9 ms·

What put you off?

angelgonzales 2y ago
I used the Microsoft Surface as my daily driver for years, the finish rubbed off in the first few uses and looked terrible, the screen broke as well. They do look beautiful and it was pretty fast.
spiderfarmer 2y ago
For me? Windows. How can people be productive on an OS that doesn’t allow you to focus.
- gamblor956 2y ago
  Hundreds of millions of people manage to be productive on Windows.
  - sleepybrett 2y ago
    do they really, or is windows just what they use to launch excel? I don't know a single software developer that prefers windows anymore.
    - thorncorona 2y ago
      Most of the software world is on Windows.
      - philwelch 2y ago
        Maybe if you count game development. And, if you’re generous, development environments that run inside a Linux VM hosted by Windows (WSL counts).
      - emptiestplace 2y ago
        It's really bad, though. Like ... objectively abysmal. No other popular platform is more dev-hostile. I think most folks are there because they lack choice or experience with alternatives.
        eitland 2y ago
        Mac user here, and I think Mac really isn't far away from being worst. Between only now finally getting tiling[1], menus filled with items I haven't seen anyone use, and since WSL came on Windows it is now the absolutely most clumsy mainstream thing to install a standard tool. Oh, and shortcuts. I still use it because it is silent, has a good display, just works when I open it, has a battery that actually last all day and because IT departments don't know how to lock it down. [1]: although I cannot use it because then I would have to re-enable "spaces pr screen" which
        emptiestplace 2y ago
        Hm. I spend most of my time in iTerm. MacOS is Unixy and cozy. WSL definitely is clumsy - actually, everything to do with containers in Windows is a pain in the ass to deal with. Run Windows in kvm, not the other way around. Have you tried Rectangle? It's not automatic, but I find it a reasonable compromise. Last I tried, Yabai et. al. were all pretty flaky compared to proper x11 twms.
        sleepybrett 2y ago
        For my window management on mac os I wrote some javascript and use https://github.com/kasper/phoenix https://github.com/kasper/phoenix I will concede that macos default out of the box also has some UI/UX issues for people who are or want to be 'hands on keyboard 100% of the time' but there are a few tools out there that I've found for myself that solve many of the problems. Phoenix being one, but also recently homerow https://www.homerow.app/ https://www.homerow.app/, when I was back on windows in the bad old days of the early 2000s I ran a lot of software to facilitate my workflows by tweaking the system ui/ux. But windows in my house is an overly expensive gaming console with occasional web browsing. MacOs is a very 'cozy' as you put it unix. Much of my job is also terminal based so having a standard shell is great (even though I'm still occasionally bitten by the 'i copied this stuff that worked in my terminal onto a linux machine and I forgot my grep/awk/whatever is BSD and not GNU.. fak'). I was excited back when MS announced the Linux Subsystem.. but man fuck ... so hacky. Also why the fuck is no one at MS replacing the standard terminal with something that actually functions properly? I mean sure I upgrade to iterm2 on macos, but using the built in termial is like 90% of the way there. The windows commandline shell (and not like the antique DOS stuff, and I can see that powershell is better, but not better enough that i'm going to bother with it.. like the actual terminal software is my biggest gripe) is simply garbage, no proper support even for the global clipboard as I recall.. different hotkeys than the rest of the system.
    - forrestthewoods 2y ago
      Hi, I’m a software developer that prefers Windows. <waves> I make video games. Most video game devs used Windows. Most video games are played on Windows. In a great twist of irony a majority of gaming hours spent on Linux now do so through SteamOS and is doing so by emulating Windows! (Well, close enough). Developing on Linux sucks and is bad. There’s no good debugger. glibc is a nightmare of bad design. Linux package management is bad. Linux is fine if by programming you actually mean devops though I guess. macOS is kinda sorta ok. But might as well use Windows at that point. Apple Silicon is stupid sexy though. Definitely wish Windows ran on that.
      - fastily 2y ago
        Doesn’t this depend on the game engine you use? I’m not a professional video game dev but I’ve dabbled with Godot on non-windows OSes and didn’t find it to be a terrible experience
        forrestthewoods 2y ago
        Godot is cool. It’s currently for hobbyists. Unity works great on macOS. Mobile devs are probably mostly on macOS and Unity. PC and console devs are all Windows though. Unreal probably works ok on macOS. But as the games are all PC and console games the devs are on Windows. Debugging consoles is typically done via Visual Studio only. And the adult version, not VSCode.
      - tylerchilds 2y ago
        i would like to highlight, and not discredit, the great work valve has done for the linux ecosystem, namely in getting arch based distros to a quality that hacker news comments can write it off as “emulating windows” for example, all my non-windows, non-steam gamepad support stems from valve investing in improving upstream compatibility to where devices just work, without needing to go to a vendor website to download an .exe for a driver— now that’s emulating windows.
        forrestthewoods 2y ago
    - SideQuark 2y ago
      I know plenty, devs all over the spectrum. And the data back it up. https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology/ https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology/
      - bitvoid 2y ago
        This is the question from the survey: > What is the primary operating system in which you work? It doesn't ask anything about preference and I wager most people don't have a say in OS for their jobs. Same reason that Microsoft Teams is the most "popular" synchronous tool, yet so low in the "admired" section. That's not to say you're wrong, just that the data you linked to does not "back it up".
        echoangle 2y ago
        The question isn’t wether they want to use windows but if they’re productive using it. Unless you want to claim that a large proportion of devs isn’t productive, having a proportion of devs use windows proves that it works.
        bitvoid 2y ago
        It seemed like "productive" was used in a relative sense. Would all those people be more productive on macOS or Linux? That's not clear. Also, I thought the parent was replying to the following part, considering they said "I know plenty". > I don't know a single software developer that prefers windows anymore.
        echoangle 2y ago
        > It seemed like "productive" was used in a relative sense. Would all those people be more productive on macOS or Linux? That's not clear. I would assume that companies are semi-rational actors and would switch if they could improve productivity that way. Especially since some sectors (graphic design for example) seem to prefer MacOS while others don’t. Of course there are some other factors (support, network effect, purchase cost) but if windows was just plainly unproductive, surely it wouldn’t be as popular as it is. > Also, I thought the parent was replying to the following part, considering they said "I know plenty". True, the survey doesn’t prove they actually prefer windows, u missed that context.
    - happymellon 2y ago
      God, where I work makes me use a Mac. Absolutely terrible functionally, but I'm sure it looks pretty enough to some people that the papercuts don't matter. Even after using one at various roles over the past 10+ years or so, I'm far more productive on my Lenovo with Fedora.
      - spiderfarmer 2y ago
        You're not making a great case for Windows.
        happymellon 2y ago
        Wasn't trying to but I may have accidentally replied to the wrong comment. Windows is god awful, Macs at least have virtual desktops that mostly work. Windows sort of has them, but its really an afterthought. Hopefully you don't get an application trying to grab focus on an alternative VD, at best it will switch, but I've seen it lock interactions until you find it.
    - vips7L 2y ago
      You can rip Windows from my cold dead hands. It just works.
      - spiderfarmer 2y ago
        Most of the time.
        jaredhallen 2y ago
        60% of the time, it works every time.
- cam_l 2y ago
  Easy, I just spend a few minutes every morning disabling all the new notifications, and the forced full page Microsoft ads, resetting all the settings that changed in an overnight update, write a quick powershell script to uninstall the new programs and features I never asked for, and then disable edge and omedrive again and I am ready for the day. Then I do it all again at lunch..
  - spiderfarmer 2y ago
    And after all this when you finally get to work continually dismiss every window / popup notification that is somehow allowed to steal the focus from the window you’re working in.
  - CoolCold 2y ago
    > resetting all the settings that changed in an overnight update how to track those? I'm on the way of applying 24H2 update right now and laptop's uptime is 28 days, I may have many such settings changed, if I follow your idea correctly
- stevefan1999 2y ago
  I use Windows at home (with WSL), Hackintosh and by extension macOS at university, and Linux at my company (bare metal, not WSL) alternatively almost every day with Linux and Windows being the dominant one. In fact, Windows is my dev workstation, game battle station and media consumption all in one. And with WSL I can easily have the best of many worlds. So that why I'm the most productive on Windows. While it being a jack-of-all-trades may mean it is indeed a master of none, but it doesn't mean it is not capable of being productive. So, I'm very confused why you'd find Windows unproductive at all. And on the contrary, there is a lot of little bugs and stuffs in bare metal Linux that almost got me infuriated all the time and I tunnel visioned on fixing them...Bluetooth mysteriously doesn't work for one. Hyprland (and by extension Wayland) clipboard doesn't work with Vivaldi and VSCode under flakpak sandbox is another that I hate, plus RustDesk does not support Hyprland too...I use Fedora Silverblue btw, and distrobox let me a little bit off when I'm trying to setup podman when things didn't work as intended. While macOS...while it just works, well I don't appreciate the eye candy and people often claim to have the most productive on a Mac but to be honest I just don't see the appeal at all...but having every app "containerized" and using Zsh by default is nice tho
  - freeqaz 2y ago
    Is Hackintosh even usable these days after the transition to ARM? I've been wondering if that will kill it or if the new Windows on ARM machines from Qualcomm will revive the market. Just feels like too much special magic in Apple's hardware. But who knows?
    - stevefan1999 2y ago
      If you don't want those "AI" features then Hackintosh is still pretty much alive until Sequoia Hackintosh is basically dead in ARM because they have custom ASIC and DSP chips and accelerators on package that does not present in Intel Macs. And emulating them is super inefficient at the moment.
- CoolCold 2y ago
  Interesting, mind giving couple of examples? For myself I cannot say I have problems with focusing by using Windows OS - it's my daily driver over the years.

What put you off?

I used the Microsoft Surface as my daily driver for years, the finish rubbed off in the first few uses and looked terrible, the screen broke as well. They do look beautiful and it was pretty fast.

spiderfarmer 2y ago

For me? Windows. How can people be productive on an OS that doesn’t allow you to focus.

gamblor956 2y ago
Hundreds of millions of people manage to be productive on Windows.
- sleepybrett 2y ago
  do they really, or is windows just what they use to launch excel? I don't know a single software developer that prefers windows anymore.
  - thorncorona 2y ago
    Most of the software world is on Windows.
    - philwelch 2y ago
      Maybe if you count game development. And, if you’re generous, development environments that run inside a Linux VM hosted by Windows (WSL counts).
    - emptiestplace 2y ago
      It's really bad, though. Like ... objectively abysmal. No other popular platform is more dev-hostile. I think most folks are there because they lack choice or experience with alternatives.
      - eitland 2y ago
        Mac user here, and I think Mac really isn't far away from being worst. Between only now finally getting tiling[1], menus filled with items I haven't seen anyone use, and since WSL came on Windows it is now the absolutely most clumsy mainstream thing to install a standard tool. Oh, and shortcuts. I still use it because it is silent, has a good display, just works when I open it, has a battery that actually last all day and because IT departments don't know how to lock it down. [1]: although I cannot use it because then I would have to re-enable "spaces pr screen" which
        emptiestplace 2y ago
        Hm. I spend most of my time in iTerm. MacOS is Unixy and cozy. WSL definitely is clumsy - actually, everything to do with containers in Windows is a pain in the ass to deal with. Run Windows in kvm, not the other way around. Have you tried Rectangle? It's not automatic, but I find it a reasonable compromise. Last I tried, Yabai et. al. were all pretty flaky compared to proper x11 twms.
        sleepybrett 2y ago
        For my window management on mac os I wrote some javascript and use https://github.com/kasper/phoenix https://github.com/kasper/phoenix I will concede that macos default out of the box also has some UI/UX issues for people who are or want to be 'hands on keyboard 100% of the time' but there are a few tools out there that I've found for myself that solve many of the problems. Phoenix being one, but also recently homerow https://www.homerow.app/ https://www.homerow.app/, when I was back on windows in the bad old days of the early 2000s I ran a lot of software to facilitate my workflows by tweaking the system ui/ux. But windows in my house is an overly expensive gaming console with occasional web browsing. MacOs is a very 'cozy' as you put it unix. Much of my job is also terminal based so having a standard shell is great (even though I'm still occasionally bitten by the 'i copied this stuff that worked in my terminal onto a linux machine and I forgot my grep/awk/whatever is BSD and not GNU.. fak'). I was excited back when MS announced the Linux Subsystem.. but man fuck ... so hacky. Also why the fuck is no one at MS replacing the standard terminal with something that actually functions properly? I mean sure I upgrade to iterm2 on macos, but using the built in termial is like 90% of the way there. The windows commandline shell (and not like the antique DOS stuff, and I can see that powershell is better, but not better enough that i'm going to bother with it.. like the actual terminal software is my biggest gripe) is simply garbage, no proper support even for the global clipboard as I recall.. different hotkeys than the rest of the system.
  - forrestthewoods 2y ago
    Hi, I’m a software developer that prefers Windows. <waves> I make video games. Most video game devs used Windows. Most video games are played on Windows. In a great twist of irony a majority of gaming hours spent on Linux now do so through SteamOS and is doing so by emulating Windows! (Well, close enough). Developing on Linux sucks and is bad. There’s no good debugger. glibc is a nightmare of bad design. Linux package management is bad. Linux is fine if by programming you actually mean devops though I guess. macOS is kinda sorta ok. But might as well use Windows at that point. Apple Silicon is stupid sexy though. Definitely wish Windows ran on that.
    - fastily 2y ago
      Doesn’t this depend on the game engine you use? I’m not a professional video game dev but I’ve dabbled with Godot on non-windows OSes and didn’t find it to be a terrible experience
      - forrestthewoods 2y ago
        Godot is cool. It’s currently for hobbyists. Unity works great on macOS. Mobile devs are probably mostly on macOS and Unity. PC and console devs are all Windows though. Unreal probably works ok on macOS. But as the games are all PC and console games the devs are on Windows. Debugging consoles is typically done via Visual Studio only. And the adult version, not VSCode.
    - tylerchilds 2y ago
      i would like to highlight, and not discredit, the great work valve has done for the linux ecosystem, namely in getting arch based distros to a quality that hacker news comments can write it off as “emulating windows” for example, all my non-windows, non-steam gamepad support stems from valve investing in improving upstream compatibility to where devices just work, without needing to go to a vendor website to download an .exe for a driver— now that’s emulating windows.
      - forrestthewoods 2y ago
  - SideQuark 2y ago
    I know plenty, devs all over the spectrum. And the data back it up. https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology/ https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology/
    - bitvoid 2y ago
      This is the question from the survey: > What is the primary operating system in which you work? It doesn't ask anything about preference and I wager most people don't have a say in OS for their jobs. Same reason that Microsoft Teams is the most "popular" synchronous tool, yet so low in the "admired" section. That's not to say you're wrong, just that the data you linked to does not "back it up".
      - echoangle 2y ago
        The question isn’t wether they want to use windows but if they’re productive using it. Unless you want to claim that a large proportion of devs isn’t productive, having a proportion of devs use windows proves that it works.
        bitvoid 2y ago
        It seemed like "productive" was used in a relative sense. Would all those people be more productive on macOS or Linux? That's not clear. Also, I thought the parent was replying to the following part, considering they said "I know plenty". > I don't know a single software developer that prefers windows anymore.
        echoangle 2y ago
        > It seemed like "productive" was used in a relative sense. Would all those people be more productive on macOS or Linux? That's not clear. I would assume that companies are semi-rational actors and would switch if they could improve productivity that way. Especially since some sectors (graphic design for example) seem to prefer MacOS while others don’t. Of course there are some other factors (support, network effect, purchase cost) but if windows was just plainly unproductive, surely it wouldn’t be as popular as it is. > Also, I thought the parent was replying to the following part, considering they said "I know plenty". True, the survey doesn’t prove they actually prefer windows, u missed that context.
  - happymellon 2y ago
    God, where I work makes me use a Mac. Absolutely terrible functionally, but I'm sure it looks pretty enough to some people that the papercuts don't matter. Even after using one at various roles over the past 10+ years or so, I'm far more productive on my Lenovo with Fedora.
    - spiderfarmer 2y ago
      You're not making a great case for Windows.
      - happymellon 2y ago
        Wasn't trying to but I may have accidentally replied to the wrong comment. Windows is god awful, Macs at least have virtual desktops that mostly work. Windows sort of has them, but its really an afterthought. Hopefully you don't get an application trying to grab focus on an alternative VD, at best it will switch, but I've seen it lock interactions until you find it.
  - vips7L 2y ago
    You can rip Windows from my cold dead hands. It just works.
    - spiderfarmer 2y ago
      Most of the time.
      - jaredhallen 2y ago
        60% of the time, it works every time.
cam_l 2y ago
Easy, I just spend a few minutes every morning disabling all the new notifications, and the forced full page Microsoft ads, resetting all the settings that changed in an overnight update, write a quick powershell script to uninstall the new programs and features I never asked for, and then disable edge and omedrive again and I am ready for the day. Then I do it all again at lunch..
- spiderfarmer 2y ago
  And after all this when you finally get to work continually dismiss every window / popup notification that is somehow allowed to steal the focus from the window you’re working in.
- CoolCold 2y ago
  > resetting all the settings that changed in an overnight update how to track those? I'm on the way of applying 24H2 update right now and laptop's uptime is 28 days, I may have many such settings changed, if I follow your idea correctly
stevefan1999 2y ago
I use Windows at home (with WSL), Hackintosh and by extension macOS at university, and Linux at my company (bare metal, not WSL) alternatively almost every day with Linux and Windows being the dominant one. In fact, Windows is my dev workstation, game battle station and media consumption all in one. And with WSL I can easily have the best of many worlds. So that why I'm the most productive on Windows. While it being a jack-of-all-trades may mean it is indeed a master of none, but it doesn't mean it is not capable of being productive. So, I'm very confused why you'd find Windows unproductive at all. And on the contrary, there is a lot of little bugs and stuffs in bare metal Linux that almost got me infuriated all the time and I tunnel visioned on fixing them...Bluetooth mysteriously doesn't work for one. Hyprland (and by extension Wayland) clipboard doesn't work with Vivaldi and VSCode under flakpak sandbox is another that I hate, plus RustDesk does not support Hyprland too...I use Fedora Silverblue btw, and distrobox let me a little bit off when I'm trying to setup podman when things didn't work as intended. While macOS...while it just works, well I don't appreciate the eye candy and people often claim to have the most productive on a Mac but to be honest I just don't see the appeal at all...but having every app "containerized" and using Zsh by default is nice tho
- freeqaz 2y ago
  Is Hackintosh even usable these days after the transition to ARM? I've been wondering if that will kill it or if the new Windows on ARM machines from Qualcomm will revive the market. Just feels like too much special magic in Apple's hardware. But who knows?
  - stevefan1999 2y ago
    If you don't want those "AI" features then Hackintosh is still pretty much alive until Sequoia Hackintosh is basically dead in ARM because they have custom ASIC and DSP chips and accelerators on package that does not present in Intel Macs. And emulating them is super inefficient at the moment.
CoolCold 2y ago
Interesting, mind giving couple of examples? For myself I cannot say I have problems with focusing by using Windows OS - it's my daily driver over the years.