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The title is missing "For Me" from the end. I moved from Linux to OS X because Linux couldn't cut it for me. The closer is arrogant too: "If every thing I sa

by YooLi 16y ago

The title is missing "For Me" from the end. I moved from Linux to OS X because Linux couldn't cut it for me. The closer is arrogant too: "If every thing I said went over your head, and you think I’m crazy, it just means your time hasn’t come yet."

trafficlight 16y ago
"If every thing I said went over your head, and you think I’m crazy, it just means your time hasn’t come yet." Someday I hope to be as smart as he is.
- seanalltogether 16y ago
  The funny thing for me, is that the better I've gotten at programming, the less time I've spent with my hands on the keyboard writing code, and the more time I've spent pacing around my desk or staring at the ceiling. For me keyboard efficiency is becoming less and less relevant as my code becomes more sophisticated.
  - lucisferre 16y ago
    I find myself doing the same, but keyboard inefficiency still frustrates me which is why I still find it important. Once I know what I want to write I want to write it now.
ihodes 16y ago
Out of curiosity, why did you switch to OSX? I'm on OSX now, and I love much of it, but the author's points ring very true. I'm less and less sure every day why I stay on Mac as apposed to Arch, which I use on my servers.
- danieldk 16y ago
  Hardware support and applications. The first point does not need much elaboration, but I simply can't live without Lightroom, InDesign, and Illustrator. If I ever switch back to Linux on the desktop, I probably need a Windows VM to run those applications. Also at home, Linux cannot provide the same level of integration as the Mac, iPhone, and Apple TV. I like being able to stream a video on my iPhone to our TV, or use my laptop to stream an album stored on my Mac Mini to our TV.
- bradleyland 16y ago
  Horses for courses. No one else can tell you why you should use OS X, Linux... Or (gasp) Windows, for that matter. There is no empirical claim of superiority when it comes to tools. It's whatever works for you. Our lead developer uses TextMate with a mouse. Quite honestly, I think I use more keyboard shortcuts in TextMate than he does, and he doesn't use a stitch of Vim, where I'm fairly comfortable with it. I can feel the condescending smirks from here, but my knowledge of keyboard shortcuts doesn't make me a better programmer. Far from it. I can hardly code my way out of a paper bag. Your tools do not make you a good programmer! Having said all that, there's no reason you shouldn't try different tools. You should, actually. Just make sure you haven't convinced yourself that "tool XYZ will make me a better programmer." It may make you a more comfortable programmer, but beware of Yaks in need of shaving. If you find yourself spending more time setting up your environment than actually coding, you'd be better off with a system that denies you the temptation.
- kgo 16y ago
  I personally find X to really annoying due to it's architecture, no matter how pretty Gnome and KDE get. Just one example that happens all the time for me on linux. 1. Taskbar yells that I have updates. 2. I click the notification icon. 3. Nothing happens. No hourglass. 4. Wait. 5. Click it again. 6. No feedback. 7. Two copies of synaptic pop up. One flips out because another copy is already open. The analogous version of this never happens to me on Windows or OSX. Sure it's not the end of the world, but when weird stuff like this happens more than once a day, it gets annoying. It's like having that toilet where you need to jiggle the handle.
  - hollerith 16y ago
    Same here: X is annoying for reasons hard for me to articulate, and the analogous part of OS X is significantly less annoying. If Canonical completes their plan to replace X with Wayland in Ubuntu, I will give Ubuntu another try. ADDED. I ran Linux for 13 years.
    - krakensden 16y ago
      None of the problems he listed are caused by X, they're caused by various decisions in GTK+, Gnome, and Synaptic. Moving to Wayland won't fix any of those things. It will get you slightly faster compositing, though.
      - hollerith 16y ago
        It might be possible to fix these things without changing X, but I get the impression that it is harder to write an app that does not annoy me in X than in OS X.
  - mnnttl 16y ago
    1.You can disable automatic updates. 2.You can remove the notification applets in the gnome-panel. 3.Probably it was a case of bad network. And hourglass belonged to Windows, you shouldn't expect it here. 4.That's what you do. Be patient. 5.You shouldn't have clicked it again because the first instance is still loading. 6.Be patient. 7.I told you, point 5. If you think that these are valid enough reasons to believe the usability of Linux is poor, I really sympathize with you. And all of this is about updating the system. When I can update Windows or OSX by just issuing a command like "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade" I will change my operating system.
DavidBishop 16y ago
Very true. It sounds like the author is doing some hardcore stuff that he needs a bit more brute force. For the majority of us, OS X may be exactly what we need. Kudos to the author on his depth of hardcore computing, but there are a million ways to use computers, hack, and code and the majority of them don't need that level of l337ism.
terinjokes 16y ago
I feel like I'm in the same boat as you, Linux didn't cut it for me, and I moved back to OSX. I don't need to have Terminals covering my screen, there's only so much I can focus on at a time anyways. I too don't like reaching for the mouse, but found that I really don't need to that often anyways. Yes, at work I use vim, and Mutt and various other command-line tools on Linux (in fact, the only thing that's GUI is my Jabber client and web browsers). But for some reason when at home or working on non-work projects I prefer TextMate, Sparrow and my OSX. But that's for me…
gte910h 16y ago
Yeah, I have found OS X a lot easier than Linux to get things done with in general (related to development). The lack of general support for commercial apps and the inability of a credit card to solve problems is a huge problem for a lot of problems. Sure I'll use a virtualized Linux environment for dev now and then, but OS X now is not bad at all for dev. This goes threefold once you talk about getting anyone else setup like you. It's just so hard to get people not running the exact same flavor of Linux into the same development configuration for many tasks.

by YooLi 16y ago

trafficlight 16y ago

"If every thing I said went over your head, and you think I’m crazy, it just means your time hasn’t come yet." Someday I hope to be as smart as he is.

seanalltogether 16y ago
The funny thing for me, is that the better I've gotten at programming, the less time I've spent with my hands on the keyboard writing code, and the more time I've spent pacing around my desk or staring at the ceiling. For me keyboard efficiency is becoming less and less relevant as my code becomes more sophisticated.
- lucisferre 16y ago
  I find myself doing the same, but keyboard inefficiency still frustrates me which is why I still find it important. Once I know what I want to write I want to write it now.

ihodes 16y ago

Out of curiosity, why did you switch to OSX? I'm on OSX now, and I love much of it, but the author's points ring very true. I'm less and less sure every day why I stay on Mac as apposed to Arch, which I use on my servers.

danieldk 16y ago
Hardware support and applications. The first point does not need much elaboration, but I simply can't live without Lightroom, InDesign, and Illustrator. If I ever switch back to Linux on the desktop, I probably need a Windows VM to run those applications. Also at home, Linux cannot provide the same level of integration as the Mac, iPhone, and Apple TV. I like being able to stream a video on my iPhone to our TV, or use my laptop to stream an album stored on my Mac Mini to our TV.
bradleyland 16y ago
Horses for courses. No one else can tell you why you should use OS X, Linux... Or (gasp) Windows, for that matter. There is no empirical claim of superiority when it comes to tools. It's whatever works for you. Our lead developer uses TextMate with a mouse. Quite honestly, I think I use more keyboard shortcuts in TextMate than he does, and he doesn't use a stitch of Vim, where I'm fairly comfortable with it. I can feel the condescending smirks from here, but my knowledge of keyboard shortcuts doesn't make me a better programmer. Far from it. I can hardly code my way out of a paper bag. Your tools do not make you a good programmer! Having said all that, there's no reason you shouldn't try different tools. You should, actually. Just make sure you haven't convinced yourself that "tool XYZ will make me a better programmer." It may make you a more comfortable programmer, but beware of Yaks in need of shaving. If you find yourself spending more time setting up your environment than actually coding, you'd be better off with a system that denies you the temptation.
kgo 16y ago
I personally find X to really annoying due to it's architecture, no matter how pretty Gnome and KDE get. Just one example that happens all the time for me on linux. 1. Taskbar yells that I have updates. 2. I click the notification icon. 3. Nothing happens. No hourglass. 4. Wait. 5. Click it again. 6. No feedback. 7. Two copies of synaptic pop up. One flips out because another copy is already open. The analogous version of this never happens to me on Windows or OSX. Sure it's not the end of the world, but when weird stuff like this happens more than once a day, it gets annoying. It's like having that toilet where you need to jiggle the handle.
- hollerith 16y ago
  Same here: X is annoying for reasons hard for me to articulate, and the analogous part of OS X is significantly less annoying. If Canonical completes their plan to replace X with Wayland in Ubuntu, I will give Ubuntu another try. ADDED. I ran Linux for 13 years.
  - krakensden 16y ago
    None of the problems he listed are caused by X, they're caused by various decisions in GTK+, Gnome, and Synaptic. Moving to Wayland won't fix any of those things. It will get you slightly faster compositing, though.
    - hollerith 16y ago
      It might be possible to fix these things without changing X, but I get the impression that it is harder to write an app that does not annoy me in X than in OS X.
- mnnttl 16y ago
  1.You can disable automatic updates. 2.You can remove the notification applets in the gnome-panel. 3.Probably it was a case of bad network. And hourglass belonged to Windows, you shouldn't expect it here. 4.That's what you do. Be patient. 5.You shouldn't have clicked it again because the first instance is still loading. 6.Be patient. 7.I told you, point 5. If you think that these are valid enough reasons to believe the usability of Linux is poor, I really sympathize with you. And all of this is about updating the system. When I can update Windows or OSX by just issuing a command like "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade" I will change my operating system.

DavidBishop 16y ago

Very true. It sounds like the author is doing some hardcore stuff that he needs a bit more brute force. For the majority of us, OS X may be exactly what we need. Kudos to the author on his depth of hardcore computing, but there are a million ways to use computers, hack, and code and the majority of them don't need that level of l337ism.

terinjokes 16y ago

I feel like I'm in the same boat as you, Linux didn't cut it for me, and I moved back to OSX. I don't need to have Terminals covering my screen, there's only so much I can focus on at a time anyways. I too don't like reaching for the mouse, but found that I really don't need to that often anyways. Yes, at work I use vim, and Mutt and various other command-line tools on Linux (in fact, the only thing that's GUI is my Jabber client and web browsers). But for some reason when at home or working on non-work projects I prefer TextMate, Sparrow and my OSX. But that's for me…

gte910h 16y ago

Yeah, I have found OS X a lot easier than Linux to get things done with in general (related to development). The lack of general support for commercial apps and the inability of a credit card to solve problems is a huge problem for a lot of problems. Sure I'll use a virtualized Linux environment for dev now and then, but OS X now is not bad at all for dev. This goes threefold once you talk about getting anyone else setup like you. It's just so hard to get people not running the exact same flavor of Linux into the same development configuration for many tasks.