Thread: Windows or a Mac

  1. #1
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    Windows or a Mac

    Which do you prefer: Windows or a Mac?

    I am a Windows user and just upgraded my Windows XP Home to Windows Vista Home Basic and I love it so far.

    I am thinking about buying a Mac to see how they are, but I don't know if I am willing to spend that much for one when I can get a good PC for less.

  2. #2
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AaronHall View Post
    Which do you prefer: Windows or a Mac?

    I am a Windows user and just upgraded my Windows XP Home to Windows Vista Home Basic and I love it so far.

    I am thinking about buying a Mac to see how they are, but I don't know if I am willing to spend that much for one when I can get a good PC for less.
    How about buying an Intel-based Macintosh, and you can do both at your own leisure? VMWare Fusion will even let you run Windows apps inside the Mac OS X environment.

    Since I started buying Macs, I have never looked back.

    (Posting from Ubuntu Linux on an Intel Core 2 Duo Mac Mini)
    Code:
    //try
    //{
    	if (a) do { f( b); } while(1);
    	else   do { f(!b); } while(1);
    //}

  3. #3
    Frequently Quite Prolix dwks's Avatar
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    My vote is for Linux.

    I've never had a Mac myself, but I know people who really like them a lot. I'm under the impression that they're better, but a lot more expensive.
    dwk

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  4. #4
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dwks View Post
    My vote is for Linux.

    I've never had a Mac myself, but I know people who really like them a lot. I'm under the impression that they're better, but a lot more expensive.
    One common argument is that the Mac is "dumbed down." But since Mac OS X, and the switch to a UNIX-like core, I can only say to those people: it's only as dumb as you want it to be. If you want to get to the guts, it's all right there in front of you. And what other machine can you triple boot? I've got mine set up for WinXP, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu. What do you feel like doing today?

    I've considered, just for the hell of it, throwing Solaris x86 on there. To my knowledge it hasn't been tried, but I see no reason why it shouldn't work -- although there will probably be some difficulties with the boot loader, but I can hack around that. Good thing about being a programmer.
    Code:
    //try
    //{
    	if (a) do { f( b); } while(1);
    	else   do { f(!b); } while(1);
    //}

  5. #5
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    Go for the Mac man. Macs are great.

    It is an excellent operating system providing lots of power and also ease of use. Although every operating system has its flaws, I have never really felt inclined to throw my monitor out the window while running Mac OS X, while I have felt quite the opposite running Windows.
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  6. #6
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    I've never had problems with windows, I grew up with macs, I was a mac person as a kid, but then we did a switch to mac and it was so much more functional I think in the long run. I know people that can run circles around me with macs just simply checking their mail, when I try to use my friend's mac I feel retarded because I can't use it all that well. I can probably learn it, but really I just want a functional OS that I don't have to re-learn. Unix is great, but only because I took a unix programming course so I can navigate pretty well around the linux variants.

  7. #7
    Disrupting the universe Mad_guy's Avatar
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    For the first, I'd say, 15 years of my life (approximately) I was a windows user, exclusively.

    Then I switched to Linux for about 2-3 years.

    And most recently, about two weeks ago I finally got a MacBook Pro as a graduation present. To be quite honest, I'm happy with it. Switching over wasn't that big of a deal, really. It took about a day to get used to the way Applications get installed, the general filesystem layout and really how to navigate and work some of the included applications themselves. Past that, I really haven't had any sort of major issues or found many drawbacks. I've found adequate (in some cases I think better) supplements for a lot of the software I used before.

    Another reason I like OS X is because yes, it is Unix under the hood (remember, for the past 3 years I've been using Linux and I liked it.) To be fair, OS X is actually more of a bastard child of several, very very different ideologies and technologies - moreso than probably any other mainstream desktop OS out there, but it works really well I've found, and the fact that I still have similar or standardized APIs and technologies available on OS X (POSIX-compliant) is just a really nice benefit and it's because of this that I didn't even have to find supplements for a lot of the applications I used on linux, because they work on OS X too!

    To put it briefly: as someone who went from windows to linux and then to OS X, I'm overall pretty satisfied. If you've used windows your whole life it might be a little different of an experience, but I'd suggest perhaps going and to an Apple store or something and seeing if you can test drive one first to get a feel, because yes, they are an investment. At least you can just remove OS X and put windows on there, right?
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  8. #8
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    I would say a Intel Mac too

    For all the reasons mentioned. Just recently I finished a small project for a films company over here in Flash and C++. During the whole week I was struggling to make sure it could compile also on the Mac machines they have there. Lots of guess work and having to constantly go there to test it.

    The machine I was using to compile the C++ component and DLL was running Windows XP and OS X. That would have been an invaluable tool had I one at home.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  9. #9
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    The biggest question I ask myself when wondering if I am going to switch operating systems is "What can I do on this OS that I don't already do on a PC. For every application I use (mainly open source) there is some variant on other OS. For me it really boils down to the UI.

  10. #10
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    What can I do on this OS that I don't already do on a PC.
    - you can boot faster
    - you can get better response times
    - you can use a bash shell which is actually part of the OS (unlike Cygwin which is not)

    Just those 3 simple things are enough to convince me about a Mac.
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  11. #11
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    And you can run more OSes
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  12. #12
    C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
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    And what other machine can you triple boot?
    Many others, of course, counting different Linux distros, various flavours of *nix, including Mac OS X if you install it (illegally?) on a non-Mac box.
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  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by DavidP View Post
    - you can boot faster
    - you can get better response times
    - you can use a bash shell which is actually part of the OS (unlike Cygwin which is not)

    Just those 3 simple things are enough to convince me about a Mac.
    I meant to add, "that I don't mind not doing".

    Those aren't dramatic enough that I would want to switch entirely. They are simply three minor perks which don't change the overall operation of my system when it is fully booted. I have a pretty fast system so I don't suffer from 2-3 minute boot times or slow system response times, and I rarely use unix shell's unless on linux or logging into my school machines with putty. I just have no use for the third, and the first two don't affect me.

  14. #14
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by indigo0086 View Post
    What can I do on this OS that I don't already do on a PC.
    Gain experience which will lead to a wider array of employment opportunities?
    Code:
    //try
    //{
    	if (a) do { f( b); } while(1);
    	else   do { f(!b); } while(1);
    //}

  15. #15
    Dr Dipshi++ mike_g's Avatar
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    To me Macs are just one of those annoying things that wont go away. Actually its not what Macs are but the mentality of "Mac people" If they want to spend a stupid amounts of money on a nice shiny box then thats fine, but it gets annoying when they develop a fanatical devotion to their toys. What makes the problem worse is that Apple understand how these people feel and deliberately make adverts to propel their ego. The thought of all the people (and I know several of them) out there creaming their pants with glee chanting the latest slogan urging them to buy the next iExpensiveThing makes me want to stick a pen up my nose and bang it on the table.

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