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The $80 web development workstation

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Re: The $80 web development workstation

#21

Post by quaunaut »

Honest question here: Why would anyone ever think OS X has "world-class interface design"?

It's missing basic interface features that have been bog standard in Ubuntu/Windows for years, like any sort of proper window management. Hell, the maximize button actually doesn't work- it has such inconsistent use that you have almost no hope of actually getting what you want out of it. To get even decent window management, you have to buy software off of the app store.

Then, you have the fact taht you still functionally have a folder-based OS, which feels a greater need to present me with buttons to alter the view of a given folder, how icons are arranged, etc- all useful things no doubt, but things you don't change on a per-folder basis that often- while literally not having an "up one level" button. At all. You either have to know the keyboard shortcut, or you have to go to the Go menu. The back button isn't always dependable for this interaction(especially if the finder was just opened), so of course this just screws the whole pooch.

Seriously, the most I can get anyone to offer as to what makes OS X such a great operating system, is that it's Unix with no driver problems. If that's the most we can claim, can we stop acting like the interface design is halfway decent? Windows Vista had better interface design than this. That's just sad.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#22

Post by philh »

[deleted] wrote: post #13
lambdaloop wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked, OS X did not let you replace the main window system or the OS status bar. The theme of the interface is also not as easily changeable as a KDE or GTK+ theme. If there's a way to completely remove the graphical interface, it's definitely harder than in Linux, and not as usable afterwards. You might argue that these options are not needed for a typical OS X user, and perhaps you're right. But you c…

[deleted]

> Even if you can't swap out the entire windowing system, you can certainly go ahead and install Arch or any other distro.

What's that got to do with

> Are we still talking about how OS X doesn't give you "full control over the system?"

?

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#23

Post by hurtmyknee »

> The T42’s touchpad is hardly usable for productivity. Disappointingly, so is the iconic red nub.

I agree the touchpad leaves much to be desired, but I've found the nub to be fantastic. With one index finger on the nub, and two thumbs on the mouse buttons, my hands never leave the keyboard.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#24

Post by dmourati »

I agree with the price concern around Macs. That's why I let my employer buy one for me and take it home for night/weekend hacking. A $3000 investment by my employer pays for itself in terms of my productivity increase in what, two months? Win-win. One feature I'll never go without again? SSD.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#25

Post by jasonlotito »

morgante wrote: post #10
jasonlotito wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Really? Are we still talking about how OS X doesn't give you "full control over the system?" Well, it doesn't. Hence the reason for your need to put quotes around "full control over the system." Because, in fact, you don't. And problems I've solved in the past on Linux are still problems to this day on OS X. > As for the price component, if you're making your living off a computer I surely how you can afford a dece…

> Hence the reason for your need to put quotes around "full control over the system." Or maybe I put quotes around it because I don't agree with that assertion and it's a quote from the article... > And problems I've solved in the past on Linux are still problems to this day on OS X. Can you give me an example? I'm genuinely curious... > This ignores people starting out, or in different locations. Yet the author cert…

> Or maybe I put quotes around it because I don't agree with that assertion and it's a quote from the article...

Well, that's unfortunate, because you are wrong. You don't have full control over the system. It's not a matter of debate. You don't. You simply don't. There are elements that you cannot control in OS X. That are closed source.

I mean, maybe you are a developer for Apple. I don't know. And maybe you do have access to the source code. But the average? No.

> Can you give me an example? I'm genuinely curious...

Proper full screen support on multiple monitors. It should finally be fixed in Mavericks. That being said, the window management is still fairly weak compared to what I implemented years ago.

(I forget the WM I was using at the time, but it wasn't properly handling full screen support in a multi-head environment. I patched it, as well as added some handling for allowing easy movement of FS windows to other screens via key-board shortcuts.)

> Yet the author certainly could get a MBA,

The author is not the only web developer out there. So I don't see how that matters.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#26

Post by lambdaloop »

14113 wrote: post #20

The author mentioned using "Chromium with Vimium". For someone wanting easy keyboard shortcuts (like Vim) for a browser, I'd recommend luakit. It's a webkit based browser, scriptable (or written with?) lua, along with vim style navigation (eg, ":open www.google.com" to go to google). afaik, it's also available in the arch core (or extra possibly) repositorys, which means no fiddling about with the aur! (good news)

Turns out it's in arch community.

Note: AUR isn't really that bad, as long as you install a package manager that handles it (like yaourt).

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#27

Post by jasonlotito »

[deleted] wrote: post #13
lambdaloop wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked, OS X did not let you replace the main window system or the OS status bar. The theme of the interface is also not as easily changeable as a KDE or GTK+ theme. If there's a way to completely remove the graphical interface, it's definitely harder than in Linux, and not as usable afterwards. You might argue that these options are not needed for a typical OS X user, and perhaps you're right. But you c…

[deleted]

> Even if you can't swap out the entire windowing system

And yet you believe that you have full control over the [OS X] system?

Maybe you definition of "full" differs from mine?

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#28

Post by mosselman »

Yes switching workspaces is such a pain on OSX... come on, you just swipe with your fingers. Sure you can do pretty much the same on any linux distro, but that doesn't mean it is not 'seamless' in OSX.

We can all agree that windows is just not suited for Rails development, but whatever floats your boat is fine of course. I like crunchbang linux a lot, it is very fast and makes you feel smart. But when it comes to something I have to make my living on, I'd rather go with something that is 1. stable 2. has a solid support in terms of applications (photoshop, sketch, etc) actually begin built for it. And, for now, that means I'd rather work in OSX and on a Mac.

Then again, nobody cares.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#30

Post by jseliger »

morgante wrote: post #3

Really? Are we still talking about how OS X doesn't give you "full control over the system?" Given the popularity of Macs in the developer community, it's pretty clear that you have as much control as you desire—Unix has incredible power. And if you still somehow feel that OS X is actually constricting you (rather than just hiding advanced settings in the command line), you'd never be able to run Linux on a Mac. No,…

I really liked the overall point of the article—that one can get a lot done with a relatively old / under-spec'ed machine—but this: "system that was designed for the casual computer user, with little thought given to power users" is outright idiotic, and I very rarely use terms like "outright idiotic."

And while Ostrega is right that a new MacBook costs more than $1000, it's probably not uncommon to use one for years. How big a deal is it for many people to pay $1 a day for a computer versus ten cents a day? For anyone who is employed or doing technical consulting, the difference is probably negligible, especially compared to the value of time.

About time: having more screen real estate is apparently helpful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403565; there was also recently an article about a guy who was teaching his girlfriend how to code and found using a 27" iMac useful simply because so much information could be displayed at once. The HN discussion pointed out (correctly) that one can learn to code with much smaller monitors, but the counterpoint tended to be (also correctly) that something that can be done doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to make it easier. If having modern equipment and large screens helps someone learn or do even 5% faster, and that person is worth at least $10 / hour, the rate at which things like large screens pay themselves back is very rapid.

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