Why Web Developers Don’t Need A Mac

I’m giving W7 a try right now on my laptop and I am very impressed! It is fast, it sleek....

ASIDE:

Anyways, check out this new HP TouchSmart Notebook

I installed W7 on my netbook just for kicks and I must say it’s not that bad (though it seems Windows is nowhere near handling sleep or hibernate any good yet... OS X is so much better on this that it’s not believable)... I might or might not go for Moblin when they get screen brightness adjustment or media player to work (though I have only tested a live image, might explain the issues). I might give a shot at turning my Samsung N310 into a hackintosh (yeah Apple, release a NetBook already !), I really can’t imagine working with anything but OS X I am spoiled !

About the article, I think it’s a pure reaction to the Apple trend in the dev / designer communities, and true there are dev environnement or design apps for Windoze but you can’t beat OS X user experience or stability compared to windows... IMHO.

I’ve never owned or used a Mac but my last laptop purchase might have been a MacBook if they made one with a big enough screen. I needed a giant-screen laptop and ended up with the HP HDX 20" dragon (3 Gig of memory and almost completely silent). I’ve been really happy with it although I’m sure I’d have liked a Mas just as well.

As for TextMate being missing on the PC, PhpED is missing on the Mac. I’d have a hard time living without it.

My brother has worked with both Macs and PCs for many years. He says he has no preference (although he did choose a MacBook for his home computer).

My only quarrel with the Mac community is that some of them are unbelievably smug and self-satisfied about being Mac users and quite rude about the alternatives (present company excepted, of course).

When I’m not using a web browser, I’m either in MS Word, or PhpEd and my computer has never frozen or crashed that I can recall so it’s hard to justify the extra expense of the Mac for me.

Chacon à son goût, as they like to say in any country where they speak French.

I switched from PCs to Macs three years ago. I have been in the development world, mostly, and was doing programming on PCs for over a decade.

That said, now I wished I would have switched sooner. But not for web development reasons.

(warning: generalities follow)

PCs are wonderful for gaming and native programming. They are easily customized (my PC desktop I have here is custom-built) and quite flexible hardware-wise. They tend to work better with backwards compatibility. There’s also a vastly higher number of software products out there. And, they’re cheap.

However, they are awful for security; easily hacked, and loose network security. Viruses, trojans and spam runs rampant on PCs. They are a nightmare for Audio/Media work and anything requiring ’drivers’ (I do sound engineering/recording and would never, ever do anything on a PC). Vista is, well, beyond comment. They are often twitchy with USB devices.

Macs are excellently built; their design is sleek, the branding top-notch, and the OS is probably the best OS on the market (yes, including Linux, because Linux OSes tend to not be user-friendly, and that’s a category worth considering). Macs work with nearly anything plug-n-play, instantly. There are virtually no viruses to worry about. Their built-in open source technologies (although the PHP4 version still makes me shake my head) are steps in the right direction. They have properly built network interfaces with sound sharing principles. And no one’s said...you can run a PC on a Mac. Uh, trump card.

(And Cocoa is an amazing programming language.)

Macs, however, are expensive. Customizing the hardware is, well, nearly impossible. OS X isn’t informative enough when it crashes (although that, admittedly, is rare). Gaming on them is foolish. Software, until this past 2-3 years really, was sparse. And good luck if you dont have a warranty.

That said, there is virtually no difference for Web Developers. All the necessary tools for webdev found on the PC can be found on the Mac, and vice versa. Each performs well, XAMPP or MAMP. All the browsers (minus Chrome, soon to change) can be found. Photoshop can be found on either.

So I feel that the Mac/PC argument for specifically web dev/designers is, well, silly. Now if you’re an audio engineer, then we can talk... 

Quote from: zi at Jun 11, 2009, 02:22 PM

Guys, give 7 a try.

The problem with Vista was mainly it required too much of a computer (as do the games). MS and game developers are
teamed up with hardware manufacturers to always raise the bar. This evolution is why Mac became a PC running on Intel.

I’m running Vista on computers with minimum 3 Gb working memory, less then that, it sucks. So all laptops
with less than 3 Gb ram should use XP or Linux.

With the indexing service gone through all your files and backup routines set up (the best security there is), Vista
is my favorite OS ever.

But I did recommend my boss to get a Mac because if you don’t know much about computers, don’t have a interest in
upgrading your hardware and overclocking and simply just want to be a end-user of the computer itself. Mac is a nice
product.

Win 7... http://bit.ly/15mtuc !! Maybe later... 

Here’s another data point. My mother, who is in her 80s (and then some), recently switched from a Mac to a PC. She knows next to nothing about computers and uses hers just for email and internet access.She kept having trouble with her provider (Comcast) and her ISP. The trouble mostly involved pilot error on her part, but whenever she would call tech support, they would tell her they didn’t really know anything about Macs.

I didn’t advise her to switch, in fact I liked having her on a Mac because then my brother handled her tech support.

Good reading! I will give macs credit they do two things very well, but they also do things wrong (as does anything...). Macs (Well Apple products) always seam to be very user friendly, and they are almost always well designed. I will say I have never cared for macs, but this could be due to the fact my mac experience has been limited to classroom macs that could be confused for virus filled PCs. They have their place in the computing world and they are a decent option to Windows. I know the release of Vista really enlightened people to a lot of the problems with Windows namely the fact people buy the cheapest PC they can find and then complain when it’s not future ready.

There are two thing that have always surprised me tho..
- Why do people who visit XXX rated websites wonder when their computer dies
- Why are the Genus bar lines always out the door? I though their products were bullet proof?

AMDbuilder

(Live from a 6 year old PC with a 3 year old XP install charging an iPhone (The one Apple product I LOVE!) )

I love my iPod Touch, but iTunes is one of the least intuitive apps I’ve ever used and the documentation is truly horrible. IMHO.

Maybe there’s something I’m missing (there often is), but why can’t I import a file or folder that’s not in the iTunes folder and why should I have to import a file or folder that *already in* the #$%#$%#% iTunes folder? And, given that scenario, what exactly would "Export" mean? And why doesn’t the iPod show in My Computer when it’s attached?

The iPod Touch isn’t all that intuitive for me either. I’m constantly struggling to make it play or stop playing what I want. And it seems determined to keep me from getting back to where I was before without going back to the desktop. I still haven’t figured out how to browse through my music collection without ending up somewhere I don’t want to be with no obvious way to backtrack.

Yea, iTunes is getting a little bloated and stupid... Why can’t I have a central iTunes repository (Files stored on server vs computer(s)...

Anyways... If you double tap the home button when ipod is sleeping you can control the music (pause/play, next, prev, volume) and in the settings you can change the home button function. I click it once it goes to desktop, second time to first page, three times fast phone contacts... Check your settings and see if that helps some. If not try a Genius?

AMDbuilder

Quote from: AMDbuilder at Jun 11, 2009, 11:19 PM

Yea, iTunes is getting a little bloated and stupid... Why can’t I have a central iTunes repository (Files stored on server vs computer(s)...

Anyways... If you double tap the home button when ipod is sleeping you can control the music (pause/play, next, prev, volume) and in the settings you can change the home button function. I click it once it goes to desktop, second time to first page, three times fast phone contacts... Check your settings and see if that helps some. If not try a Genius?

AMDbuilder

Nice tip, thanks.