691–700 of 821 posts
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I can't envision a situation where I'd want to run compute tasks using an Apple-only framework.
Depends on your computational problem. For image, video or audio processing where the Apple SDK is superior to most others it might be the best deal, for others maybe not.
Am I the only one that sees OS X as the biggest reason to switch to Mac? I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X. And please, don't tell me Ubuntu or other linux flavors. They look good (and are good if you are programming on them) but the UX is still lacking a lot. (Never mind the confusion of the different flavors, packaging systems, and configurations). Also god forbid you have a problem (especially a har…
I primarily buy Apple for the hardware, secondarily for OSX. I used Windows for years and years, there's nothing about it I can't get used to. If MacBooks weren't so great, I'd be using ThinkBooks, they're not terrible. But MacBooks are so much better that it isn't even a close consideration. That might be the lock-in talking, Apple would have to screw the MacBook line over as badly as they did the Mac Pro line to ge…
Am I the only one that sees OS X as the biggest reason to switch to Mac? I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X. And please, don't tell me Ubuntu or other linux flavors. They look good (and are good if you are programming on them) but the UX is still lacking a lot. (Never mind the confusion of the different flavors, packaging systems, and configurations). Also god forbid you have a problem (especially a har…
Thinkpads work out of the box for every regular feature (I had to write a shell script to make my X1 Yoga handle folding it into tablet mode -- ~15 LOC). A thinkpad + ubuntu I think, will hit all your needs. Lenovo preinstalls Ubuntu on some of their thinkpads in some cases (afaict, large enterprises). The thinkpad line IIRC works to use well-supported hardware for Linux. You can check the certification list to be su…
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Most users don't realize how good Apple monitors are, and how much better they make your work day. I just don't understand scrimping on something you will spend all day staring at. Getting something "almost as good" for half the price is a terrible deal.
Er, are they good? I have a gorgeous Dell IPS 4k monitor at work and (I know, it's very silly) I actually get a tiny thrill whenever I pop my IDE open in it. It's just so darn pretty .
I have never used an Apple monitor, but I have used several other 4k monitors and they are great. My Dell monitor is just fraught with compatibility issues and needs special software to work with win 7. I use Ubuntu and it barely works there, my coworkers have to treat theirs like special snowflakes.
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Depends on your computational problem. For image, video or audio processing where the Apple SDK is superior to most others it might be the best deal, for others maybe not.
With Apple hardware generally being slower and more expensive, sometimes the superiority of the SDK isn't the most critical element.
It's all about benchmarks and cost/benefit analysis.
I've seen code that works on the iOS 20-100x faster than a desktop equivalent because the iOS version is done using Metal and the desktop one is barely vectorized CPU code. In some edge cases a "server farm" of iPads might outperform an equivalent spend on Xeon-based servers.
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It's terrible to script, you cannot make use of the billion unix command line utilities (and there is no equivalent eco system either), you need to use the mouse too much, and it's awful to program with in any but a small number of sanctioned programming languages.
> It's terrible to script I'm pretty sure you didn't try PowerShell. It is at least as good as bash, if not better. > you need to use the mouse too much I find this more problematic on macOS. I was forced to use a mouse much more on macOS. It doesn't even allow me to press the yes/no dialog only using a keyboard. On Windows nearly every item has a shortcut, sometimes even better than GNOME (but worse than KDE, IMO).
After some googling just now, it seems like there's now an Invoke-WebRequest command, but that too looks like a hell of a lot of typing compared to Linux shells.
There's also the fact that lots of stuff in windows wasn't designed to be accessible through the cli. You can't, for example, make a powershell script to toggle an audio output device on and off, as that's only available through the GUI.
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It is a thoughtfully crafted product regarding what "command-line interface" should look like. How so? I've never appreciated what's actually good about powershell... you pass objects around? So...? Is that a thing that's useful? If you want to just automate a task, having intermediate objects that are serializable (eg. strings) so you can `foo ... > blah` and inspect the value of blah before continuing (`cat blah |…
> If you want to just automate a task, having intermediate objects that are serializable (eg. strings) so you can `foo ... > blah` and inspect the value of blah before continuing (`cat blah | command2...`) has always seemed far more tangibly useful. String parsing is the bane of my command line scripting experience. Even in targeting "identical" environments, all it takes is one changed installation default altering…
Sure, I could write a Python script right now that would read me the last lines of a log file on a remote server. Or, I could just type something like this and hit enter: ssh user@server "tail /path/to/log"
I think what GP is trying to say is that PS is in an awkward position between the two. It has a deeper understanding than bash/zsh/whatever, but it also requires more typing. Yes, PS will fix issues like the ones you have described, but typing in long names (at least for me) defeats the purpose of using a shell in the first place. I don't want to type in "Get-Item" or whatever a million times, nor do I want to ever worry that using redirection (e.g. "something > log.txt") will mess up because PS defaults are the way they are.
Great. Now they need to reintroduce a MBP with top of the line specs and without the stupid touchbar. Snark aside, I have a mid 2010 mac pro at home that is still going strong (due to upgrades, SSD, more RAM.) However, I would like to get a new GPU for the machine, but I'm not about to spend $500 on a better, but ancient GPU that's compatible with a 7 year old machine. I've been wondering what my upgrade path would b…
I had a HD4870 running strong until a couple months ago it died. I replaced it with a GT 640 I had on hand; it works fine. Your mileage may vary.
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I love OSX but never understood why people pay so much for those apple displays. we use them at work and they suuuuuck. super heavy, can't adjust height, can't put it in portrait mode which is .. I don't know useful 40% of the time, glares like a mofo, and cost 2x-3x similar quality displays from not Apple. Is the look of them that desirable? i finally switched for same reso Dell units on my desk and really happy abo…
People buy those Apple monitors because they are guaranteed to work to with Apple computers. At least that is the reasoning. They can complain to their local Apple Store to make it work. Most end users have no clue, and they don't enjoy researching, so they don't know they could get something better for less money.
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> but someone please explain why having an absolutely fundamental ability to edit text and securely connect to work and transfer data to/from remote machines is something that any OS should be shipping without? The ability to edit text _does_ ship on windows - notepad. (not that I'd recommend it but it does exist). Also, OSX doesn't ship with anything better. FTP isn't a fundamental requirement for everyone, I don't…
Notepad??? OS X has shipped with both emacs and vim since Day 1. I'm sorry, but you seem quite unfamiliar with Macs. You are correct, I would never suggest anyone have an FTP client; I have that service turned off on every machine I administer. SSH / SFTP are fundamental tools however.
> I would never suggest anyone have an FTP client; I have that service turned off on every machine I administer. SSH / SFTP are fundamental tools however.
Pedantry at its finest.
I have neither ssh nor sftp on my workstation and I have no need for either.