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Mac’s share falls to five-year low

computerworld.com

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Re: Mac’s share falls to five-year low

#111

Post by bostand »

nkkollaw wrote: post #108
bostand wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

autoremove removes packages that are no longer used and should not affect anything. However, if you have messed with your system (eg manually copied some software or edited a configuration you should not have touched) then autoremove may remove things the system now needs to boot. How do I know this? Because I once did exactly that (to be fair, apt-get told me this could happen and asked for a second confirmation)

I know what it should do, and I use it regularly. That one time, it triggered or caused Xenial to stop working correctly.

> I know what it should do, and I use it regularly.

Kind if off-topic, but I have to ask. Why do you use autoremove regularly? The amount of storage that is wasted it negligible so I barely bother with it, even inside vms and containers which often have tiny filesystems.

Re: Mac’s share falls to five-year low

#112

Post by nkkollaw »

nkkollaw wrote: post #108
bostand wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

autoremove removes packages that are no longer used and should not affect anything. However, if you have messed with your system (eg manually copied some software or edited a configuration you should not have touched) then autoremove may remove things the system now needs to boot. How do I know this? Because I once did exactly that (to be fair, apt-get told me this could happen and asked for a second confirmation)

I know what it should do, and I use it regularly. That one time, it triggered or caused Xenial to stop working correctly.

> Kind if off-topic, but I have to ask. Why do you use autoremove regularly? The amount of storage that is wasted it negligible so I barely bother with it

I have lots of VMs that I update pretty regularly for clients. Many time I just chain the command after apt-get upgrade.

Re: Mac’s share falls to five-year low

#113

Post by [deleted] »

nkkollaw wrote: post #108
bostand wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

autoremove removes packages that are no longer used and should not affect anything. However, if you have messed with your system (eg manually copied some software or edited a configuration you should not have touched) then autoremove may remove things the system now needs to boot. How do I know this? Because I once did exactly that (to be fair, apt-get told me this could happen and asked for a second confirmation)

I know what it should do, and I use it regularly. That one time, it triggered or caused Xenial to stop working correctly.

[deleted]

Re: Mac’s share falls to five-year low

#114

Post by [deleted] »

nkkollaw wrote: post #108
bostand wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

autoremove removes packages that are no longer used and should not affect anything. However, if you have messed with your system (eg manually copied some software or edited a configuration you should not have touched) then autoremove may remove things the system now needs to boot. How do I know this? Because I once did exactly that (to be fair, apt-get told me this could happen and asked for a second confirmation)

I know what it should do, and I use it regularly. That one time, it triggered or caused Xenial to stop working correctly.

[deleted]

Re: Mac’s share falls to five-year low

#115

Post by 58028641 »

shock wrote: post #97
gizmo385 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the new MBP, but how often do you really use the escape key? I'm use solely vim for my development work and I almost never encounter a need to use the escape key.

How do you exit insert mode?

Using caps lock as escape is pretty common. I think there is a virtual escape button on the touch bar.

Re: Mac’s share falls to five-year low

#116

Post by pfranz »

kelseydh wrote: post #94
pfranz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree. But I'm not confident they'll change. They may have withdrawn support too quick, but what do they gain out of doubling down their efforts (especially if the market is just developers)? I've really been surprised hearing pretty popular projects that have been around for 20+ years still have issues on Windows (like Python). Working in VFX there are a lot of domain-specific open source projects that "…

"Just developers" Developers are not trivial. Good developers lead to good apps, which lead to a better ecosystem. The technically savvy are also the ones who set the trends about what the rest of the curve adopts. This is only going to grow more true as creative work (coding, design, etc) becomes a larger and larger part of our economy.

Apple Developers are a prerequisite for a good Apple third-party ecosystem. Especially if you expect the software to be idiomatic to the platform.

But in this case we're talking about web developers or developers for open source server software--not Apple desktop or iOS software. For a very long time Perl and Apache served the web while Photoshop and Illustrator ran fine on a different platform. Windows had both IIS and Adobe products but still didn't overtake Linux and OSX. Yeah, there is some bleed over to regular users and yes, losing them might be the downfall of Apple's desktop computer. But it's less than 30% of their business and the growth potential just isn't that high. My expectation is for them to milk the current situation with minimal investment (while trying to keep the perception of relevance) so they can focus on the "next big thing." I think they pushed things a bit too hard and people noticed, but I don't think they'll change course. They'll just try and change perception.

I would love for them to double-down and heavily invest in desktops and laptops, but I just don't expect it because I don't see a business case for them to.

Re: Mac’s share falls to five-year low

#117

Post by pfranz »

kelseydh wrote: post #90
jameslk wrote: post #36

I keeping hearing the narrative from this crowd that the MBP is on its way out of being in vogue for developers, but I don't buy it at all. First of all, this is market share up to the release of the new MBP. It's not surprising that their market share has been slipping given that up to this point they haven't released a significant update to the MBP since 2013. But getting to the point, the Mac ecosystem is now ingr…

From my experience, Mac's brew package manager ecosystem is actually quite unstable and prone to breaking. I know a few developers who believe that Linux's apt-get is generally more stable.

People compare the two (and I guess they both describe themselves as "package managers") but I see the use-cases as very different. Apt is what the whole OS is built around and managed by the system administrator while Homebrew is only for a subset of things and almost always managed by a user.

I've been using Homebrew for years and the consensus I've seen has almost always been positive. The only time I've had issues is where I removed dependencies but didn't rebuild the package. I've heard about multi-user issues with Homebrew but have never personally used it like that. I wouldn't describe it as "quite unstable."

Re: Mac’s share falls to five-year low

#118

Post by pfranz »

nkkollaw wrote: post #103
bostand wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who uses Linux at work without any issues whatsoever I have to ask: What are these crazy Linux bugs people are talking about? And why does it always happen to macbook users?

My machine wouldn't boot anymore because I followed apt's suggestion to run apt-get autoremove. There are many packages and apps out there that get released but are far from stable, and no easy way for non-devs (as in Linux devs) to opt out of unstable software. I'm not your average MacBook user, either. I use Linux on the server on a daily basis. If I waste 2 hours because of something like this--which doesn't invol…

Do you have similar issues when using Linux for servers?

Re: Mac’s share falls to five-year low

#119

Post by WayneBro »

jameslk wrote: post #36

I keeping hearing the narrative from this crowd that the MBP is on its way out of being in vogue for developers, but I don't buy it at all. First of all, this is market share up to the release of the new MBP. It's not surprising that their market share has been slipping given that up to this point they haven't released a significant update to the MBP since 2013. But getting to the point, the Mac ecosystem is now ingr…

I build Node.JS apps and Cordova apps all day long on Windows 10.

What's your problem?

Re: Mac’s share falls to five-year low

#120

Post by dkonofalski »

edblarney wrote: post #27
dijit wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an odd sentiment to hear on HN. We are usually technical people, surely we can see past "spec" as the only differentiator of two laptops. Apple are priced like a high-end business quality laptop. (except upgrades are a higher mark-up) if you compare laptops based on the quality of their build Apple laptops are quite competitive.[0] That's before you factor in little things that don't seem to make it to busine…

Apple is definitely a fashion brand - and their marketing tactics and positioning are mostly aspirational - the underlying commodity is tech. This is why Apple hired Angela Andrents - who's background is 100% fashion (she re-built Burberry) and 0% technology. Think about that for a moment: the hired their #1 marketing person with ZERO tech background :). Who is the 'other' most powerful person at Apple? It's Johhny I…

You're talking a bunch of nonsense here. Apple hired Angela Ahrendts to be SVP of Apple Retail. That's why her experience with Burberry was important. She has nothing to do with the tech and development side, only retail.

On the other side, Jony Ive isn't just a designer any more than Stephen Hawking is just a scientist. Ive is an industrial designer with heavy, diverse engineering background. His entire purpose is to find a way to cram specs into solidly designed products that support the hardware packed into them.

While Apple may be considered a luxury brand, they're definitely not a fashion brand. You seem to be confusing Apple Retail for Apple as a whole.

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