8 ms·

I've moved on to Windows since last year. Besides terminal emulators being shit (which they're fixing now), worse PDF support and shit OS config management, the

I've moved on to Windows since last year. Besides terminal emulators being shit (which they're fixing now), worse PDF support and shit OS config management, there's really not much anymore that goes in favor of Macs. Their laptops are worthless junk at 40% markup, the OS gets buggier and more locked down with every version while Windows is on a clear trajectory of improvement and PC hardware gives real choice and innovative solutions. I was a Mac user for 13 years, but no more. Since they gave all the keys to Jony it went down the drain real fast.

lazerlapin 7y ago
how about screen management ? I'm using several virtual screens (spaces) in my mac, that makes things a lot easier to me. How does that go in today's windows?
jxi 7y ago
Those seem like pretty big downsides to me, and I don't believe the new terminal marketing gimmick. I will admit Windows has been very attractive lately for gaming reasons, but from a development standpoint, MacOS still seems way ahead of Windows. I seriously considered it, but there would be too much I'd miss if I switched. There's some minor reasons too, like why does IntelliJ look ugly in Windows? It looks great in both Mac and Linux.
- 72deluxe 7y ago
  "from a development standpoint, MacOS still seems way ahead of Windows" Sorry but have you heard of Visual Studio?
  - oneplane 7y ago
    Everyone has heard of Visual Studio, and nobody that has to use it wants to. Just because you have Stockholm syndrome doesn't mean everyone else has to have it too ;-)
    - 72deluxe 7y ago
      Must be a different development sphere to me. I have to use xcode for dev on the Mac and it is feeble compared to VS. I can't think of a better IDE to be honest (C++, C# for me). Whenever I have to use other offerings like Eclipse, Netbeans or Android Studio for other languages I am never very satisfied with them. Android Studio in particular breaks gradle and projects between updates, although Flutter seems to work.
    - jannes 7y ago
      VS is pretty nice if you run it without plugins that slow it down (like ReSharper)
    - GlennS 7y ago
      I'm really suprised at this comment. I'm confident most of the .NET community is very happy with Visual Studio. In my opinion, Visual Studio massively outclasses Eclipse, VSCode and Netbeans. It even makes IntelliJ (which is pretty great too) look a bit inadequate. (I use Emacs these days though.)
      - ernst_klim 7y ago
        >from a development standpoint >I'm confident most of the .NET community is very happy with Visual Studio .NET is not the only ecosystem people develop for. There are embedded C/Forth, web frontend/backend, written in Java, Scala, Ruby, Python, other stuff. VS sucks for nearly everything safe C#/C++ for windows. Besides, even for C# people use an additional plugin, resharper, so VS is not enough even for its target ecosystem.
        pjmlp 7y ago
        > Besides, even for C# people use an additional plugin, resharper, so VS is not enough even for its target ecosystem. Those that have CPU cycles and memory to spare do.
        patates 7y ago
  - ernst_klim 7y ago
    >Sorry but have you heard of Visual Studio? A sluggish clumsy bloated IDE? What's good about it? I've used it for a couple of years when I wrote directshow filters, and it was a complete shit back in a days (2015-2017). * terrible clumsy project system, where changing a flag is a quest. As abominable as autotools. * using non-vcproj projects is a pain, especially when you have a bunch of make files * It's slow as hell. * Language support is lacking. No OCaml, no Lisp, hell, even C11 is a quest. After they've added a package manager and clang support, it became less painful, but fur from great experience.
- holoduke 7y ago
  Well did you try out Linux bash on windows. In less than 2 minutes you setup a Debian instance. You got shells and everything. All well known ide's are available on both Windows and Mac. In my opinion there is no real difference anymore. I am a Mac user and windows user. The only reason why I still use my Mac is because of the ergonomics.
  - rusk 7y ago
    In my experience Mac OS still has the edge in terms of stability. But certainly the gap is closing.
    - barrkel 7y ago
      The only crashes I've had from NT kernel over the past 15 years or so are from graphics card drivers and bad RAM. Linux is a lot less stable, as a laptop OS, than Windows or OSX. Suspend and resume in presence and absence of multiple monitors is like rolling dice; locks up about 15% of the time.
      - rusk 7y ago
        Lucky you! I do a reboot on my Windows 10 machine every night. I also suffered from intermittent complete and total lockups due to a bug in what I traced to spotify. Similar thing happened with MacOS and safari recently enough too so I stopped using Safari for a while ...
        AtlasLion 7y ago
        using a Lenovo P50 with windows 10 for 2 years now, I only reboot it maybe once a month, for the rest, I close the lid, it goes to sleep, next day in the office, I open the lid and continue where I stopped. so far I have had zero issues with it.
        rusk 7y ago
        That's how I use my mac. Sad to say I've never had that experience with Windows but then again, I've never had a Lenovo ...
- rudiv 7y ago
  Re: IntelliJ looking bad on Windows, I do know that JetBrains IDEs are still stuck on using GDI for drawing fonts rather than the new DirectWrite protocol. The poor quality of GDI (especially on high DPI displays) is very noticeable when you switch from Linux or macOS to a Windows app that uses it. I looked it up a while ago, and as I recall it was an issue with the Java runtime that JetBrains IDEs use.
skykooler 7y ago
My biggest problem with Windows is that you can't scroll in a window or a pane without clicking on it first. Both Mac and Linux support that and it makes the OS feel so clunky.
- eMSF 7y ago
  That's actually one of the better new features in Windows 10 (that you can these days scroll an inactive window).
  - skykooler 7y ago
    Oh, really? I might give it a try again one of these days, then.
    - mcv 7y ago
      I'm no Windows fan, but Windows 10 is the first where I don't actively hate the window manager. Well, I do hate how it keeps moving all my windows to the left side of the desktop. Not sure why that is happening. So I guess I hate something different about it now.
      - m_mueller 7y ago
        You mean it's snapping to the left half after some action? That would probably be when you press Windows+Left-Arrow, happens to me sometimes when I try to do Ctrl-left for example.
        mcv 7y ago
        It's generally when I unlock the screen after waking up. I have no idea if I accidentally pressed Windows+Left, but it's doing this very consistently.
        m_mueller 7y ago
        sounds a bit like a driver issue, like it changes the screen resolution during wake-up. you should figure out whether it's the exact size used for half-pane snapping (which sounds like userland issue), or whether it's some other size.
ddebernardy 7y ago
Out of curiosity, has Windows improved in any way from a low maintenance perspective? The reason I switched to Mac in 2006 was that I ended up using a friend's Mac for a month while abroad so I could get some work done. When I got back to a place where I could get a new Viao at a reasonable price it occurred to me that I hadn't been fighting with the Mac a single time. Wifi always worked, everything I plugged into it just worked as well, the software I ended up installing just worked too, Apache and SVN ran fine, there was a good Terminal app out of the box, etc. This was in stark contrast with the decades long experience I had had with PCs until then. On any given week I had been invariably spending between a half-hour and a day fighting with Windows in some way or another. Which could mean trying to figure out why Wifi or some random printer didn't work, looking for drivers, reinstalling or reconfiguring some piece of software, and so forth. Has this improved materially since the past decade?
- m_mueller 7y ago
  It certainly has improved, but Mac still has the edge in that regard. This mainly comes down to one things: Superior config management (plist files vs Windows registry). This makes it much easier to maintain - you hardly ever have to reinstall a Mac, instead just clean up all the Library folders and you're fine. A Mac HD also boots on any supported Mac hardware, impossible with windows, which makes things like Migration assistant and full Time machine restore possible. Bundled apps to me are a wash. Preview >> Edge for PDFs and Terminal.app >> Cmd.exe, but explorer.exe >> Finder and Task Manager >> Activity Monitor. Another big plus for windows is everything to do with graphics drivers and GPU support if you're into this. I also find WSL overall now better than Mac's Darwin since you get up to date Linux packages which beats homebrew in my books. Performance of WSL is also pretty good, much better than running a VM. This is really what turned Windows around for me, making it a very viable alternative.

lazerlapin 7y ago

how about screen management ? I'm using several virtual screens (spaces) in my mac, that makes things a lot easier to me. How does that go in today's windows?

jxi 7y ago

Those seem like pretty big downsides to me, and I don't believe the new terminal marketing gimmick. I will admit Windows has been very attractive lately for gaming reasons, but from a development standpoint, MacOS still seems way ahead of Windows. I seriously considered it, but there would be too much I'd miss if I switched. There's some minor reasons too, like why does IntelliJ look ugly in Windows? It looks great in both Mac and Linux.

72deluxe 7y ago
"from a development standpoint, MacOS still seems way ahead of Windows" Sorry but have you heard of Visual Studio?
- oneplane 7y ago
  Everyone has heard of Visual Studio, and nobody that has to use it wants to. Just because you have Stockholm syndrome doesn't mean everyone else has to have it too ;-)
  - 72deluxe 7y ago
    Must be a different development sphere to me. I have to use xcode for dev on the Mac and it is feeble compared to VS. I can't think of a better IDE to be honest (C++, C# for me). Whenever I have to use other offerings like Eclipse, Netbeans or Android Studio for other languages I am never very satisfied with them. Android Studio in particular breaks gradle and projects between updates, although Flutter seems to work.
  - jannes 7y ago
    VS is pretty nice if you run it without plugins that slow it down (like ReSharper)
  - GlennS 7y ago
    I'm really suprised at this comment. I'm confident most of the .NET community is very happy with Visual Studio. In my opinion, Visual Studio massively outclasses Eclipse, VSCode and Netbeans. It even makes IntelliJ (which is pretty great too) look a bit inadequate. (I use Emacs these days though.)
    - ernst_klim 7y ago
      >from a development standpoint >I'm confident most of the .NET community is very happy with Visual Studio .NET is not the only ecosystem people develop for. There are embedded C/Forth, web frontend/backend, written in Java, Scala, Ruby, Python, other stuff. VS sucks for nearly everything safe C#/C++ for windows. Besides, even for C# people use an additional plugin, resharper, so VS is not enough even for its target ecosystem.
      - pjmlp 7y ago
        > Besides, even for C# people use an additional plugin, resharper, so VS is not enough even for its target ecosystem. Those that have CPU cycles and memory to spare do.
        patates 7y ago
- ernst_klim 7y ago
  >Sorry but have you heard of Visual Studio? A sluggish clumsy bloated IDE? What's good about it? I've used it for a couple of years when I wrote directshow filters, and it was a complete shit back in a days (2015-2017). * terrible clumsy project system, where changing a flag is a quest. As abominable as autotools. * using non-vcproj projects is a pain, especially when you have a bunch of make files * It's slow as hell. * Language support is lacking. No OCaml, no Lisp, hell, even C11 is a quest. After they've added a package manager and clang support, it became less painful, but fur from great experience.
holoduke 7y ago
Well did you try out Linux bash on windows. In less than 2 minutes you setup a Debian instance. You got shells and everything. All well known ide's are available on both Windows and Mac. In my opinion there is no real difference anymore. I am a Mac user and windows user. The only reason why I still use my Mac is because of the ergonomics.
- rusk 7y ago
  In my experience Mac OS still has the edge in terms of stability. But certainly the gap is closing.
  - barrkel 7y ago
    The only crashes I've had from NT kernel over the past 15 years or so are from graphics card drivers and bad RAM. Linux is a lot less stable, as a laptop OS, than Windows or OSX. Suspend and resume in presence and absence of multiple monitors is like rolling dice; locks up about 15% of the time.
    - rusk 7y ago
      Lucky you! I do a reboot on my Windows 10 machine every night. I also suffered from intermittent complete and total lockups due to a bug in what I traced to spotify. Similar thing happened with MacOS and safari recently enough too so I stopped using Safari for a while ...
      - AtlasLion 7y ago
        using a Lenovo P50 with windows 10 for 2 years now, I only reboot it maybe once a month, for the rest, I close the lid, it goes to sleep, next day in the office, I open the lid and continue where I stopped. so far I have had zero issues with it.
        rusk 7y ago
        That's how I use my mac. Sad to say I've never had that experience with Windows but then again, I've never had a Lenovo ...
rudiv 7y ago
Re: IntelliJ looking bad on Windows, I do know that JetBrains IDEs are still stuck on using GDI for drawing fonts rather than the new DirectWrite protocol. The poor quality of GDI (especially on high DPI displays) is very noticeable when you switch from Linux or macOS to a Windows app that uses it. I looked it up a while ago, and as I recall it was an issue with the Java runtime that JetBrains IDEs use.

skykooler 7y ago

My biggest problem with Windows is that you can't scroll in a window or a pane without clicking on it first. Both Mac and Linux support that and it makes the OS feel so clunky.

eMSF 7y ago
That's actually one of the better new features in Windows 10 (that you can these days scroll an inactive window).
- skykooler 7y ago
  Oh, really? I might give it a try again one of these days, then.
  - mcv 7y ago
    I'm no Windows fan, but Windows 10 is the first where I don't actively hate the window manager. Well, I do hate how it keeps moving all my windows to the left side of the desktop. Not sure why that is happening. So I guess I hate something different about it now.
    - m_mueller 7y ago
      You mean it's snapping to the left half after some action? That would probably be when you press Windows+Left-Arrow, happens to me sometimes when I try to do Ctrl-left for example.
      - mcv 7y ago
        It's generally when I unlock the screen after waking up. I have no idea if I accidentally pressed Windows+Left, but it's doing this very consistently.
        m_mueller 7y ago
        sounds a bit like a driver issue, like it changes the screen resolution during wake-up. you should figure out whether it's the exact size used for half-pane snapping (which sounds like userland issue), or whether it's some other size.

ddebernardy 7y ago

Out of curiosity, has Windows improved in any way from a low maintenance perspective? The reason I switched to Mac in 2006 was that I ended up using a friend's Mac for a month while abroad so I could get some work done. When I got back to a place where I could get a new Viao at a reasonable price it occurred to me that I hadn't been fighting with the Mac a single time. Wifi always worked, everything I plugged into it just worked as well, the software I ended up installing just worked too, Apache and SVN ran fine, there was a good Terminal app out of the box, etc. This was in stark contrast with the decades long experience I had had with PCs until then. On any given week I had been invariably spending between a half-hour and a day fighting with Windows in some way or another. Which could mean trying to figure out why Wifi or some random printer didn't work, looking for drivers, reinstalling or reconfiguring some piece of software, and so forth. Has this improved materially since the past decade?

m_mueller 7y ago
It certainly has improved, but Mac still has the edge in that regard. This mainly comes down to one things: Superior config management (plist files vs Windows registry). This makes it much easier to maintain - you hardly ever have to reinstall a Mac, instead just clean up all the Library folders and you're fine. A Mac HD also boots on any supported Mac hardware, impossible with windows, which makes things like Migration assistant and full Time machine restore possible. Bundled apps to me are a wash. Preview >> Edge for PDFs and Terminal.app >> Cmd.exe, but explorer.exe >> Finder and Task Manager >> Activity Monitor. Another big plus for windows is everything to do with graphics drivers and GPU support if you're into this. I also find WSL overall now better than Mac's Darwin since you get up to date Linux packages which beats homebrew in my books. Performance of WSL is also pretty good, much better than running a VM. This is really what turned Windows around for me, making it a very viable alternative.