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> Every company I've worked at for the last 10 years has developed exclusively on macOS. Counter-anecdote: I have had a Linux computer on my desktop for over t

by zeveb 6y ago

> Every company I've worked at for the last 10 years has developed exclusively on macOS. Counter-anecdote: I have had a Linux computer on my desktop for over the last twenty years, have used Linux primarily for maybe the last eleven, and exclusively for the last eight. I do not get the near-religious love for Apple products. Pre-OS X, they really were wonderful, best in class without a doubt. I kinda get the attraction back in the early 2000s, when Linux could still be a chore and Macs were a decent choice to get a computer which had a shell and ran real software. But now? They are just not for me. I want to own my own computer, write my own software and control my own destiny.

zepto 6y ago
You can’t control your destiny when it’s based on millions of lines of other people’s code, billion transistor hardware designs that you have never seen, fabricated by distant mega factories using closely guarded secret processes. You may want some idea of controlling your own destiny, but it’s a mirage.
- vetinari 6y ago
  Rome wasn't built in a single day either. If you want to eventually get to your destination, you must do the first step.
  - zepto 6y ago
    That is a sentiment that I partially agree with. I frequently argue that iOS (for example) represents more than a decade of investment, so we can’t expect an alternative to pop up overnight. However using a Linux desktop simply is not a step in any particular direction. It is especially meaningless for non-developers to do if one of the other platforms just works for them. Steps in the right direction involve developing software to solve the problems that the corporate operating systems have in fact solved.
    - vetinari 6y ago
      It works both ways: Windows (or Mac) are meaningless to any user, who can be served by Linux. The first step in solving problems that corporate OSes have solved is identifying them. For example, one of the problems is stable/versioned/sandboxable/distro-agnostic ABIs and that is something that is being worked on and they are quite usable nowadays. The related problem is, that the corporate-software is ignoring them (how many conference solution support Pipewire for desktop sharing? Or Wayland in Chrome? Heck, VA in Chrome? Exactly... but whatever Apple comes with, they support within weeks).
      - zepto 6y ago
        It’s easy to know what Apple is going to support and for how long, and how much warning you’ll get when things are deprecated. How would I even begin to know the answer to these questions when it comes to the Linux technologies you are naming. Based on what I read here, the community of people who do use them isn’t even sure.
        vetinari 6y ago
        Is it? For few things yes (OpenGL or 32-bit depreciation); other things are simply not found in the new releases (Kerberos Ticket Viewer, TWAIN). Then there's a middle ground, where there is a window of few months to make significant architectural changes to your product (see VPNs and personal firewalls). So excuse me, I'm going to look for a new release of Cisco VPN that works with Big Sur. Of course, it is customer's VPN, and they don't care that their vendors might use Mac, so no help from them, it is my problem now.
        zepto 6y ago
        Sounds like don’t buy Cisco. But more importantly - you verified my assertion. Even if a small number of security related technologies have a smaller deprecation window, the others have very long ones. More importantly - we can even find out what they are! With Linux, can you even tell me whether Cairo, the graphics library behind GTK and for which there is no alternative is even still supported?

by zeveb 6y ago

zepto 6y ago

You can’t control your destiny when it’s based on millions of lines of other people’s code, billion transistor hardware designs that you have never seen, fabricated by distant mega factories using closely guarded secret processes. You may want some idea of controlling your own destiny, but it’s a mirage.

vetinari 6y ago
Rome wasn't built in a single day either. If you want to eventually get to your destination, you must do the first step.
- zepto 6y ago
  That is a sentiment that I partially agree with. I frequently argue that iOS (for example) represents more than a decade of investment, so we can’t expect an alternative to pop up overnight. However using a Linux desktop simply is not a step in any particular direction. It is especially meaningless for non-developers to do if one of the other platforms just works for them. Steps in the right direction involve developing software to solve the problems that the corporate operating systems have in fact solved.
  - vetinari 6y ago
    It works both ways: Windows (or Mac) are meaningless to any user, who can be served by Linux. The first step in solving problems that corporate OSes have solved is identifying them. For example, one of the problems is stable/versioned/sandboxable/distro-agnostic ABIs and that is something that is being worked on and they are quite usable nowadays. The related problem is, that the corporate-software is ignoring them (how many conference solution support Pipewire for desktop sharing? Or Wayland in Chrome? Heck, VA in Chrome? Exactly... but whatever Apple comes with, they support within weeks).
    - zepto 6y ago
      It’s easy to know what Apple is going to support and for how long, and how much warning you’ll get when things are deprecated. How would I even begin to know the answer to these questions when it comes to the Linux technologies you are naming. Based on what I read here, the community of people who do use them isn’t even sure.
      - vetinari 6y ago
        Is it? For few things yes (OpenGL or 32-bit depreciation); other things are simply not found in the new releases (Kerberos Ticket Viewer, TWAIN). Then there's a middle ground, where there is a window of few months to make significant architectural changes to your product (see VPNs and personal firewalls). So excuse me, I'm going to look for a new release of Cisco VPN that works with Big Sur. Of course, it is customer's VPN, and they don't care that their vendors might use Mac, so no help from them, it is my problem now.
        zepto 6y ago
        Sounds like don’t buy Cisco. But more importantly - you verified my assertion. Even if a small number of security related technologies have a smaller deprecation window, the others have very long ones. More importantly - we can even find out what they are! With Linux, can you even tell me whether Cairo, the graphics library behind GTK and for which there is no alternative is even still supported?