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I'm not an apple fanboy. I do have a M1, but I once spent 4 months porting KDE to solaris 10 x86 to run on a hp probook (and even got paid to do it)... I routin

I'm not an apple fanboy. I do have a M1, but I once spent 4 months porting KDE to solaris 10 x86 to run on a hp probook (and even got paid to do it)... I routinely try to exit the apple ecosystem but it always costs me pain and time, which hasn't been worth it for a number of years now. looks at drawer of ubuntu dell XPS's, ThinkPads running openbsd, etc etc. I've fucking TRIED... :( It's been linux and bsd machines as clients for work for almost 20 years.. And yet I keep having to go back to OSX for reliability. At some point you have to just accept certain things are the cost of business..

rbut 5y ago
Reliability? I run a Ubuntu on a Dell XPS 13, and Ubuntu on a custom i9 desktop with no reliability issues at all. In fact I spend less time fixing things than I used to with my Macs (which I used exclusively for 13 years). What reliability issues are you talking about?
smoldesu 5y ago
Then it's not for you. No shame in admitting that. For other people, though, Macbooks simply also don't make sense. Wanna run that 32-bit plugin you use in Photoshop? You're out of luck. How about some advanced Docker development? Hope you don't plan on doing it locally. Hunted by your government for whistleblowing? Probably shouldn't use a laptop that can automate the process of ratting you out. If you're a webdev or hipster programmer chasing the most lucrative Web3 gigs, sure, buying a Macbook is probably the kind of status symbol your peers will respect you for. At the end of the day though, they're all just tools with different uses. If you can use an ARM laptop for day-to-day work, then don't let anyone stop you from doing it. What people dislike is your "every serious developer owns a Macbook" claim. It's the sort of thing you hear from West-coast Google engineers who look around their office of L3 Javascript employees for a sample size before posting a comment. It honestly doesn't reflect the myriad of programmers you'll encounter in the world; some of the most productive 10x developers and "security people" I've met are using systems that even I would consider asinine, like NixOS, QUBES, Whonix or OpenBSD. I don't knock them, though. We judge hackers based on their skill, not their salary range, clout, and least of all by the laptop they have in their backpack.
- user-the-name 5y ago
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  > If you're a webdev or hipster programmer chasing the most lucrative Web3 gigs, sure, buying a Macbook is probably the kind of status symbol your peers will respect you for. At the end of the day though, they're all just tools with different uses. If you can use an ARM laptop for day-to-day work, then don't let anyone stop you from doing it. That’s a bit reductive. Macs are solid native mobile dev machines as well, with a good number of even Android-only devs using them. Lots of dev houses in the US use them for backend work (including Docker, despite the performance penalty), and the FreeBSD devs have been known to use them too.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    I'm not here to take the piss out of your laptop of choice, but I'm also not here to write an exhaustive list of the uses for your Mac. The point that I'm working towards is that it's always a game of give and take. There's some people who a Macbook would be the perfect device for, who I will readily admit cannot use Linux or alt-systems to be as productive as they are now. Conversely though, there are a number of things that MacOS is laughably bad at, likewise there are a number of people who quite literally cannot use it as a daily driver. The whole "this machine is more stable" and "my anecdotal opinion is x/y/z" nonsense is a non-starter for productive conversation comparing the systems. The upthread comment was warranted to call them out on Apple fanboyism; their statement was nonsense and exclusively backed by their personal experience. I've talked to enough "serious developers" to know that there are no perfect operating systems, and pretending like any one of them is king is just hubris incarnate.
    - evilduck 5y ago
      >I'm not here to take the piss out of your laptop of choice, >buying a Macbook is probably the kind of status symbol your peers will respect you for. Make up your mind.

rbut 5y ago

Reliability? I run a Ubuntu on a Dell XPS 13, and Ubuntu on a custom i9 desktop with no reliability issues at all. In fact I spend less time fixing things than I used to with my Macs (which I used exclusively for 13 years). What reliability issues are you talking about?

smoldesu 5y ago

Then it's not for you. No shame in admitting that. For other people, though, Macbooks simply also don't make sense. Wanna run that 32-bit plugin you use in Photoshop? You're out of luck. How about some advanced Docker development? Hope you don't plan on doing it locally. Hunted by your government for whistleblowing? Probably shouldn't use a laptop that can automate the process of ratting you out. If you're a webdev or hipster programmer chasing the most lucrative Web3 gigs, sure, buying a Macbook is probably the kind of status symbol your peers will respect you for. At the end of the day though, they're all just tools with different uses. If you can use an ARM laptop for day-to-day work, then don't let anyone stop you from doing it. What people dislike is your "every serious developer owns a Macbook" claim. It's the sort of thing you hear from West-coast Google engineers who look around their office of L3 Javascript employees for a sample size before posting a comment. It honestly doesn't reflect the myriad of programmers you'll encounter in the world; some of the most productive 10x developers and "security people" I've met are using systems that even I would consider asinine, like NixOS, QUBES, Whonix or OpenBSD. I don't knock them, though. We judge hackers based on their skill, not their salary range, clout, and least of all by the laptop they have in their backpack.

user-the-name 5y ago
kitsunesoba 5y ago
> If you're a webdev or hipster programmer chasing the most lucrative Web3 gigs, sure, buying a Macbook is probably the kind of status symbol your peers will respect you for. At the end of the day though, they're all just tools with different uses. If you can use an ARM laptop for day-to-day work, then don't let anyone stop you from doing it. That’s a bit reductive. Macs are solid native mobile dev machines as well, with a good number of even Android-only devs using them. Lots of dev houses in the US use them for backend work (including Docker, despite the performance penalty), and the FreeBSD devs have been known to use them too.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I'm not here to take the piss out of your laptop of choice, but I'm also not here to write an exhaustive list of the uses for your Mac. The point that I'm working towards is that it's always a game of give and take. There's some people who a Macbook would be the perfect device for, who I will readily admit cannot use Linux or alt-systems to be as productive as they are now. Conversely though, there are a number of things that MacOS is laughably bad at, likewise there are a number of people who quite literally cannot use it as a daily driver. The whole "this machine is more stable" and "my anecdotal opinion is x/y/z" nonsense is a non-starter for productive conversation comparing the systems. The upthread comment was warranted to call them out on Apple fanboyism; their statement was nonsense and exclusively backed by their personal experience. I've talked to enough "serious developers" to know that there are no perfect operating systems, and pretending like any one of them is king is just hubris incarnate.
  - evilduck 5y ago
    >I'm not here to take the piss out of your laptop of choice, >buying a Macbook is probably the kind of status symbol your peers will respect you for. Make up your mind.