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> It's funny, when people denigrate the worst gaming platform in the world as a "toy computer." Unless you're developing iOS apps or MacOS apps, it's pretty te

by hedora 3y ago

> It's funny, when people denigrate the worst gaming platform in the world as a "toy computer." Unless you're developing iOS apps or MacOS apps, it's pretty terrible as a work platform too. I guess iWork is OK, but no one uses it, so it's not helpful for collaboration. Maybe people use it for media production? Doesn't the big rendering still happen on Linux though, and hasn't windows caught up? Having said that, Mac laptops made passable web browser + video phone + dumb terminal in the intel days, and now they're excellent at those things and added "virtualization host" to that list. I guess I've always thought of them more like glorified vt100s than like computers. They're certainly market leaders for that use case, though WSL is helping windows catch up.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
Well, I write MacOS/iOS/WatchOS/iPadOS/visionOS stuff, so I'm dependent on it. Like most tools, we get used to our main one, and can sometimes get a bit "sneery" about alternate ones. The Mac is a particularly rich target, because the "snootiness" is actually a deliberate brand ploy by Apple, and pretty much "leads with the chin," so we have that. I've never been "snooty" about Apple, but it's been my platform for over 30 years, so I'm used to it, and I get a lot done with my Mac.
scarface_74 3y ago
> guess iWork is OK, but no one uses it, so it's not helpful for collaboration You realize Microsoft Office has been on the Mac since the mid 80s right? > Maybe people use it for media production? Uhh yes?
- hedora 3y ago
  Microsoft Office has always been sub-par on Mac, and I haven't worked at a company that uses it for collaboration for over a decade. (Sure, there's the occasional person that actually needs VB macros under Excel, or prefers powerpoint, but there's no reason for me to run it.) I know you can use them for media production. Looking around, it sounds like they still own the low-end with iMovie, but it gets questionable as hardware requirements increase. I guess it's a viable platform for that. I know a lot of CAD software is missing MacOS ports, so they seem to have lost that market. Anyway, I'll continue to think of my laptop as a dumb terminal with a good hypervisor bolted on the side.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    I know of quite a large company - the second largest employer in the US that have thousands of Macs and come with Office. Do you really think that no one has been using Office for Mac and Microsoft has been selling it for 35 years?
    - hedora 3y ago
      It is hard to switch away from mainframes too, but I haven’t heard of a company that was founded in the last ten years that is a Microsoft Office shop.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        Well, maybe your anecdata may be in conflict with reported revenue numbers? Google Office is not taking the world by storm. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3637079/as-google-moves-to-reshape-workspace-barriers-to-business-adoption-remain.amp.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3637079/as-google-move... No it’s also not the year of the Linux desktop either
        hedora 3y ago
        Most places I have worked don’t use office suites. Instead of formatting stuff for 8.5x11” PDFs or printouts, things go into wikis/gdocs/etc, markdown files in git, python or splunk dashboards or whatever instead of excel; stuff is shared on slack, not office/google drive, etc, etc. Sure, you can get access to an office suite at these companies, but people certainly raise an eyebrow when emailed a docx or told to click this office online link to run word in their browser. In the link you pasted, the studies are limiting the market in strange ways. Like what is a “workstream collaboration tool” (teams, and whatever google workspaces is. I’ve never used either, despite using google docs periodically). So, if the question is “which wordperfect clone is winning”, then word is a plausible answer. If the question is “what percentage of all documents are created in each tool”, there’s no way office (excluding outlook) + gdocs + iwork sum up to a majority at most companies.
qumpis 3y ago
How do you explain the adoption of macs among programmers in general? Especially in universities, macs is all I can see.
- hedora 3y ago
  Everyone I know that uses one (myself included) uses it as a toy (== not production server grade) Unix machine and/or dumb terminal.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  In my university, only non computer science students used macs. At my work, I wasn't given a choice and was given a macbook because "we all use macbooks" which really just meant "we all work on the terminal", which mac is not good at, not anymore when we have WSL to compare it against.
  - andelink 3y ago
    [dead]
giantrobot 3y ago
Wow, I thought this type of comment died on Slashdot 20 years ago.
mrtranscendence 3y ago
I mean, you're kind of dead wrong? I've been using Macs for almost two decades at this point as a developer, and it's never kept me from getting work done. These days it's great having a powerful Mac, with the ability to use local machine learning models with relatively large amounts of VRAM (more than any consumer GPU, though inference won't be as fast as recent Nvidia cards). It's great at video editing, too.
EricE 3y ago
Don't tell IBM they are doing it wrong: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/301863-ibm-our-mac-using-employees-outperform-windows-users-in-every-way https://www.extremetech.com/computing/301863-ibm-our-mac-usi...

by hedora 3y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

Well, I write MacOS/iOS/WatchOS/iPadOS/visionOS stuff, so I'm dependent on it. Like most tools, we get used to our main one, and can sometimes get a bit "sneery" about alternate ones. The Mac is a particularly rich target, because the "snootiness" is actually a deliberate brand ploy by Apple, and pretty much "leads with the chin," so we have that. I've never been "snooty" about Apple, but it's been my platform for over 30 years, so I'm used to it, and I get a lot done with my Mac.

scarface_74 3y ago

> guess iWork is OK, but no one uses it, so it's not helpful for collaboration You realize Microsoft Office has been on the Mac since the mid 80s right? > Maybe people use it for media production? Uhh yes?

hedora 3y ago
Microsoft Office has always been sub-par on Mac, and I haven't worked at a company that uses it for collaboration for over a decade. (Sure, there's the occasional person that actually needs VB macros under Excel, or prefers powerpoint, but there's no reason for me to run it.) I know you can use them for media production. Looking around, it sounds like they still own the low-end with iMovie, but it gets questionable as hardware requirements increase. I guess it's a viable platform for that. I know a lot of CAD software is missing MacOS ports, so they seem to have lost that market. Anyway, I'll continue to think of my laptop as a dumb terminal with a good hypervisor bolted on the side.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  I know of quite a large company - the second largest employer in the US that have thousands of Macs and come with Office. Do you really think that no one has been using Office for Mac and Microsoft has been selling it for 35 years?
  - hedora 3y ago
    It is hard to switch away from mainframes too, but I haven’t heard of a company that was founded in the last ten years that is a Microsoft Office shop.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      Well, maybe your anecdata may be in conflict with reported revenue numbers? Google Office is not taking the world by storm. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3637079/as-google-moves-to-reshape-workspace-barriers-to-business-adoption-remain.amp.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3637079/as-google-move... No it’s also not the year of the Linux desktop either
      - hedora 3y ago
        Most places I have worked don’t use office suites. Instead of formatting stuff for 8.5x11” PDFs or printouts, things go into wikis/gdocs/etc, markdown files in git, python or splunk dashboards or whatever instead of excel; stuff is shared on slack, not office/google drive, etc, etc. Sure, you can get access to an office suite at these companies, but people certainly raise an eyebrow when emailed a docx or told to click this office online link to run word in their browser. In the link you pasted, the studies are limiting the market in strange ways. Like what is a “workstream collaboration tool” (teams, and whatever google workspaces is. I’ve never used either, despite using google docs periodically). So, if the question is “which wordperfect clone is winning”, then word is a plausible answer. If the question is “what percentage of all documents are created in each tool”, there’s no way office (excluding outlook) + gdocs + iwork sum up to a majority at most companies.

qumpis 3y ago

How do you explain the adoption of macs among programmers in general? Especially in universities, macs is all I can see.

hedora 3y ago
Everyone I know that uses one (myself included) uses it as a toy (== not production server grade) Unix machine and/or dumb terminal.
mrguyorama 3y ago
In my university, only non computer science students used macs. At my work, I wasn't given a choice and was given a macbook because "we all use macbooks" which really just meant "we all work on the terminal", which mac is not good at, not anymore when we have WSL to compare it against.
- andelink 3y ago
  [dead]

giantrobot 3y ago

Wow, I thought this type of comment died on Slashdot 20 years ago.

mrtranscendence 3y ago

I mean, you're kind of dead wrong? I've been using Macs for almost two decades at this point as a developer, and it's never kept me from getting work done. These days it's great having a powerful Mac, with the ability to use local machine learning models with relatively large amounts of VRAM (more than any consumer GPU, though inference won't be as fast as recent Nvidia cards). It's great at video editing, too.

EricE 3y ago

Don't tell IBM they are doing it wrong: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/301863-ibm-our-mac-using-employees-outperform-windows-users-in-every-way https://www.extremetech.com/computing/301863-ibm-our-mac-usi...