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Return of the Mac (2005)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Return of the Mac (2005)

#81

Post by rickmb »

robgough wrote: post #41
jot wrote: post #5

[2] Y Combinator is (we hope) visited mostly by hackers. The proportions of OSes are: Windows 66.4%, Macintosh 18.8%, Linux 11.4%, and FreeBSD 1.5%. The Mac number is a big change from what it would have been five years ago. I'm interested to know what the proportions of OSes are today.

me too. I just spent the weekend at a hack day ( http://leedshack.com ) in the UK, with over 100 hackers. I barely saw any windows machines, almost everyone had a Mac.

I've noticed that the percentage of Macs in the same group is higher at events than it is online or inside companies.

One could speculate about the reasons, but I do know that seeing hackers I respect with pretty shiny Apple laptops is what triggered me to buy my first Mac back in 2002.

Re: Return of the Mac (2005)

#82

Post by schrototo »

mironathetin wrote: post #78
walexander wrote: post #19

OK, someone convince me to go Mac. I've had essentially zero issues with Windows. I do 99% of my development in Linux (access my devbox through VNC). For desktop use, I have absolutely no problems. I work very fast zooming around with keyboard shortcuts. I don't get viruses or bloatware. Everything is calm and familiar. Every time I get my hands on a Mac, even to simply Google something, I immediately hit issues. Pas…

Want to go Mac? Today? Forget it. It was cool 10 years ago, but not today. Apple is turning into what M$ was back then: a control and patronize the users company. The main difference to Microsoft is, that Mac OS is a really good operating system. I use Macs since 1995. Nowadays I hesitate to recommend a switch, although Mac OS is certainly better than Linux and, in my opinion, also Windows. Apples notebook hardware w…

M$

This right here disqualifies any legitimate point you might have made in your post.

Re: Return of the Mac (2005)

#83

Post by ugh »

walexander wrote: post #19

OK, someone convince me to go Mac. I've had essentially zero issues with Windows. I do 99% of my development in Linux (access my devbox through VNC). For desktop use, I have absolutely no problems. I work very fast zooming around with keyboard shortcuts. I don't get viruses or bloatware. Everything is calm and familiar. Every time I get my hands on a Mac, even to simply Google something, I immediately hit issues. Pas…

Then don’t switch. It doesn’t seem like the right choice for you. And that’s that.

I never again want to use Windows but I won’t be caught dead recommending OS X to anyone. It’s just stressful. (I’m suddenly personally responsible for any and all failures of the OS and hardware or I feel that way at any rate.)

Re: Return of the Mac (2005)

#84

Post by js2 »

joelhaasnoot wrote: post #79
masklinn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every time I get my hands on a Mac, even to simply Google something, I immediately hit issues. You seem to hit issues because you want to hit them. > Paste is crazy squiggly hash v (or maybe apple v?) The key is called "command". Does "Command V" not make more sense than "Control V"? And free up the Control key for more interesting stuff? > I can't right click You can, unless it's a 4+ years old machine it's just a…

What about Home and End keys? I used a Mac for 6 months, but really really really missed the Home and End keys to go to the beginning and end of lines... Terminal is hell without them...

Ctrl-a, ctrl-e for beginning/end of line. Standard emacs keybindings work almost everywhere in OS X. But, you can also rebind the home/end keys - http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/cocoa-text.html

Edit: On a Macbook Pro, home/end are fn-left/right-arrow and page-up/down are fn-up/down-arrow.

Re: Return of the Mac (2005)

#85

Post by iaskwhy »

masklinn wrote: post #38
walexander wrote: post #19

OK, someone convince me to go Mac. I've had essentially zero issues with Windows. I do 99% of my development in Linux (access my devbox through VNC). For desktop use, I have absolutely no problems. I work very fast zooming around with keyboard shortcuts. I don't get viruses or bloatware. Everything is calm and familiar. Every time I get my hands on a Mac, even to simply Google something, I immediately hit issues. Pas…

> Every time I get my hands on a Mac, even to simply Google something, I immediately hit issues. You seem to hit issues because you want to hit them. > Paste is crazy squiggly hash v (or maybe apple v?) The key is called "command". Does "Command V" not make more sense than "Control V"? And free up the Control key for more interesting stuff? > I can't right click You can, unless it's a 4+ years old machine it's just a…

Why is a package manager useful? (I really don't know what's wrong with the default environment of OSX, if there's anything wrong at all.)

Re: Return of the Mac (2005)

#86

Post by swah »

jonnathanson wrote: post #72
olivercameron wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'll first say that "purchase a .. iPad for their next computer." is completely ridiculous. A tablet cannot fill the needs of a user yet" You'd be surprised by how many people just use a computer to check their email and browse the web, all of which can be handled on an iPad simply and beautifully. My Wife and Mother have both stopped using computers altogether, iPad is all they need.

This. The percentage of laptop users out there who actually seem to "need" a laptop is a lot smaller than we might think it is. Maybe even a minority of all laptop users. Pretty much everyone I know who isn't a hacker, gamer, or Excel jock can get by with just an iPad for the sum total of their computing needs (web, Facebook, email, Angry Birds).

Also, anyone who writes long documents probably wants a laptop, so everyone who is in college.

Re: Return of the Mac (2005)

#87

Post by sid0 »

robgough wrote: post #63
sid0 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot corners seem like a terrible idea, simply because they're far too easy to acquire (by Fitts' Law). I don't want Expose or whatever to show up every single time I move my mouse to the top right corner, which is often accidentally.

I've had this setup for years now, and never accidentally done this. Don't forget on a Mac you're much less often moving your mouse to the top right corner (window closing is on the top left of a window. The further most icons are always the Apple on the left, and Spotlight on the right. Both of which I rarely open by hand. If I'm using Spotlight it's always by keyboard command Cmd-Space (though often I use Alfred in…

Don't forget on a Mac you're much less often moving your mouse to the top right corner (window closing is on the top left of a window.

I move the mouse to the top right whenever I want to just get it out of the way.

May be worth turning it on and see how you get on with it?

I don't use a Mac. Wait, let me correct that -- I use a MacBook, but with Windows on it almost all the time.

Re: Return of the Mac (2005)

#88

Post by [deleted] »

mironathetin wrote: post #78
walexander wrote: post #19

OK, someone convince me to go Mac. I've had essentially zero issues with Windows. I do 99% of my development in Linux (access my devbox through VNC). For desktop use, I have absolutely no problems. I work very fast zooming around with keyboard shortcuts. I don't get viruses or bloatware. Everything is calm and familiar. Every time I get my hands on a Mac, even to simply Google something, I immediately hit issues. Pas…

Want to go Mac? Today? Forget it. It was cool 10 years ago, but not today. Apple is turning into what M$ was back then: a control and patronize the users company. The main difference to Microsoft is, that Mac OS is a really good operating system. I use Macs since 1995. Nowadays I hesitate to recommend a switch, although Mac OS is certainly better than Linux and, in my opinion, also Windows. Apples notebook hardware w…

[deleted]

Re: Return of the Mac (2005)

#89

Post by [deleted] »

schrototo wrote: post #82
mironathetin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want to go Mac? Today? Forget it. It was cool 10 years ago, but not today. Apple is turning into what M$ was back then: a control and patronize the users company. The main difference to Microsoft is, that Mac OS is a really good operating system. I use Macs since 1995. Nowadays I hesitate to recommend a switch, although Mac OS is certainly better than Linux and, in my opinion, also Windows. Apples notebook hardware w…

M$ This right here disqualifies any legitimate point you might have made in your post.

[deleted]

Re: Return of the Mac (2005)

#90

Post by rimantas »

zobzu wrote: post #62
walexander wrote: post #19

OK, someone convince me to go Mac. I've had essentially zero issues with Windows. I do 99% of my development in Linux (access my devbox through VNC). For desktop use, I have absolutely no problems. I work very fast zooming around with keyboard shortcuts. I don't get viruses or bloatware. Everything is calm and familiar. Every time I get my hands on a Mac, even to simply Google something, I immediately hit issues. Pas…

Easy. Keep Windows. It works - and well in fact. It's technologically well advanced. No matter what they want you to believe, the latest 10.7 OSX implemented features Windows had for 3 to 20 years. 20! And it's still missing some. There no need to switch. It's not because everyone would start jumping off the cliff that you need to be convinced to do the same, right? Same story.

Why not to count which features in Lion Windows 7 has missing?
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