On Sep 3, 2006, at 8:12 PM, Andrew Crystall wrote:
... A much better-reasoned post, for which I think we can all be
grateful.
I may say some nice things about Macs below, but I am by no means trying
to get you to change platforms -- or careers -- by doing so.
On 3 Sep 2006 at 20:01, Dave Land wrote:
On the contrary, there may well be better words for it, such as
"better
informed about the current state of the Macintosh line than you
seem to
be." Or, "not just shooting his mouth off without being in
possession of
the facts."
Okay, you're supporting the direct comparison of component lifetime
vs unprotected time connected to the internet without catching
nastyware? Just to be clear.
No: I'm afraid WTG made a mistake in making that equation, so I won't
throw
my lot in with him on that account. They're both valid points, however:
Macs *do* tend to have a longer productive life than PCs and Macs *are*
significantly less prone to attack than PCs for reasons that are far too
boring to discuss here. I'm just suggesting that there are probably more
productive ways to debate this (if it needs debating) than impugning the
mental health of our list-mates.
Marketing hype aside, I think if you actually look, you'll see that
not only do Macs come equipped with a lot that you'd have to _add_ to
most PCs,
Like what? Remember I build my own PC's, so that's not something I'm
bothered about. The premium for pre-assembly is a direct strike
against Mac's for me.
Agreed: the Mac would indeed be a poor choice for you, given your
preference for "rolling your own". In effect, you've taken yourself out
of the debate by building your own.
Wouldn't a nice, brief "I build my own computers, so none of this
religious war stuff matters to me" have covered it, with no ad hominem
attacks needed? Granted, our esteemed colleague seems to relish these
flame wars, so your attack may not have been as unwelcome as it might
for others.
Blithering. Retard.
Don't be so hard on yourself: lots of Windows users are uninformed
about how far the Mac has progressed.
Yes, it's only 60% more expensive, as I said. Only. Given another,
what, twenty years, it might even become avaliable for sale in a form
I'd consider buying - one that dosn't tying me to a specific base
box.
No argument there: Paying someone else to build and test your computer
is going to cost more than building your own, whether you take the
value of your time into consideration or not.
What I heard in an earlier post (comparing a Power Mac with some Dell or
other) were two separate points regarding cost: First, that the ratio of
cost between your home-brew and a comparably-equipped Mac would likely
be *less* than the ratio of that same home-brew and a comparably-
equipped commercial PC. Second, that the lifetime cost of ownership of
the Mac would be less than either the home-brew or the pre-built running
Windows.
And "hard on myself", right. I'm REALLY enthused about getting a mac
when all its zealots seem unable to stop themselves from taking cheap
potshots about the superiority of their machines when I have zero
dogma and are interested in precisely what they do - and how friendly
and helpful the community are (which is why I picked SuSe Linux over
Red Hat, for reference).
While we can agree that it is impressive how much passion Apple has been
able to engender in its customers, we Mac users and owners can be a tad
defensive about our choice of platform. Something about being in a
minority, maybe.
Funny thing about Red Hat -- when Nick and I were doing analysis of
open-source software communities, I remember getting the sense that
Red Hat had kind of turned into yet another faceless corporation,
and that the open-source software community wasn't enjoying it... I'm
happy that you found a more helpful community. I think you'd be
pleasantly impressed with the helpfulness of the Mac community.
Given a lot of the professional programs I run are DirectX/.NET
based, and will not run on a Mac without installing Windows (and no,
I'm not a good coder and am not prepared to port them), there is
absolutely no reason for me to consider one. And no, I'm not changing
profession just so I can use a Mac.
I don't think anybody's suggesting that you change careers just so you
can use a Mac, but you could always run Windows via Parallels
(http://www.parallels.com) and enjoy the best of both worlds (on a box
that you did _not_ build yourself, I understand). CrossOver Mac
(http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/), which is in Beta, lets
Windows apps run under Mac OS X without having to run Windows itself.
This probably wouldn't cover your need for .NET stuff, though.
Dave
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