>
>On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 17:51:33 -0500
>"Thomas J. Hruska" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> What shift? I have no plans to move to *nix at this point and neither
>> do the many people who rely on my recommendations when buying new
>> hardware and software. I may port applications to the *nix
>> environment, but my development environment is still very much for the
>> Windows platform. If I were to switch to *nix, I would favor Mac
>> OSX/XI over any flavor of Linux.
>
>Not you, general people are moving towards various alternative OSs.
>Personally I'd go for a power book, but put PPC on there, only if I
>money to spare, otherwise it'd be a celeron or something.
>
>Just out of interest why would you favour OSX? Its just BSD, and you
>have to pay a large overhead for the Apple hardware.
Why? I know for a fact that a very large contingent of software developers
got new personal computers this year. Many good friends of mine who were
considering Intel were also considering Mac - including myself. Most of
the developers ended up going Intel because the pricetag couldn't be
justified. I will probably regret that decision on occassion. Here's why:
1) With Mac OSX you get access to proprietary Mac APIs.
2) You get a flavor of *nix.
3) Throw in the virtual PC software that Microsoft makes and you get Windows.
Three different OSes all within reach of one keyboard. Mac, from a
cross-platform developer perspective, is very tempting.
Mac OSX/XI is (more or less) custom-built (big deal if the core is BSD, the
main GUI is way beyond what the *nix distros. do). Apple pours resources
into making sure it goes through usability testing, solid QA cycles, and
they decide what hardware works with it. They only ship hardware that
works with it and software that works with the hardware. Granted, this
cuts out a developer's choice in that arena, but I've used enough of the
Mac interface to be able to compare it to Windows vs. GNOME vs. KDE vs.
WindowMaker vs. whatever and see that it is a very powerful interface.
One other appeal: Basically no effort to install anything. Just
plug-and-play. One of my major annoyances with Linux is the fact every
program is supposed to work out-of-the-box and yet you are required to go
to a command-line and edit a configuration file or five. (Also, the last I
checked, people could legally play DVDs and other protected content on the
Mac, but not Linux).
Another appeal: Apple sets standards for how programs are to be developed
for its OS (so does Microsoft). *nix does not. See SourceForge for 50,000
examples of this. The result is consistent, clean, organized user
interfaces that everyone can understand instantly. It can be a disaster
behind the scenes for all I care - I work with those every day - but the
user has to be kept in mind at all times and a consistent "experience"
created across the board.
Also, I know a number of people (developers) who have switched from Windows
to Mac. This suggests to me that Linux is not the next biggest market but
Mac. Where the developers go, the users will follow.
All the above represents my own opinion and current analysis of the
industry. I am still recommending Windows at this point to customers -
when I see the Longhorn 2005 beta, I'll be better informed as to where the
industry will move. Most of this is speculation - hopefully using
reasonably sound logic.
Thomas J. Hruska
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Shining Light Productions
Home of the Nuclear Vision scripting language and ProtoNova web server.
http://www.slproweb.com/
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