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Mac OS X Versus Windows Vista
An anonymous reader writes "With Macworld set to start Jan. 8, InformationWeek has a detailed comparison that pits Mac OS X against Vista. According to reviewer John Welch, OS X wins hands down. The important point: he doesn't say Vista is bad, just that technically speaking, OS X remains way ahead. Do you agree?"
Technical superiority doesn't mean as much when you can't get vendor support. This is sad but true. For a long while to come Vista will enjoy all the attention and benefits of a larger install base regardless of technical merits (or lack thereof).
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
Use [tab] to select and [space] to "click". You need to look after the faint blue highlight around the button though, and if you press [Enter], the blue button is selected, not the higlight.
In my opinion the only place where Windows is really far ahead of Mac OS X is .NET. Or more specifically: C# 2.0. C# is simply the nicest programming language and .NET the most consistent and easiest API that I've ever used. I went from a Java and Obj-C advocate to a C# maniac in about one month of using it. The biggest drawback with .NET is Visual BASIC which is horribly verbose and seems to attract idiot developers.
.NET I think Mac OS X 10.4 and the up-comming 10.5 are still much better operating systems than Vista. Mac OS X is more consistent, nicer to use and is more stable than any version of Windows I've ever seen.
I think it would be great if Apple would adopt C# as the future of development on Mac OS X. I hate to say this but in comparison Objective-C 2.0 looks positively dated.
Other than
...I don't think I've ever seen so many ad hominem attacks against a non hominem. ;)
Saying that OSX is better than Vista because OSX hasn't changed its UI much since 2001 (at least regarding buttons) and Vista has changed the look of the window bar buttons? That's just stupid.
Spending most of the first page of the article beating the dead horse of Cairo promises regarding WinFS and other things which have nothing to do with comparing Vista to OSX?
I'd much rather read an article by a Linux or Windows fanboy bashing each other unapologetically than listen to that author say "I'm going to compare A and B" and then spend half their time talking about C.
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f you believe all the hype, installing the new Windows Vista operating system will solve world famine, end the AIDS crisis and bring about world peace.
If those windows zombie botnets were used for scientific work instead of sending spam I'm sure it would in fact have a positive impact.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
His example is of Safari in the background of something else, and the Back/Forward/Reload/Stop buttons being greyed out. On Vista, he points to the similar buttons still being full colour and equating that to confusion.
The only reason his Safari buttons are grey is because he hasn't loaded a web page and has nothing to go back to, reload or stop. In OS X, with a page loaded those buttons would indeed look active. Yes, I just tested ;)
Only big ligs use sigs.
it's more like comparing Apples with lemons.
Wrong. http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/07/ 2359256
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I use Windows XP at work and OSX, FC3, Win2000 and XP at home. I am a heavy duty business user and student developer. I offer the following observations: /.
1. I use OSX primarily, on a pre-Intel iMac. Speed is good. System slowdowns are generally longer under Windows than OSX, but the 'pinwheel' in OSX drives me insane.
2. The UI and system administration tools in OSX are hands-dows way easier to use. I used every version of Windows from 3.1, and worked at a support desk in college - and once I learned OSX (ok, BSD) - style system maintenance and operation, I never went back. *NIX is far more discoverable and has a well-engineered feel that I like.
3. I have yet to run into any software package that I needed that did not have a counterpart on Mac.
4. I still have not played Half-Life 2. I do not need to, but I would like to, and I bought WinXP just to do so. I can't really blame Apple for this. In fact, Apple, by moving to Intel, has made it easier for their user base to access windows apps. Microsoft, by making it more difficult (from what I've read - haven't tried it yet) to run Vista in any kind of virtual environment is not really helping the user base much. Although they probably don't care about Mac users, there are many business reasons to support virtual environments, from posts I've seen on
5. Searching in OSX returns better results than WinXP or 2000.
6. Mac help, for system related issues, returns more relevant results than WinXP or 2000.
7. Mac hardware just works. I have a hetogenous network - my Mac has no problems, nor does my FC3 laptop. I have a dual-boot PC with WXP and 2000 - 2000 recognized my wirelss card and the built-in ethernet adapter. WXP doesn't have a driver for the built in. The wireless card has a driver, but cannot acquire a network address from my AirPort. Win2000 has no problems with the wirelss card or network address. The driver in both OSes is up to date. I should NOT have to put in this much effort, especially for supposedly supported hardware - it stuns me that 2000 is actually better at 'figuring out' what to do than XP. Needless to say, the Mac setup has never caused any problems for my Mac hardware.
8. Development - I do mostly Java and Ruby. Java runs pretty much identically on both boxes, but setting up newer versions of the Java environment is more difficult on Mac. Installing and configuring Ruby also requires a lot more effort. However, it is easier to troubleshoot in the Mac environment. XP and 2000, the installs seem to 'just work' but if they go wrong or there is a misconfiguration, it is a lot harder for me to figure out what went wrong.
9. Licensing - I can install my OSX CD/DVD on any Mac I have, no registration necessary. I do not do this, but I can. Windows XP, I installed and because it couldn't get on my network, I had to use the dial-in service to validate my copy of XP, which was a PITA.
10. I took C in college, working in a UNIX environment. It was amazing and taught me a ton. I took Java in college, working on a PC with NetBeans. Worked great. I used VBA to do corporate work and learned two things - first, an IDE is very nice, especially to learn UI implementation and second, VBA makes it way too easy to write crap code. You can write crappy Applescript too, but I've seen far less of it. Xcode is a nice balance and can hit multiple targets. I like it, although I've not done much Objective C work.
11. I like scripting and *NIX tools. Scripting is far easier in a *NIX-like environment than on Windows. Yes, there is Cygwin, but that was designed to remedy the lack of such tools in Windows.
12. C# for web development is, in a word, crap. Sure, it is easy to learn. Sure, it is free. Sure, the MS IDE is ok if you choose to use it. HOWEVER, it is so wrapped up in Microsoft-specific 'stuff' it sucks to use. Example - to simply change the color of a button in a web-form, I spent several hours working through my code to see what went wrong. I sent it to my professor, who told me it was fine and worked. I was mystified
And it's worth pointing out that there's a reason for that. Generally, under MacOS X, anything 'advanced' is off by default. If you're the sort of person who wants to use keyboard shortcuts then you're the sort of person who's able to go to the preferences and activate them.
Conversely, on Windows, in general *everything* is enabled at start up. Confuses the hell out of novice users. The Mac approach - simplicity and usability with the option for power use - wins out every time.
The thing about PC gaming is that games on PC don't really use the operating system at all
Except for the sound, video, keyboard, mouse, monitor, network card, hdd, cd/dvd and other drivers the OS provides.
Windows isn't just the fancy GUI, it's a standard interface to non-standard hardware. Anyone who used DOS for gaming will remember the absolute nightmare of getting sound, video, network and CD drivers all running for every game.
"As a cross-platform developer"
I assume you realize you represent less than 1% of the computer using public's needs/wants as a cross platform developer (most of them wouldn't even know what that means).
"At the end of the day though, I can do MORE stuff on Windows, and Vista will be no exception."
Like what? You may be right, but usually in a "discussion" thread you have to actually put up examples. My mom used to use Word, a browser and an E-mail app on her old Dell. With a Mac she now plugs in her digital camera to get photos as soon as I told her she didn't have to do a thing outside of plugging in the camera to the machine (no driver installs, no app installs), and she's been playing with iMovie, something she wouldn't have dreamed she could have done so easily on a Windows machine.
So, while you may be right, I think the majority of the computer using public couldn't care less about your statement, and more about what they want to do rather than what they can do. Remember, I may admit you are right (without examples that would be pertinent to the general public I can't argue anything), but for most people, OS X and their bundled apps are going to be far more rewarding, fun, stress free than anything similar on Vista. For games, BootCamp!
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
C# 2.0 is lightyears ahead of Java. But compared to other languages, Java shows signs of severe mental retardation, and C# 2.0 looks like a preschooler.
Unfortunately I have to develop software in the real world. This (for the most part anyway) completely rules out every language you suggested. It sounds like you lack experience programming in the real world.
In the past I have worked with trading companies on various exchanges (FTSE in London, NYSE in New York, CBOE & CME in Chicago, etc.). It doesn't get much more "real world" than winging around millions of dollars, pounds, and euros electronically in markets where seconds can mean the difference between profit and loss. Many of the infrastructure components for the real-time trading systems used were written in Python (the speed of development and platform flexibility made it invaluable), so your notion that Python programming isn't done in "the real world" is more than a little misguided. Of course, if your "real world" is limited to the subset of computers running Microsoft Windows, then I can understand how your impressions of "real-world" computing may have been skewed.
Of course, I quite like Ruby, but Python is very nice for what it does, and has many more real-world applications already in use than you realize.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Final Cut Pro is making more and more inroads on Avid's territory due to the fact that it is just so much more cost-effective. Avid is a system with machines in racks in a term gear room. Final Cut Pro is a Mac tower with some displays and an editing keyboard. Avid is still used more, I know this, but Final Cut is a very attractive alternative. We use both daily at CNN.