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In a lot of ways macOS is that. It’s a very workable Unix and (I wasn’t watching when), Homebrew has gone from being a PITA even on its home turf to working gre

In a lot of ways macOS is that. It’s a very workable Unix and (I wasn’t watching when), Homebrew has gone from being a PITA even on its home turf to working great on everything from NixOS to WSL2. But I’m still about one free weekend away from virtualizing Linux on my Macs because you just hit a limit with Yubai or Rectangle or Divvy or whatever. I want a real tiler, I want rounded corners to fuck off, and I’ll pay a little in sub-pixel hinting to get it.

pjmlp 3y ago
OS X is still basically NeXTSTEP in many regards.
- SllX 3y ago
  A fairer characterization would be to say it is in NeXTSTEP’s lineage. Not only had a lot changed by 10.0, but at this point Mac OS X has been under development (and forked into multiple OS projects several times over) more than twice as long as NeXT had existed as an independent entity.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Some ways in how the NeXTSTEP culture prevails in 2024. Its approach to kernel design, the way drivers are written in a OOP based framework, UNIX is there as bottom layer (certified even) but doesn't get the spotlight, Objective-C (and now Swift) frameworks is all that matters for developers invested into the platform, heavy IDE based development (remember famous Sun vs NeXT 1990's commercial), what cool stuff can be done with OS frameworks (starting with products like Lotus Improv or Web Objects). This is what I meant, not what NSSomething are still in use.
    - SllX 3y ago
      I gotchu and I understand what you mean, just assisting with clarity because it is more fair to say "Mac OS X has continued the lineage of NeXTSTEP" than it is to say "Mac OS X is basically NeXTSTEP." Think about everything Mac OS X has or has had which NeXTSTEP has never had. DTrace, HFS+ and then APFS, Quartz replaced Display PostScript, OpenGL and Metal, IOKit replaced DriverKit and is now being functionally replaced (at least in part) by something called Driver Kit, Catalyst, SwiftUI, Quick Look, Spotlight, Safari/WebKit, Keychain, Xcode has replaced both Project Builder and Interface Builder, Core Audio, Core Animation, QuickTime and then QTKit and then AVFoundation, I mean the list goes on. Unicode is everywhere now too, which is neat; NeXTSTEP and Mac OS had their own character encodings. Carbon was also a significant technology for the first few years, as was the first Rosetta (and we have Rosetta 2 now), and the Classic environment. So, clarifying more than disagreeing. :)
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  Only under the hood unfortunately. It would be great to have a desktop OS aimed at professional use again, but everybody has been chasing the needs of the mythical "casual user" in the last few decades (which is basically the tiny cross section of the taste and requirements of all computer users lumped together, but that tiny cross section on its own is useless without being extensible and customizable to the needs of each specific user)
  - mbreese 3y ago
    What are the features you’d say are required for “professional” use? I can think of a few things that I’d like to see, such as better keyboard navigation and the return of a spatial finder. But I think that if you asked ten people that question (especially here), you’d get 11 different opinions. So the only option is something that covers a pretty minimalist overlap.
    - flohofwoe 3y ago
      Mostly things that would hurt security unfortunately, e.g. opening up (maybe even requiring) each UI application to be scriptable and (to some extent at least) controlable from the command line (e.g. going full in on ideas like AppleScript and Automator instead of letting those go stale), getting rid of the stupid notarization requirements and quarantine mode for executables downloaded from the the internet, being able to extend OS features with system-wide plugins (e.g. installing new 'data types'), being able to extend the Finder with new features (similar to how TortoiseSVN integrated into the Windows explorer context menues), provide an official package manager (although Homebrew is mostly good enough). E.g. there should be a toggle which says "this is my computer, I want to do with it what I want, and yes, I know the risks and won't sue Apple if things go sideways").
      - sbuk 3y ago
        There kind of is. Restart in recovery mode, open a terminal and type `csrutil disable`. Also, there are finder extensions that do what you suggest.
Thri4895o 3y ago
I thing macos sucks for Linux development. There is not enough memory and disk space for virtualization, so you run random scripts from Internet on your main machine. Command line tools are decades old and obsolete...
- steve1977 3y ago
  How is not enough memory or storage a problem of the operating system?
  - walterbell 3y ago
    Problem of the macOS licensing model, which mandates excessive margins for bundled memory and storage.
    - microtonal 3y ago
      I usually bought a Mac every 1.5 years or so, because I liked being on the cutting edge. However, I am now still rocking a 2021 MacBook Pro 14" because it's still great. In half a year the model is about 3 years old. When I purchased it, it was close to 3000 Euro, and it has 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD. If I'd sell it, I'd still get between 1000 and 1500 Euro. Let's say for the sake of the argument I get 1200 when it is three years old, then the yearly cost was 600 Euro. Which is... cheap for a tool that I use daily and my income depends on? I mean, if I had to drive by car to work, my yearly cost would be much more than 600 Euro. I would readily agree that Apple overcharges for memory and SSD, but the amortized cost is not really large.
      - Thri4895o 3y ago
        If you depend on this machine for living... You should have a spare machine. Way to recover data very fast if it breaks.... Way to fix it... It gets expensive pretty fast. Also if you travel with Mac, you need to carry two laptops. There is no easy way to move NVME drive to new machine like with Pc laptops.
steve1977 3y ago
Does Homebrew not mess up permissions on a multiuser system anymore? (haven’t checked for a while, using MacPorts)

pjmlp 3y ago

OS X is still basically NeXTSTEP in many regards.

SllX 3y ago
A fairer characterization would be to say it is in NeXTSTEP’s lineage. Not only had a lot changed by 10.0, but at this point Mac OS X has been under development (and forked into multiple OS projects several times over) more than twice as long as NeXT had existed as an independent entity.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Some ways in how the NeXTSTEP culture prevails in 2024. Its approach to kernel design, the way drivers are written in a OOP based framework, UNIX is there as bottom layer (certified even) but doesn't get the spotlight, Objective-C (and now Swift) frameworks is all that matters for developers invested into the platform, heavy IDE based development (remember famous Sun vs NeXT 1990's commercial), what cool stuff can be done with OS frameworks (starting with products like Lotus Improv or Web Objects). This is what I meant, not what NSSomething are still in use.
  - SllX 3y ago
    I gotchu and I understand what you mean, just assisting with clarity because it is more fair to say "Mac OS X has continued the lineage of NeXTSTEP" than it is to say "Mac OS X is basically NeXTSTEP." Think about everything Mac OS X has or has had which NeXTSTEP has never had. DTrace, HFS+ and then APFS, Quartz replaced Display PostScript, OpenGL and Metal, IOKit replaced DriverKit and is now being functionally replaced (at least in part) by something called Driver Kit, Catalyst, SwiftUI, Quick Look, Spotlight, Safari/WebKit, Keychain, Xcode has replaced both Project Builder and Interface Builder, Core Audio, Core Animation, QuickTime and then QTKit and then AVFoundation, I mean the list goes on. Unicode is everywhere now too, which is neat; NeXTSTEP and Mac OS had their own character encodings. Carbon was also a significant technology for the first few years, as was the first Rosetta (and we have Rosetta 2 now), and the Classic environment. So, clarifying more than disagreeing. :)
flohofwoe 3y ago
Only under the hood unfortunately. It would be great to have a desktop OS aimed at professional use again, but everybody has been chasing the needs of the mythical "casual user" in the last few decades (which is basically the tiny cross section of the taste and requirements of all computer users lumped together, but that tiny cross section on its own is useless without being extensible and customizable to the needs of each specific user)
- mbreese 3y ago
  What are the features you’d say are required for “professional” use? I can think of a few things that I’d like to see, such as better keyboard navigation and the return of a spatial finder. But I think that if you asked ten people that question (especially here), you’d get 11 different opinions. So the only option is something that covers a pretty minimalist overlap.
  - flohofwoe 3y ago
    Mostly things that would hurt security unfortunately, e.g. opening up (maybe even requiring) each UI application to be scriptable and (to some extent at least) controlable from the command line (e.g. going full in on ideas like AppleScript and Automator instead of letting those go stale), getting rid of the stupid notarization requirements and quarantine mode for executables downloaded from the the internet, being able to extend OS features with system-wide plugins (e.g. installing new 'data types'), being able to extend the Finder with new features (similar to how TortoiseSVN integrated into the Windows explorer context menues), provide an official package manager (although Homebrew is mostly good enough). E.g. there should be a toggle which says "this is my computer, I want to do with it what I want, and yes, I know the risks and won't sue Apple if things go sideways").
    - sbuk 3y ago
      There kind of is. Restart in recovery mode, open a terminal and type `csrutil disable`. Also, there are finder extensions that do what you suggest.

Thri4895o 3y ago

I thing macos sucks for Linux development. There is not enough memory and disk space for virtualization, so you run random scripts from Internet on your main machine. Command line tools are decades old and obsolete...

steve1977 3y ago
How is not enough memory or storage a problem of the operating system?
- walterbell 3y ago
  Problem of the macOS licensing model, which mandates excessive margins for bundled memory and storage.
  - microtonal 3y ago
    I usually bought a Mac every 1.5 years or so, because I liked being on the cutting edge. However, I am now still rocking a 2021 MacBook Pro 14" because it's still great. In half a year the model is about 3 years old. When I purchased it, it was close to 3000 Euro, and it has 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD. If I'd sell it, I'd still get between 1000 and 1500 Euro. Let's say for the sake of the argument I get 1200 when it is three years old, then the yearly cost was 600 Euro. Which is... cheap for a tool that I use daily and my income depends on? I mean, if I had to drive by car to work, my yearly cost would be much more than 600 Euro. I would readily agree that Apple overcharges for memory and SSD, but the amortized cost is not really large.
    - Thri4895o 3y ago
      If you depend on this machine for living... You should have a spare machine. Way to recover data very fast if it breaks.... Way to fix it... It gets expensive pretty fast. Also if you travel with Mac, you need to carry two laptops. There is no easy way to move NVME drive to new machine like with Pc laptops.

steve1977 3y ago

Does Homebrew not mess up permissions on a multiuser system anymore? (haven’t checked for a while, using MacPorts)