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In Which OS Do You Feel More Productive?
HTMLChecker asks: "I found an article in which the author talks about how she is more productive using Mac OS X.
What about the people of Slashdot? Where do you feel more productive, in Linux? Windows? DOS? Mac OS X? Also, what is the best way to rate productivity in an OS?"
My productivity shoots up as soon as I see a Bash prompt.
No, really, Slashdot doesn't have enough rabid platform advocacy and name-calling. By all means let's put this on the front page and drum up some more.
Serious research is one thing, trolling for a flamewar is another.
-- the_Librarian
Personally it is not so much the operating system as the window manager. I use fluxbox becase I like being able to scoll between virtual desktops with my mouse scroll wheel. The advantage of Linux is that you have tons of window managers to choose from, as opposed to Windoze of OSX where you are limited to the one provided.
I use Windows at work, but I feel like my brain spends most of its time processing how to move around in the user interface, which things to press, what to click where and which button to use. When I'm using Mac OS X, my brain works in a more task oriented way. Instead of opening this program and right-clicking on that thing, I'm editing a video, or I'm working on a graphic. It's somehow less intrusive and allows me to focus on whatever I'm trying to do instead of focusing on how to do it.
There is something to be said for the command line. I don't have a window manager on my Debian box and I always seem to get done what needs to be done. With Windows, I find myself up until 2am browsing the Internet for random shit. All because its available. I guess that makes me an Internet junkie.. I really should fix that. Anyway.. CLIs make me most productive 'cause of the lack of distraction.
What is your penile percentile?
The funny thing about comparing operating systems is that frequent users of each OS are blind to the failings of their own, and are driven insane by the failings of others. For example, I find scrolling in even the latest OSX to be painful, but I love it on Windows. People get driven nuts by explorer pausing when it tries to find things that aren't there, but I don't notice it and instead go batty when Finder wastes time panning to the right in column view.
On Windows, I have a small set of utilities (notably strokeit, trip* and remote desktop) that I rely on heavily, and while other platforms have their equivalents, I just don't find them anywhere near as good (remote desktop, in particular).
Now don't get me too wrong - I would rather use default OSX over default Windows, but give me a customised Windows, and I'll take it over any other OS. It's the same reason I use an IE shell (iRider) over FireFox - one may be the technically 'better' solution, but the other just does exactly what I need it to, and lets me do it faster.
I guess my point is the obvious - people are most productive in whatever they're used to, and whatever suits them.
A sense of accomplishment is *usually* tied in with accomplishment (especially among us engineers)... but it's possible that if an OS gives you "busy work" so to speak, that you will "feel more productive" using it than another that actually boasts higher productivity. I would *think* this would be more likely to affect the unices, but the abysmal bonus tasks I have to perform in Windows makes me personally feel most productive in Linux, followed by Solaris, followed by Windows. Only one of these OSes has made me dink around for hours because something deep inside broke utterly. I think we all know which one that is. The closest Linux has come is this mysterious thing where it wouldn't fsck the disk while complaining about it, but that was actually my bad. Solaris misbehaves at work routinely, but it's not their happy-joy-love install, so it's probably not representative of the "real" Solaris.
First it would depend on what a person does. I'd imagine someone working in prepress would be rather unproductive in Linux, given the lack of tools, but the same would not be true of a PERL developer.
However, generally, people are the most productive in the environment they are the most comfortable in. They know it, understand it, and thus can use it effectively. So Linux people will be the most productive in Linux, Mac people in OS-X, and so on. I'm also willing to bet that any of those people, properly retrained and acclimated to a new OS, would be basically equally productive, provided the new OS provided the same quality of tools.
For most jobs, a computer is just a tool that gets things done. When you get down to it, the OS holy-wars don't matter since most of what is talked about doesn't affect normal user productivity in a noticable way.
It's different than saying what OS is the best technical solution for a given problem. For example UNIX/Linux have a better text-mode remote access soltuion. An SSH terminal is nearly as good as being at the console. Not so with Windows, you need a graphical remote desktop session, there's a lot you can't do command line. Thus if text mode access is technicly better for a soltuion (perhaps bandwidth is extremely limited), then clearly a UNIX base is a better idea, for that factor at least.
But trying to ask which OS is generally more productive is just flamebait. All the zealots are going to say their OS is the fastest/easiest/most powerful and will probably have irrelivant personal anecdotes about how they can't deal with other OSes. In reality they are all different ways of doing thigns, with good points and bad points, and it's mostly just learning one and becomming proficient with it.
Riding a bike isn't a natural activity. You don't just sit down and do it. None the less, once learned and practised, it's literally second nature. Likewise no OS is so intuitive that all people can use it isntantly as though they'd been doing it their whole life, in part because what is intuitive vaires by person. However once you are used to the methods, you can get quite productive with all the majors.
Wow, what kind of science do you do? I've seen people in astronomy plot with a lot of things (I'm a pgplot guy myself), but I've never seen anyone use Excel. If you need to do any real plotting (or god forbid actual number crunching, Excel would be terribly lacking. Not to mention that it isn't on the Suns or GNU/Linux machines where lots of actual science gets done (although it is on the OSX laptops a lot of people seem to be moving to).
And, if you do science with any math, MS Office is totally worthless. Latex all the way there.
I would define productivity as the ability to get your work done quickly with the least effort. For any given individual, this will be whatever system they are already familiar with. If that's Windows, Mac, or Linux for you, then that's what it is.
In absolute terms, I think the best productivity would be whatever OS or environment where the tools are forgotten about and your attention is solely focused on the task you are trying to accomplish. I think this might also be tempered by how long it takes to become an expert on the system (and how much effort is required to maintain that status).
Probably command line Unix type environments used by experts who really know the system are the have the highest level of productivity (most useful results for the least efforts). However, it takes a long time and lots of effort to become extremely proficient on the Unix command line.
Plus, comparing them like that is only valuable if you have no experience with computers or else want to maximize your efficiency in the long term at the cost of learning a new system.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Who cares what OS you use?
It seems to me that most users choose their applications first and then find an OS that supports them, not the other way around.
Defecation occurs.
I started on 360s and have run the gammut since then. I've worked extensively on LINUX, Solaris, DOS, Windows (all), MacOS since 1985, and many, many more. I can say without hesitation that MacOS X has been the most productive non-programming environment for me.
Development environments vary and, of course, it is impractical to do Windows development on anything other than Windows. But, for development where you really do have a choice, like with Java, you can see a strong gravitation towards MacOS X. In fact, a couple of JavaONEs ago there was such an observation in the daily rag put out by the conference: WHERE DID ALL THESE POWERBOOKS COME FROM?!
Apple did what many said could not be done: making a UNIX that could be used by mere mortals. They put a GUI on UNIX that even covers all the nasty sys admin stuff. And, it isn't just functional, it is beautiful. When you spend 12 hours a day on something, having it be beautiful goes from optional to manditory. JMHO.
-- Scott
I mean, she makes the argument that OSX is a more productive environment because it has better icons.
Karma: Non-existant. Due mostly to the fact that you smell funny and nobody likes you.
First off, the main problem she cites with GNU/Linux is her constant urge to upgrade, and how upgrading in the particular distribution she chose breaks things. By the time we reach the OS X-fawning section of the article, her urge to constantly upgrade seems to have completely vanished. If she's ok with sitting still on a single version of her desktop manager, the problems she mentioned with KDE simply vanish.
Second, the majority of the issues she complains about with Windows are settings. That means, if you don't like the way it's set up, you can just change it. Since many people obviously don't share her (somewhat bizarre) preferences, this can only be a good thing.
Lastly, I think I'll simply mention the fact that she refers to GUI design choices (which happen to align with her own ideas) as "logical." What a joke.
It so happens that the very features she's so gleeful about annoy me to no end. I wouldn't give up GNU/Linux running XFCE 4 for anything, but I certainly wouldn't spew a load of crap onto the internet about how "logical" the design choices in XFCE are, because that is, in itself, illogical.
Exactly what (s)he said. I find it amazing/scary that anyone in science would use Excel as a primary tool (I am a physicist working at CERN myself... not that we have much to analyse right now ;-)
;-)
Anyway, back to the main topic, I am a recent convert to OSX, and as an OS I love it (in a way that I find a little alarming)
When it comes to coding frankly, the Kate/Kdevelop is just *way* better than anything Xcode can do (even if Interface builder is truly lovely). We're trying to port our code to OSX now, so probably my perspective will change once OSX is really as usable as Linux (for us)...
But what it boils down to: OSX is the best OS I have ever used. It is simply wonderful... and even though I still miss a few tools/functionality the closeness to *NIX means that this isn't an issue (apart from the APPLE-C / CTRL-C mess that I sometimes get in when running X apps in OSX)
Bottom line: I cannot imagine ever buying a non-OSX machine again (and two years ago I'd have laughed in your face if you told me I'd ever say that
No, seriously.
My productivity (as a programmer) has almost nothing to do with how easy it is to move the mouse around and hit key combos. Even imagining the worst environment - unfamiliar key combos, no copy/paste etc. - I think typing is very quick compared to deciding what to type.
The key to productivity really is: not reading email, not browsing the web, just firing up the editor and just getting down to reading, thinking, and finally writing code.
You're a programmer and you don't know Emacs?
Ctrl-A/Ctrl-E
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
Actually, I did. I tried binding a key combo to "cd ~/web/pics/ && find -name "*.jpg" | xargs -l1 -ifoo convert foo -geometry 128x128 foo.thumb.jpg && scp *.jpg $site/pics/ && rm -f *.thumb.*", so I could thumbnail and upload some images with just a couple of taps, but it didn't work under windows :(
It worked in linux, so what did I do wrong?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Uh, everything DOES "just work through the GUI". But when you want to change key bindings to be congruent with what YOU want, rather than how Apple has done it for the last 20 years, you can do that too.
What's the problem here?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
OSX/Windows people don't care about changing their keymaps to UNIX "standards". People who care about UNIX keymaps can handle editing a text config file.
Again...what's the problem here? Isn't a powerful, usable, flexible OS what we're all after?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
A productive OS for me is one where I can use all the tools I want to use for my work, and have access to everything I need. Since my work consists of delivering support for multiple platforms and such, my main desktop is a PowerBook running MacOS X 10.3.8. I can run all the basic tools I need, run Virtual PC for a lot of the Windows/Linux stuff, and I can connect remotely via RDP, ARD, VNC, or SSH to machines running other OS combos I have in my lab.
So I'm a MacOS X person by choice and preference. But, with a little tweaking I can feel comfortable and productive on whatever OS I need to sit down with. For me, I think a more valid statement is "I use MacOS X because it lets me use less of my brain on the computer, and more on the task at hand". But if I'd been using Windows as my primary OS for my whole career, I'd probably feel the opposite way about Macs.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
As some users before, I've used a Commodore C128, then CP/M, DOS 3.xx after it became available, Geos, Windows 3.1 onwards, Mac OS 7, Linux since 0.99 using various window managers, such as twm, fvwm, KDE since 1.x up until 3.0 and lately OS X 10.1 until 10.3. And this mainly for programming, web development, scientific writing (LaTeX), web surfing, recently much of Office documents (unfortunately), and for entertainment.
As a desktop platform I must admit that OS X beats the rest hands down. And the reasons are stability and integration.
- Not having to fiddle with XF86Config when plugging in a new external monitor helps.
- Not having to recompile the kernel from source once you get an obscure USB or Firewire drive helps.
- Not having to mess with the network configuration scripts as soon as you visit another lab helps.
- Having a unified user interface helps (you save lots of time using the keyboard if you know that Command-Q quits every program, that Command-S saves files, that Command-N opens a new document, etc.).
- Having Emacs bindings in forms like the one for posting on Slashdot helps.
- Being able to watch a DVD without much fuss helps.
- Being albe to sort my music and my photos easily helps.
- Being able to run the system without crashes (BSD underbelly) helps.
- Being able to use the shell and all UNIX tools helps.
- Being able to open my laptop and to continue working within 2s helps. Especially if you spend lots of time in airports.
I'm not saying that none of this could be done under Linux. For almost every one of those items there's a tool that would allow me to do this. But this means that I have to go and configure it. It means that I have to spend my time on fixing it. For sure, Linux could do it. But it would mean that someone would have to produce a system that really works. Not just 90%, not just for most of the cases, not just something that nerds and geeks like me can use.Switching from Linux (after 10 years of use) to OS X was a matter of 2 days of inconvenience. When my Mac broke and I had to switch back to my old system temporarily, it took me almost a week getting used to all the disincongruous interface tweaks again. And it's the first OS I'm not swearing at.
In particular, if you want a Unix capable laptop, you'd probably spend over 3 weeks tinkering with Linux until the system works properly (and it might not for recent hardware unless you hack it yourself - software modems, suspend to disk, wireless access, switching to external display, good power management). In a commercial environment that isn't worth it. Think your salary for three weeks vs. the price of the computer. And that's why in computer science you now see so many mac laptops when you go to conferences ...
Loaded question. You are always more productive in the environment you are familiar with.
~X~
~X~
I'm most focused in the emacs environment. The most productive people I know (lines of code per year) are emacs or vi users. (Not the GUI kind, like vim or xemacs; the shell kind.)
This is assuming that what you're doing is coding. If you're writing a music review, you may need iTunes/XMMS/Winamp playing. If you're blogging, you may need Omniweb/Epiphany/Firefox open. It all depends on what you're doing.
Don't suppose anyone noticed this article is just a way to launch an entirely predictable religious war, with the submitter insuring that OSX launched the first salvo, in something of a preemptive strike, increasing it chances for victory were this particular war not an unwinnable exercise in futility.
/. editors for launching a pointless religious war instead of putting something new and interesting on the front page.
I'm not even gonna read any further because everything that will be said has been said a million times before, every other time this jihad has been launched. Thanks
OSX and Linux are both wonderfully productive for me, I see no reason to have these two kindred spirits turn on each other in internecine strife when we all know who the one true enemy is.
@de_machina
"Stealing Mac's cool features" will require a hell of a lot more than a replacement for X. Virtually every application available for linux will need to be rewritten and its interface redesigned from the bottom-up. The Mac OS is not worth using because it happens to look pretty--this is a ridiculous reason for using an operating system. It's worth using because it's possible to get important things done faster, and that's possible only through a platform-wide consistency and an adherence to a well thought-out, standardized set of APIs and user interface guidelines.
Obviously it would be a complete waste of your brain to realize those exist on Windows and OS X as well. Terminals are pretty easy to come by, OS X has one, PuTTY is nice and free on Windows, Firefox is on all three now, so I'd call that a tabbed browser, Thunderbird is as robust as I've ever needed an IMAP mail client to be, I've got rsync and mysql on my Powerbook, and I've installed them on my XP desktop before, though they were both casualties of the last format.
If you're comfortable with Linux, that's your choice, but you haven't mentioned a single thing that necessitates the use of desktop linux if you didn't want it. Expressing a preference is one thing, making it seem like a forgone conclusion is quite another.
I find my OS relatively removed from my productivity, after certain settling-in pains. Once I've got my OS customized to my liking, it's irrelevant which one I'm using for day to day work. I can code just as efficiently on Windows as OSX as Linux. Now that my most used apps (Firefox and Thunderbird) are tri-platform mostly-identical, as long as I can launch them and find a terminal with vim, the world is my oyster. If I need something advanced, I've never had any trouble getting it installed, ie: Apache on Windows, MySQL on OSX, recompiling PHP under Linux...whatever. I get the job done.
For the record, vim is a very respectable, nice version of vi that works in the shell. You might be thinking of gvim, which is a GUI wrapper around the vim core...
Having used Windows, Linux and OS X (in that order chronologically), I have found that: