers and whatnot. I got a lot of things to work but it has never worked nearly as well as Windows on the same machine. Sleep/resume is also extremely spotty.

Recently I made a half hearted attempt to install Ubuntu on my iMac. I got nothing but a blank screen after booting up the installation CD.

If you don't have any issues with Windows as a dev platform I can only assume that you don't work in C/C++ much or your code targets only Windows. And if Windows really got a great node.js port only this week you're making my point for me.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#203

Post by conradev »

If you want something fixed, changed, or added, simply file a bug radar.

Apple does certain things for a reason. If you disagree with Apple's reasoning behind something specific and want to change it, then change it yourself. Most commenters complaining about OS X can count the number of grievances they have with their fingers.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#204

Post by kisielk »

js2 wrote: post #75

Re: "maximize" button that is being complained about in this thread. It's not a maximize button, it's a zoom button, and while I don't like its behavior, it's always been this way in OS X. From the current HIG: Your application determines the initial size and position of a window, which is called the standard state. If the user changes a window’s size or location by at least 7 points, the new size and location is the…

Who cares about the justification. The major problem with it is that the behaviour is unpredictable. You have no idea what is going to happen when you push that button for a given app. In some apps, they'll go full screen. A browser might resize to fit the current web page. iTunes actually shrinks down to a mini control window.

So now in order to use this button if a useful manner the user has to remember exactly what it does for any given application.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#205

Post by Lewisham »

sukuriant wrote: post #192
Lewisham wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to install Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable flat-out refused to install die to "Error 1365" (if I remember my error codes right). Required a Microsoft FixIt to fix the registry keys. And I have no idea how it happened.

That is quite curious... though can you really blame the operating system for a program running on it? (Presumably SW:tOR)

I can certainly blame Microsoft for Microsoft libraries that don't install on its own operating system cleanly, and requires a Microsoft-issued fix.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#207

Post by tedunangst »

sukuriant wrote: post #192
Lewisham wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to install Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable flat-out refused to install die to "Error 1365" (if I remember my error codes right). Required a Microsoft FixIt to fix the registry keys. And I have no idea how it happened.

That is quite curious... though can you really blame the operating system for a program running on it? (Presumably SW:tOR)

People like to blame everything on Windows, including "I dropped my laptop down the stairs and now it doesn't work right" type stuff. I think if Microsoft had replaced the blue screen with a message that instead said "Your $PC-MAKER computer is a piece of crap, buy a $OTHER-PC instead." nobody would actually complain about Windows.

[a general comment, not directly related to lewisham's problem.]

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#208

Post by philwelch »

sukuriant wrote: post #192
Lewisham wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to install Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable flat-out refused to install die to "Error 1365" (if I remember my error codes right). Required a Microsoft FixIt to fix the registry keys. And I have no idea how it happened.

That is quite curious... though can you really blame the operating system for a program running on it? (Presumably SW:tOR)

I've never installed SW:tOR on a Mac, so I can't say for sure, but I've never corrupted my operating system by installing an application before. That kind of bullshit actually is the fault of the OS.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#209

Post by DanBC »

Bud wrote: post #141
WayneDB wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there are a couple of subtleties that are being addressed, that maybe need to be said better. 1) Mac keyboard shortcuts are confusing and inconsistent compared to other OSes. They're not as discoverable. Maybe this is why it seems like there are more of them or that they're harder to learn. When I say they're confusing, I mean that they use those funky characters instead of the words Ctrl, Alt or Shift. Those c…

Um, have you ever actually used a Mac? Like, since 1987 or so? Mac keyboard shortcuts are: 1) Not confusing at all, the common ones date back decades and are largely similar to other platforms. 2) No, they don't use "funky characters". Command is a word. Do you have difficulty recognizing what "Command-S" means for save, or "Command-P" for print, etc? 3) I beg to differ. Command, control and option are on the keyboar…

I tend to agree, but working out how to move a cursor around text, with various combinations of either character by character, or word by word, or to the beginning or end of the line, and either selecting or not selecting text, was pretty frustrating.

3) My keyboard has [fn][ctrl][alt][cmd][space][cmd][alt], there's no [option].

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#210

Post by dasil003 »

I think Tim is on crack. Snow Leopard was specifically about refactoring and bug fixes—huge under the hood improvements. It's true that Lion has some annoying bugs, but so did previous versions, I wouldn't say it's buggier on the whole (I certainly see far fewer kernel panics than I used to see circa 10.3/10.4). Lion is ambitious, so there are definitely some annoying UI changes, but there are a lot of meaty changes that offer huge improvements.

Some of my favorites are: mission control is much better than exposé + spaces which I could never really put to great use. Fullscreen mode is very cool (although it sucks with multi-monitors, hopefully they'll fix that). Finally the ability to resize windows from every corner. Autosave. Remembering open windows. New gestures are great once you internalize them. What Apple is doing with sandboxing is really a revolution in PC security even if the costs are high to user and developer freedom.

I'm pretty concerned about the App Store model and the future implications, but so far Apple is still doing amazing UX work. I imagine at some point I will have to go Linux if Apple keeps tightening their grip, but that day is not yet here.

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