How so? They've been releasing a lot of projects as open source over the past few years, and they've been building some pretty cool hardware (Surface, etc). The new CEO does seem like he is pulling things in a better direction than before.
vscode has rapidly replaced all other editors I use (still use intellij for everything programming though), its already good and it has the potential to be great, I'm excited about the .net stuff coming to Linux as I loved C# but have been on Linux as developer for well over a decade and the Surface Book is in strong contention for my next laptop.
Given my opinion of them a decade ago they've gone a long way to fix it. I loved my 360, was the first time I realised Microsoft could do largely zero hassle devices if they wanted.
I'll never forgive MS when they cancelled my XBOX Live Account because they accused me of hacking the XBOX. Meanwhile, for 3 months My XBOX Live account was hacked - Credit Card info etc. was modified. MS LIve was hacked & it didn't make the headlines. I endured 3 months of trying to get back my account. When I did get it back, after 2 months, my account was shutdown. Reason - We found that you hacked your Account/XBOX live. What? really? I was able to prove all the purchases etc. SO FUCK YOU MS and FUCK the thousands of dollars on XBOX - XBOX 360 Purchases.
As for the Windows 10, it's not bad, but there's something in the background of this and how they want you to move all of your shit onto the "cloud." Use your MSDN or outlook ID for a better experience. WTF.
I don't trust them, never will. The OS is good for games though... I do like F# and visual studio. But too bad they don't have a Unix/Linux like su or sudo. Oh well.
Fuck you Microsoft, with love and lube.
I loved my 360, was the first time I realised Microsoft could do largely zero hassle devices if they wanted.
Yeah, and then the "new Microsoft" gave us the Xbone (my complaints for which can be found elsewhere on HN), so I don't know that a ten year old console is the best basis for judgement.
As soon as I see an extension to Ubuntu that works only on a Windows host I'll know that extinguish is on its way. Even Red Hat will suffer because it will mean that at least for somebody there will be some good reason to deploy Linux applications on a Windows host on Azure (or whatever), possibly interfacing other MS products.
I felt the same way for years - I was a Slashdotter, used to run a Linux desktop for about a decade and talk about 'MS' and occasionally use a dollar sign. Hey, I was 20, everyone was doing it.
I recently had a conversation about how much I like powershell on HN. Someone called me a 'microshill' and I smiled a smile that comes with age.
That smile that says "You'll understand eventually. It's best to leave your computing to the pros, they'll make sure it's done right and you don't hurt yourself."
Alternatively, and the way I read it, it's the smile that says, "How ironic that I, the biggest Microsoft hater that ever walked the planet, is now being accused of being biased towards Microsoft. The 'me' of 15 years ago would never have believed it."
The way I read it was "It's naive to think that companies (like people) are just black and white, and that nothing good can come out of an evil company, or vice versa. The fact that I like some of its technologies doesn't necessarily mean I agree with the company's direction."
Although, M$ (woo) has changed significantly over the years.
DHH did make a good point about taking Google down a peg :-)
Google has had some goofs as well as hits, and at the end of the day, they are just a marketing company that forces their employees to write in Java and C++. Eeeeooohw.
(I have fewer issues with Apple, but I'm sure they will do something obnoxious soon enough - maybe even now if I had to write iOS apps)
Exactly this, and not the parent. Linux gave me a lot - I learnt about sockets, system calls, shell, perl (I've forgotten all the perl), Python and worked for Red Hat & IBM's Linux group, and I wouldn't change that for the world or tell someone they'll "understand eventually" - I'm not that rude nor do I believe that at all.
I still deploy on Linux. But I hack node all day on a Surface Book, using ConEmu/posh and it's rad.
Can you go into more detail on your setup? I've got a surface pro I'm thinking about turning into a little mobile coding station but I've been using my little lubuntu netbook for so long I'm not sure where to even start.
I use ComEmu, the openssh, Pcsx, PSReadLine packages, Sublime, git, Sourcetree (might try VSStudio but have better things to do than change editor ATM), node version 6.
Same thing I heared of a bunch of Linux users that switched to Macs, because the OS was now a Unix.
"I'm getting old, I don't have time anymore to build all this stuff and configure my system. I just want something that works." And now most of them are switching back.
But yes, I think MS got better since they dropped Ballmer.
Sometimes people do have this attitude (and they need not necessarily be old), but in this case it seems like you're bringing some baggage to the table.
I use Windows daily, and I'm not sure how to feel when I consider the daily attempts against my choices and privacy. It feels like they try to be nice but unintentionally mess up sometimes.
Feelings aside, they've done solid open source work, quality of which can't be overstated.
But... Powershell, really? The Linux subsystem exists now, you know :)
edit: the Powershell thing was just an opinion tease, come on everyone^^
Exactly. The amount of time I've wasted creating regexs to describe & cut out data with grep, sed and awk, vs a simple '| select some-field' in powershell these days is huge.
Every time I fired up powershell to give it a try, I'm always immediately turned off by:
- How sluggish it feels. A remote bash shell on a raspberry pi feels more responsive to me than a local PS on a beefy PC.
- The way it is opened as a command prompt, in an unresizeable window (unless you fiddle with the settings every time), with no possibility of using shortcuts for copy/paste.
- Also, the default color scheme and font is horrible. I'm aware that it is trivial to fix it in the settings, but why turn off immediately first time users ?
For a normal user (not an IT admin) what are the benefits of learning Powershell for normal day use ?
What would be the best place to start, are there some good tutorials ?
Long time powershell lover here, many of us used to just always have an ISE instance running for its flexibility, but recently I found this post and have not looked back since.. my prompt is a Ctrl + ~ away :)
I've tried and failed to dig PowerShell as well - I had someone explain to me once that it really only "feels good" when you're constantly doing stuff that's directly in its wheelhouse. If you're more developer than sysadmin and you only occasionally need to script something, it'll never feel very comfortable.
My "scripting" needs don't involve sysadmin-flavored work or distributing scripts to be run on different machines or environments, so I use Linqpad pretty much as a pseudo-shell and scripting environment on my own box and couldn't be happier with it. F# is good for short scripts as well; I've been trying to use it more but it's slow in Linqpad, and I'm addicted to my productivity in C#.
> The way it is opened as a command prompt, in an unresizeable window (unless you fiddle with the settings every time), with no possibility of using shortcuts for copy/paste.
God yes. Windows shell folk use ConEmu the same way everyone on OS X uses iTerm - see pheouk's link below.
It only opens as a command prompt if you open a command prompt; you can launch powershell.exe directly. Also, as of Win10:
- CTRL+A, CTRL+C and CTRL+V shortcuts work (as does CTRL+C as a BREAK command--it understands by the context of whether or not you have text selected)
- There are a bunch of new shortcuts[1]
- If you edit the properties of the Powershell terminal once, it should stay resizable (I think--correct me if I'm wrong, please)
- If you right-click on the Taskbar and edit the properties, you can make the Win+X menu replace its Command Prompt and Command Prompt (Admin) with Powershell Prompt and Powershell Prompt (Admin) [2]
- If the terminal isn't to your liking, you can try using the Powershell ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) that comes with Windows. The Powershell ISE has debugging, syntax highlighting, and support for multiple tabs.
- Pretty much anything you see in a new Windows 8/8.1/10-style window (e.g. the Settings menu that has largely supplanted the Control Panel) is, under the hood, written in Powershell... So anything that they do, you can do with Powershell.
- You can make GUI applications relatively easily [3]
Most of the benefits of Powershell are the same benefits of any other CLI--you get repeatable, powerful commands that can run locally or remotely and that will function basically the same on any two given systems (assuming same version of Powershell and same Execution Policy setting).
Powershell is relatively verbose, but that means that everything is pretty clearly named to indicate its purpose and function. The commandlets have excellent documentation, complete with description, usage instructions, examples, and links to additional online resources/articles. Also, it has tab-autocompleting out the wazoo. And you can use wildcards with the Get-Help command--want a Powershell command for manipulating Services settings but don't know if such a thing even exists? `Get-Help service`. Want to see a list of every Powershell alias, commandlet, etc? `help *` (help is an alias of Get-Help).
If you're accustomed to BASH, you can enjoy the default aliases that Powershell makes for BASH commands (e.g. cd is mapped as an alias of the Powershell command Set-Location).
OH! And you can browse the registry as a filesystem! Try `cd HKLM:\` to access the Registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
If you think powershell is slow, try powershell ISE; it's even slower.
Speaking of remote, the whole mechanism of PS remoting has never made sense to me either. It should work like SSH: encrypted interactive session across a well-defined port.
You'd think this would be true, but I've written a few non-trivial things in PowerShell and I always found it frustrating. The problem with the object pipeline is discoverability. When I'm writing a Bash script and I don't know what a command will return, I can just run it and see. Meanwhile, in PowerShell, I have to rely on repeated attempts at pretty-printing and/or external documentation, and I've found both to be lacking in several cases.
While I'm at it, another thing I didn't understand was why they chose to copy Bash's behavior of having anything printed or returned un-suppressed inside a function be part of its return value. That makes it harder to refactor and clean up your code.
I rely a lot on the built-in ConvertTo-Json command as a good way to get a sense of a full PS object. I've seen very neat GUI "object browser" tools you can pipe to from PS in screencasts, but don't do enough PS work to ever recall their names.
> I'm not sure how to feel when I consider the daily attempts against my choices and privacy.
This is my biggest complaint about Windows as a power user. I have no control over it: I can't shut off all of the telemetry reporting. I can't turn off Defender's active scanning and have it stay off for more than a day. I can't say "Don't reboot for upgrades between 6am and 10pm." "<video game> has been denied access to the video drivers" halfway through a game, forcing a restart.
I used Windows for my daily computer from 98 to 7. My work machines transitioned to Macs around that time, and I made that same transition with my other computers around the same time - the build quality and battery lifetimes were just too good to ignore. My gaming rig stuck with it and made the leap to 10, but it aggravates me in one fashion or another every time I turn it on.
So, I guess I'm headed the opposite way of most commenters. I considered XP and 7 to be the glory years for a daily driver, and now I can't get away from the platform fast enough.
Although I get your point, Windows has more powerfull configuration options than you might think as a user. E.g.Windows defender can be permanently disabled through administrative templates for your computer.
> It's my fucking computer, if I really don't want to restart right now, what's the big fucking deal?
The big deal is that, it's probably a pretty important security update. Forcing a patch prevents you from turning into the poster a few steps above, complaining that Windows is insecure and people lost data because of it.
> Forcing a patch prevents you from turning into the poster a few steps above, complaining that Windows is insecure and people lost data because of it.
Restarting the computer without ability to abort doesn't sound like a good data retention plan.
Well, for awhile. Software updates come along and re-enable these features all too frequently.
Not to mention, this feels a bit like how we used to have to manage Linux on the desktop: don't like X? Here's a configuration file you can edit. At least until another update comes along and breaks it.
It's been years since I've enjoyed chasing down new settings and finding what was reset every few days.
> I can't shut off all of the telemetry reporting. I can't turn off Defender's active scanning and have it stay off for more than a day. I can't say "Don't reboot for upgrades between 6am and 10pm." "<video game> has been denied access to the video drivers" halfway through a game, forcing a restart.
I can't speak to your video driver issue (reinstall it maybe?), but the rest of the things certainly can be done.. You can turn off Windows Defender permanently (or at least active scans). You certainly can schedule updates to 2 AM.
Not within Windows 10. At least, not without editing registry entries or setting yourself up with a domain to administrate settings as if you're part of a corporation. These are things that require too much work to research and (repeatedly) implement when there are other equally good OSes out there. I could spend an equivalent amount of effort and have as good of a day-to-day experience with Ubuntu or Debian.
Availability of gaming titles aside, there's just nothing that Windows does anymore that other OSes don't do.
I was already doing Windows 3.x and 95 development by the time I installed Slackware 2.0, from floppies as my CD-ROM wasn't yet supported.
Spent almost a decade buying Linux magazines, writing M$ on forums, but also kept doing Windows related stuff when needed, also helped porting Windows software to UNIX, thanks to my Windows skills.
The technology I use varies with the customer, but Windows, .NET, UWP, VC++ is where I have more fun.
Well you're in good company. I was in that crowd too and honestly I feel much more optimistic about the future of Win10 then I ever have about Desktop Linux.
Hold on a moment there, oldtimer. I don't know how many minutes you have left, but spare one for a spring chicken if you can. You reminisce your early days of Slashdot and Linux, but indicate it was consensus gentium, as if there is no other worthy motivation behind such interests. Beware the myopia of senescence, lest the ominous and suffocating bloat of Vista flash before your eyes in all its menace, or you find yourself wandering aimlessly in the streets searching for the Start Menu, or mourning the inextricable bubbly mess of Windows 8, or gasping before the telemetric hemorrhage of your personal data in Windows 10. Liberty is more than a fugacious trend, and even Slashdot has an enduring place beyond vernal whim.
Please take no offense to these words. My very dear friend – who is, judging by his similar views, towering wearily above the great sequoias – argues just as you do. But perhaps it should be said as this instead:
Tim Sweeney has said this many times, but it's continually not held up. That same month, Microsoft released an update to make it easier to install UWP apps outside the Store. Steam could distribute UWP apps if they wanted to support it.
And Win32 is going nowhere in the next decade, the entire world runs on it, and it's the reason Microsoft is in business.
Tim Sweeney's comments on Windows 10 should almost be entirely dismissed as FUD. We have more pressing issues (telemetry) to worry about.
It's potentially a risk - after all, there isn't and can't really be an equivalent of Steam on Android or iOS. But at the moment it doesn't seem likely.
On topic of "new Microsoft", has anyone spent decent time with the Linux Subsystem for Windows 10?
I've been slowly putting it through its paces for my (admittedly simple) dev workflows, which mostly involves web development tools like PHP, Ruby, git and node-based toolchains, but so far it has been a pretty good experience..
It's only a couple of years since MS cut off SUA. Well into the supposedly "new" era. So I'm not touching this thing for a while, unless and until I'm convinced they're actually committed to it.
I second that. Have mostly been playing with it on some toy projects of mine but works very well. Two main gripes:
1. Filesystem performance is very slow (ie. anything in /mnt), but I know they're working on it
2. I really wish I could get constant updates for WSL without having to opt-in to the Windows Insider Program. There are things I know are already fixed but I don't want to risk the whole OS just to play with an updated BashOnWindows.
I had a few keyboard input issues with vim, and 256 color display problems. My "solution" was to just have Xming on startup, and create a shortcut on my taskbar to launch an xfce4-terminal instead of the default cmd.exe based thing the default Ubuntu Bash program uses.
I've spent a bit of time in it. I can run pretty complex Linux software like Qemu emulating an embedded platform displaying an X window. However, I've had serious problems working with symbolic links.
I think giving how well it works, it's just a matter of continued debugging and refinement.
Related, has anybody figured out how to get GPU support on the sub system? I want to run neutral networks with GPU optimization, but there's not really a good solution for that in windows.
I used to always "wince" when I had to use Windows or other Microsoft software. Now, Windows 10 is an absolute dream over previous versions, Office is pretty much second to none, and Microsoft's initiatives into hardware (Halolens) are pretty damn awesome. I'd say the company has made me into a non-hater again.
I actually have had the opposite trajectory. I was rooting for Microsoft in the Windows 7/8 days, but Windows 10 is soooo ugly and soooo compromised in terms of privacy that I refuse to use it.
Funnily enough I had the opposite transition. Sorta. I didn't mind Windows 7 so much, but Windows 10's user hostile behaviour makes me wince every time I have to use it. And I have to use it for work because of Microsoft's own hostile decisions (Skype for Linux can no longer do group video calls? Seriously!?!).
I start a freshly installed Windows 10 instance on a desktop grade i7 with Nvidia 960M and it takes minutes for me to be able to even type in the search bar, ... because Windows decided to commandeer all my disk IO for Windows Updates that I can't disable. At least Windows 7 acquiesced to my wishes.
Whoa, didn't see this coming. During the event yesterday I was tweeting back and forth with some people about what Microsoft's future prospects look like, and someone said they're doomed because they'll never get developers back, specifically citing DHH's "real programmers don't use Windows" rant. At the time I thought it was time to re-examine that rant and maybe see if DHH was wrong, but it looks like the guy himself beat us to the punch.
I think, based on my history, a lot of people would call me a shill, but I still think it's important to stress the company is not perfect. There are still question about the data collection in Windows 10 and the company still does collect payments from Android vendors for the patents it owns.
There's still some elements of the "Evil Empire" left, but overall, from a development and consumer device perspective, they do seem to be taking notes of what's working in the market.
It seems to me like if Microsoft would take a step back on telemetry and cumulative forced updates, they'd have pretty much a home run. But it seems like they're just outright ignoring any feedback on both issues until the issues magically go away or stop talking about it.
I'm honestly willing to give a pass on the forced updates. It's a hard place, as most people will never run updates, and we end up with botnets taking down Dyn. The downside, of course, is the debacle with the anniversary update. I wish they had a better update process..
The telemetry, on the hand, really does need to be a lot more transparent and much easier to opt out of...
I understand it for consumers. If it was Home edition only, fine. The problem is when Microsoft issues a cumulative update that A. fixes a critical vulnerability and B. breaks network printing, as an IT administrator I have to decide whether I want to leave a gaping security hole in our network until Microsoft fixes the printing issue, or push the update and break everyone's workflow until Microsoft fixes the printing issue.
In the past, I'd simply hold the update that breaks network printing, and push the security update.
On the forced updates, I've certainly felt the annoyance at finding my PC unexpectedly rebooted with no warning. On the other hand, they've been getting hammered hard on security for so long, and probably a big part of the reason why is people delaying or not installing security patches. It's tough to find a good compromise between forcing the entire world to update immedately, no matter what their situation is, and multi-million machine botnets wreaking havoc on the internet.
If you'd told me ten years ago that I'd be working for Microsoft today, you'd have made an enemy.
If you'd told me five years ago that I'd be working for Microsoft today, I'd have laughed at you.
I sometimes still marvel that I work at Microsoft today, and don't hate myself for it. In fact - and it's still a little hard to believe - I really like what Microsoft has become, and I'm excited to contribute to it.
I couldn't agree more. When a friend reached out to me about joining him at Microsoft my first response was "thanks but no thanks". He talked me into at least listening to the pitch and it actually worked. Talking with some of the old timers here at Microsoft it sounds like the culture has changed a ton (and is still changing) so hopefully that will continue to trickle down into the products.
Are you saying there is no backstabbing anymore? I left Microsoft in 2012 and it was the worst place on the planet ever (granted, Ballmer was still running the show). But can it change that much especially with all the layoffs they do every year on clock basis?
Yeah, the Balmer way of evaluation has completely disappeared. SWEs are no longer trying to remain outside the bottom 20% just to stay employed. Everything about evaluation is now centered around getting things done, helping others, and learning from others.
Around three generations of users only know one kind of computer. These are the people that hate computers.
Because Excel. Because Abort, Retry, or Fail[0]. Because software(license)-limited number of concurrent connections.
Because they delayed the release of features to maximize profit.
The world is in a mess today. I don't have a crystal ball, I don't know if we'd be better or worse off if we'd had machines that were only limited by hardware, not software, for all these years...
But I'll stand my ground, hold my grudge, just in case, thank you very much. Somebody's got to keep an eye on them.
EDIT: Whoops, I forgot the footnote!
0: ARF would be great if there were any practical difference between Abort and Fail... When you pick one or the other, a different errno is sent back to the application. The application then could take a different path... Just like a "Restart" in Common Lisp. However, MS's own flagship applications abstained from such behavior, again missing an opportunity to demonstrate, to teach...
wow much old and experienced greybeard masterman. much smile and knAwledge. much superior to linux kiddies. much much ms very good boy like powershell.
Agreed. The Surface Studio looks amazing - I'm not a creative type, so it isn't really designed or intended for me, but boy do I want to play around with one. And the Surface Book also looks phenomenal - when coupled with the Linux subsystem, it could be a machine that does 90% of my daily tasks.
Unfortunately that remaining 10% involves running and debugging sites and apps on iOS, which requires macOS. So I'm still on a Mac for now, but the temptation to get a Hackintosh running inside a VirtualBox VM increases every day...
I'm running hackintosh inside virtualbox on Windows 10. Works well but obviously graphics performance is not great cause it's not officially supported. I only use it to debug sites in safari and mobile safari.
Yeah, I'm more and more tempted to do it. But I do also debug in XCode, and I have a base resistance to relying on a personal hack project in my professional life.
I'm not on the forgive train yet, but with the Apple computer ecosystem (as in things that look and behave like a PC-esque device) becoming increasingly hostile, I'm actually seriously considering going back to Windows.
The deal breaker is having a unix shell. I have worked on a system with a native unix environment for a decade and a half, going back to to the windows shell is not an option.
Thankfully, the Linux Subsystem for windows works pretty well already and with some further iteration I think it could become viable for most of my development needs.
When that happens I don't feel any loyalty to apple and will happily move over.
I'm in the same boat as you. What do you think is still missing in their Linux subsystem? I haven't gotten to play around with it yet, but my list of demands is pretty small:
Processes don't work quite the same. There's no sysv init or systemd. There's not good user separation within the shell (run all as root) and the file permissions in places where the subsystem meet the PC are weird.
Those were my first impressions. I'm cautiously optimistic about it though, and confident they'll work out the kinks with time. But right now it's still better to be on BSD/Mac if you like a unix-like development environment without running linux.
Really I just want a way to write simple service scripts and have the OS keep them alive. upstart, sysv init, systemd, whatever works...
I don't like logging into my dev box and then manually starting one-off scripts for all of the services that I like running (docker, dnsmasq, apt-cache, foo.py, etc etc).
Last I checked, inotify didn't work and there were lots of cross platform quirks. This becomes rather important once you want to use the WSL for running your dev toolchain (think build tools, dev servers, whatever) but Windows apps for development (Sublime, VS Code, whatever).
If the Apple computer ecosystem is becoming hostile, what does that make the Microsoft ecosystem? Apple isn't the one that tried to foist a tablet paradigm on desktop/laptop users. It's not the one whose flagship "PC" is a touchscreen convertible gimmick. In my view, the rMBP is the best "traditional PC" anybody makes. No touchscreen, no detachable or convertible gimmicks. Just a big screen (can I get a 15" surface book?), quad core processor, and the biggest battery anyone has shoved into a sub-5 lb laptop. Also an OS that hasn't changed more than superficially in a decade.
> Apple isn't the one that tried to foist a tablet paradigm on desktop/laptop users
Which they walked back heavily after the overwhelmingly negative reception. A company that makes mistakes isn't a bad thing as long as they listen to their customers and are willing to admit when something isn't working. Would you rather no one ever try anything new?
> In my view, the rMBP is the best "traditional PC" anybody makes. No touchscreen...
Only for the next hour or so.
> It's not the one whose flagship "PC" is a touchscreen convertible gimmick.
If you don't want that one, the OEMs will happily sell you laptops that don't have those things. Dell and HP have actually gotten their act together and are making pretty good ones.. That's what makes it an "ecosystem", something Apple can't really claim. What if you want a 17" MacBook, or one with a gaming GPU? You're SOL.
HP doesn't have anything comparable to an rMBP. Their 15" laptops are either low-end, or x360 convertibles. Also they have tiny batteries (under 60 watt-hours in 15" models).
The XPS15 is the closest rMBP competitor, but even that has a smaller battery, and much worse battery life with high-DPI screen (only moderately worse battery life with 1080p screen).
The closest competitor to the rMBP is the T560. It's more than half a pound heavier with extended battery, has only a 1080p screen, and only a dual-core rather than quad-core processor.
I suggest you do some more research on PC equivalents. From Lenovo, the X1 Carbon is probably closest to an rMBP in terms of target market and price. It's also a pound lighter, has a user replaceable battery, matte screen, no glass parts, better keyboard, NVMe SSD interface, better wifi reception and a power cable that is robust and won't fray. Yes there are also many points in the MBPs favour. We have both macs and PCs in our household and I get tired of Apple fans that constantly claim the MBP is somehow unmatched in design and quality. It isn't. It makes many tradeoffs.
Apple took so long getting Skylake rMBPs out I've looked at pretty much every competitor. They all compromise on key things like screen and battery life.
The X1 Carbon is a 14" laptop (Lenovo doesn't really make a flagship 15" laptop). The battery is not replaceable on the fly, which is a big problem because it's only 50 watt-hours (versus 75 on the 13" rMBP and 100 on the 15" rMBP). The screen is meh (PWM). The keyboard is good, though.
The Thinkpad's vaunted build quality is also mostly a pre-Lenovo thing. I have a T450s through work, and the backlight bleed is atrocious and the keyboard is warped and sticks up near the palm rest.
It's true that the MBP is unique in getting that capacity of battery into a small chassis, but the trade-off is that it's glued in and not user replaceable. The T460 does at least offer battery hotswap at the expense of thinness. The screen situation is unfortunately a lottery, which is also true of Apple machines, though perhaps to a lesser extent. My X1 Carbon Gen4 doesn't have a PWM screen or backlight bleed, I can't fault it.
The only thing the rMBP has going for it is a good display. Go do some research on Dell and HP's small business laptops. They blow the rMBP out of the water wrt to value. The Latitude 5 and 7 series by Dell in particular are fucking awesome.
What about it is awesome? I'm looking at an Inspiron 15 5000. With quad-core CPU, 8GB, and 256GB SSD, it's $1,750! That's $50 cheaper than the equivalent rMBP 15", with worse screen, smaller battery (84 watt-hours versus 100), and no Iris Pro. It's also substantially heavier with the 6-cell.
He's not talking about the crappy consumer-class Inspiron, he's talking about the business-class Latitude laptops. Apples are just cheap, consumer crap compared to those.
I run Windows on my MBP and MP, and it's a better experience than running Windows anywhere else I've seen. Since I install Windows from MSDN there's no bloat. My son uses it on his MB for gaming, and it's perfectly fine.
It's been said the best Windows laptop is a Macbook and I totally agree with that.
Setting aside iOS, how is macOS hostile? Admittedly, I'm just a user and not creating software to deliver to customers when I'm on it (professionally, my work runs on Windows and Linux, not macOS). But it doesn't seem to be terribly user hostile to me.
For me personally, it's more the threat of hostility to come that's unsettling.
Apple has gutted formerly excellent programs meant for professionals. I believe the photography and videography fields had controversies. But I'll speak to what I use personally.
Apple had an excellent word processor, Pages. It could be used for print publishing. Then in 2013 they rewrote Pages to sync is with iOS.
In doing so they removed most of the features professional writers needed. Many authors, such as myself, were left stranded.
The old program still runs, but eventually an OS X update will break it.
Increasingly Apple has turned away from its professional user base, and caters to mass needs. This is shortsighted, as the pro users tend to be evangelists, and also the ones that create software. Every developer apple loses to Microsoft hurts its ecosystem.
But, all that said, I find OS X is generally still great. I'm just....uneasy in a way I never was before. And I'm glad Microsoft is now a viable alternative. I never thought I would say that, and that says something about Apple.
I'd forgotten about, mostly because I don't use them, their applications. I'd used Pages ages ago in grad school, but that's before 2013 so I didn't experience that transition.
I do realize I'm probably a bit of an outlier. I primarily use Safari, Mail.app, and a terminal with tmux and emacs. Scrivener, as well, when I'm in a more creative phase. The handful of other apps I use haven't had any problems (that I've noticed) with recent OS updates.
I will concede that, regarding hardware, they're heading towards a gray area for me. I really like the idea of the MacBook, but dislike the single connector (we'll see what happens today). And the relative stagnation of their hardware is annoying for many. But the 2012 rMBP has lasted quite well for me, I've only recently begun to notice issues with the battery life and I'm pretty sure that's because I forgot to turn off Docker (wanting to understand containers/VMs better, trying to bring my current office's development workflow into the 21st century).
EDIT: Given my relatively low resource use on the laptop, the reason I don't go with Linux is (from another post the other day), I got tired of trying to make things work on laptops. Along with rayiner, the MBP is a really solid and reliable laptop, and I want the Unix-underpinnings of OS X, without the hassle I experienced in Linux. Building a new desktop soon so I'll install linux there, see if things have changed enough for me.
As the quality of 3rd party Mac software has improved, Apple has stepped back their own software products. To me, that makes good sense.
Back when they were struggling with relevance, they had to supply it all. Who else would? They wanted to be the "digital hub," digital hub software wasn't available, so they had to provide it themselves.
That's not the situation anymore. Adobe stuff is great and it runs on Macs. Microsoft stuff is great and it runs on Macs. Google stuff is great and it runs on Macs. Why should Apple try to compete with all them?
I disagree that Apple is turning away from professional users. They still sell great computers for professionals. They're just stepping back from trying to compete in the space of professional application software. That's not hostility, that's focus.
I know some customers really liked the Apple productivity products, and disappointed that they've been scaled back or killed. But I think it's a good move, and I hope Apple continues to focus more resources on improving their OS, developer tools, security, and services.
Here's my hot take. I use a Mac at work, Linux at home, and occasionally boot into Windows 10.
When I upgraded my Macbook Air to Mavericks (10.9), the Wi-fi died. I had to wipe the drive and reinstall from scratch. Not good for a computer that doesn't even have an Ethernet port. When I upgraded to Yosemite (10.10), the installation process stalled for three or four days. Why? I don't know, maybe because I had LaTeX installed, that's the best I could surmise. When I upgraded to El Capitan (10.11), a bunch of my software broke. Apps breaking upon OS upgrade is classic Apple, admittedly, but it's not a good look as a third strike after the previous two upgrades. I've been using OS X since 10.1.
In general, I just don't agree with the direction they're taking with the OS. The low contrast and unreadable fonts. The constant nagging from the software updater. The way they're hiding more and more functionality behind the option button. The severe reduction of functionality in previously wonderful apps like Pages. I understand the feelings of instability mentioned elsewhere. The ship does not appear to be on a steady course, Apple is not articulating a clear vision for the future of macOS, and it's hard to get a read on where the OS is going next. Even Microsoft wins here because you can reasonably expect all your apps to continue soldiering on, and you can see how MS is striving toward an overall aesthetic, even if Windows undergoes significant changes from release to release.
And macOS cannot be considered apart from its hardware, because that's Apple's bargain with its customers. The laptops are nice, but everything else sucks. The hardware is ancient. Maybe that will change today, but how long until the next upgrade?
There are ways to block them. I use all of the following Netlimiter, Glasswire, Spybot Anti-Beacon, disable Windows Update service (though it has a habit of turning itself back on) and finally, Du Meter (This is the most important. The network toolbar alerts me when something's downloading without my permission)
This is the Windows equivalent of the stereotypical Linux over-complicated advice like "oh that's easy, just build from source but set the following compiler flags..."
I barely use Windows these days, mostly Mac and Linux both at work and at home. I'm interested in the Linux subsystem in Windows 10 but haven't had time to look at it. I'd like to believe that Microsoft is now a cuddly Teddy bear, but the strong arm tactics around Windows 10 updates and the International Harvester attitude about my personal data have been very off putting. Sadly, Apple is getting arrogant about updates as well, spamming me constantly about upgrading my phone to iOS 10. If they would both back off on some of that, I'd be a lot happier.
Having said that, the video I watched yesterday of the Surface Studio presentation was really impressive and I'm sure the content creation people will love it. Apple seems to have decided that they no longer care about that market, one they used to own. I'm saddened by that.
Edit: I especially liked the 3:2 aspect of the Studio screen! 16:9 is not the One True Aspect Ratio!
You can turn those off, or ignore them. Either way.
Windows, by default, will kill your machine and reboot it to apply patches, will install them when shutting down, and generally goes out of its way to be as annoying as possible. You can turn this off, but it's a lot harder to disable all the update settings.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 250 ms ] threadGiven my opinion of them a decade ago they've gone a long way to fix it. I loved my 360, was the first time I realised Microsoft could do largely zero hassle devices if they wanted.
As for the Windows 10, it's not bad, but there's something in the background of this and how they want you to move all of your shit onto the "cloud." Use your MSDN or outlook ID for a better experience. WTF.
I don't trust them, never will. The OS is good for games though... I do like F# and visual studio. But too bad they don't have a Unix/Linux like su or sudo. Oh well. Fuck you Microsoft, with love and lube.
Yeah, and then the "new Microsoft" gave us the Xbone (my complaints for which can be found elsewhere on HN), so I don't know that a ten year old console is the best basis for judgement.
I recently had a conversation about how much I like powershell on HN. Someone called me a 'microshill' and I smiled a smile that comes with age.
That smile that says "You'll understand eventually. It's best to leave your computing to the pros, they'll make sure it's done right and you don't hurt yourself."
Although, M$ (woo) has changed significantly over the years.
Google has had some goofs as well as hits, and at the end of the day, they are just a marketing company that forces their employees to write in Java and C++. Eeeeooohw.
(I have fewer issues with Apple, but I'm sure they will do something obnoxious soon enough - maybe even now if I had to write iOS apps)
I still deploy on Linux. But I hack node all day on a Surface Book, using ConEmu/posh and it's rad.
https://github.com/mikemaccana/powershell-profile/blob/maste...
I use ComEmu, the openssh, Pcsx, PSReadLine packages, Sublime, git, Sourcetree (might try VSStudio but have better things to do than change editor ATM), node version 6.
Same thing I heared of a bunch of Linux users that switched to Macs, because the OS was now a Unix.
"I'm getting old, I don't have time anymore to build all this stuff and configure my system. I just want something that works." And now most of them are switching back.
But yes, I think MS got better since they dropped Ballmer.
Feelings aside, they've done solid open source work, quality of which can't be overstated.
But... Powershell, really? The Linux subsystem exists now, you know :)
edit: the Powershell thing was just an opinion tease, come on everyone^^
Piping objects is better than parsing text.
- How sluggish it feels. A remote bash shell on a raspberry pi feels more responsive to me than a local PS on a beefy PC.
- The way it is opened as a command prompt, in an unresizeable window (unless you fiddle with the settings every time), with no possibility of using shortcuts for copy/paste.
- Also, the default color scheme and font is horrible. I'm aware that it is trivial to fix it in the settings, but why turn off immediately first time users ?
For a normal user (not an IT admin) what are the benefits of learning Powershell for normal day use ?
What would be the best place to start, are there some good tutorials ?
https://hodgkins.io/ultimate-powershell-prompt-and-git-setup
My "scripting" needs don't involve sysadmin-flavored work or distributing scripts to be run on different machines or environments, so I use Linqpad pretty much as a pseudo-shell and scripting environment on my own box and couldn't be happier with it. F# is good for short scripts as well; I've been trying to use it more but it's slow in Linqpad, and I'm addicted to my productivity in C#.
God yes. Windows shell folk use ConEmu the same way everyone on OS X uses iTerm - see pheouk's link below.
- CTRL+A, CTRL+C and CTRL+V shortcuts work (as does CTRL+C as a BREAK command--it understands by the context of whether or not you have text selected)
- There are a bunch of new shortcuts[1]
- If you edit the properties of the Powershell terminal once, it should stay resizable (I think--correct me if I'm wrong, please)
- If you right-click on the Taskbar and edit the properties, you can make the Win+X menu replace its Command Prompt and Command Prompt (Admin) with Powershell Prompt and Powershell Prompt (Admin) [2]
- If the terminal isn't to your liking, you can try using the Powershell ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) that comes with Windows. The Powershell ISE has debugging, syntax highlighting, and support for multiple tabs.
- Pretty much anything you see in a new Windows 8/8.1/10-style window (e.g. the Settings menu that has largely supplanted the Control Panel) is, under the hood, written in Powershell... So anything that they do, you can do with Powershell.
- You can make GUI applications relatively easily [3]
Most of the benefits of Powershell are the same benefits of any other CLI--you get repeatable, powerful commands that can run locally or remotely and that will function basically the same on any two given systems (assuming same version of Powershell and same Execution Policy setting).
Powershell is relatively verbose, but that means that everything is pretty clearly named to indicate its purpose and function. The commandlets have excellent documentation, complete with description, usage instructions, examples, and links to additional online resources/articles. Also, it has tab-autocompleting out the wazoo. And you can use wildcards with the Get-Help command--want a Powershell command for manipulating Services settings but don't know if such a thing even exists? `Get-Help service`. Want to see a list of every Powershell alias, commandlet, etc? `help *` (help is an alias of Get-Help).
If you're accustomed to BASH, you can enjoy the default aliases that Powershell makes for BASH commands (e.g. cd is mapped as an alias of the Powershell command Set-Location).
OH! And you can browse the registry as a filesystem! Try `cd HKLM:\` to access the Registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
[1] http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows10GetsAFreshCommandProm...
[2] http://lifehacker.com/replace-powershell-with-the-command-pr...
[3] http://www.drdobbs.com/windows/building-gui-applications-in-...
I should have specified that my last experience using it was with Windows 8.1, I don't think I have tried yet on 10.
Speaking of remote, the whole mechanism of PS remoting has never made sense to me either. It should work like SSH: encrypted interactive session across a well-defined port.
While I'm at it, another thing I didn't understand was why they chose to copy Bash's behavior of having anything printed or returned un-suppressed inside a function be part of its return value. That makes it harder to refactor and clean up your code.
I've written some trivial things in powershell and found the complexity grows at functionality squared. Wouldn't go near it for anything complex.
One interface (text) is better than N interfaces, so no, piping objects is worse, because non .NET languages cannot participate in its API.
Right, but running Powershell for Linux on the WSL doesn't work quite right...
This is my biggest complaint about Windows as a power user. I have no control over it: I can't shut off all of the telemetry reporting. I can't turn off Defender's active scanning and have it stay off for more than a day. I can't say "Don't reboot for upgrades between 6am and 10pm." "<video game> has been denied access to the video drivers" halfway through a game, forcing a restart.
I used Windows for my daily computer from 98 to 7. My work machines transitioned to Macs around that time, and I made that same transition with my other computers around the same time - the build quality and battery lifetimes were just too good to ignore. My gaming rig stuck with it and made the leap to 10, but it aggravates me in one fashion or another every time I turn it on.
So, I guess I'm headed the opposite way of most commenters. I considered XP and 7 to be the glory years for a daily driver, and now I can't get away from the platform fast enough.
Like I kinda want it, but not all the time.
Just like I kinda need to be forced to update, but not just suddenly "Well, that's it, we're shutting down now".
It's my fucking computer, if I really don't want to restart right now, what's the big fucking deal?
The big deal is that, it's probably a pretty important security update. Forcing a patch prevents you from turning into the poster a few steps above, complaining that Windows is insecure and people lost data because of it.
Restarting the computer without ability to abort doesn't sound like a good data retention plan.
Not to mention, this feels a bit like how we used to have to manage Linux on the desktop: don't like X? Here's a configuration file you can edit. At least until another update comes along and breaks it.
It's been years since I've enjoyed chasing down new settings and finding what was reset every few days.
I can't speak to your video driver issue (reinstall it maybe?), but the rest of the things certainly can be done.. You can turn off Windows Defender permanently (or at least active scans). You certainly can schedule updates to 2 AM.
Availability of gaming titles aside, there's just nothing that Windows does anymore that other OSes don't do.
I was already doing Windows 3.x and 95 development by the time I installed Slackware 2.0, from floppies as my CD-ROM wasn't yet supported.
Spent almost a decade buying Linux magazines, writing M$ on forums, but also kept doing Windows related stuff when needed, also helped porting Windows software to UNIX, thanks to my Windows skills.
The technology I use varies with the customer, but Windows, .NET, UWP, VC++ is where I have more fun.
Please take no offense to these words. My very dear friend – who is, judging by his similar views, towering wearily above the great sequoias – argues just as you do. But perhaps it should be said as this instead:
Forgotten in dotage, but never forgiven.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/07/now-ti...
And Win32 is going nowhere in the next decade, the entire world runs on it, and it's the reason Microsoft is in business.
Tim Sweeney's comments on Windows 10 should almost be entirely dismissed as FUD. We have more pressing issues (telemetry) to worry about.
I've been slowly putting it through its paces for my (admittedly simple) dev workflows, which mostly involves web development tools like PHP, Ruby, git and node-based toolchains, but so far it has been a pretty good experience..
1. Filesystem performance is very slow (ie. anything in /mnt), but I know they're working on it
2. I really wish I could get constant updates for WSL without having to opt-in to the Windows Insider Program. There are things I know are already fixed but I don't want to risk the whole OS just to play with an updated BashOnWindows.
I think giving how well it works, it's just a matter of continued debugging and refinement.
I start a freshly installed Windows 10 instance on a desktop grade i7 with Nvidia 960M and it takes minutes for me to be able to even type in the search bar, ... because Windows decided to commandeer all my disk IO for Windows Updates that I can't disable. At least Windows 7 acquiesced to my wishes.
There's still some elements of the "Evil Empire" left, but overall, from a development and consumer device perspective, they do seem to be taking notes of what's working in the market.
The telemetry, on the hand, really does need to be a lot more transparent and much easier to opt out of...
In the past, I'd simply hold the update that breaks network printing, and push the security update.
If you'd told me five years ago that I'd be working for Microsoft today, I'd have laughed at you.
I sometimes still marvel that I work at Microsoft today, and don't hate myself for it. In fact - and it's still a little hard to believe - I really like what Microsoft has become, and I'm excited to contribute to it.
Just promise me to make telemetry more transparent and make opt-out possible somehow.
And don't spam paying customers, that is tasteless.
I love the new lockscreen though as long as it isn't ads (even if I recognize it is a running bing ad ; ).
Because Excel. Because Abort, Retry, or Fail[0]. Because software(license)-limited number of concurrent connections.
Because they delayed the release of features to maximize profit.
The world is in a mess today. I don't have a crystal ball, I don't know if we'd be better or worse off if we'd had machines that were only limited by hardware, not software, for all these years...
But I'll stand my ground, hold my grudge, just in case, thank you very much. Somebody's got to keep an eye on them.
EDIT: Whoops, I forgot the footnote!
0: ARF would be great if there were any practical difference between Abort and Fail... When you pick one or the other, a different errno is sent back to the application. The application then could take a different path... Just like a "Restart" in Common Lisp. However, MS's own flagship applications abstained from such behavior, again missing an opportunity to demonstrate, to teach...
Ironic, considering the author of this article.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Unfortunately that remaining 10% involves running and debugging sites and apps on iOS, which requires macOS. So I'm still on a Mac for now, but the temptation to get a Hackintosh running inside a VirtualBox VM increases every day...
...but, so tempting.
The deal breaker is having a unix shell. I have worked on a system with a native unix environment for a decade and a half, going back to to the windows shell is not an option.
Thankfully, the Linux Subsystem for windows works pretty well already and with some further iteration I think it could become viable for most of my development needs.
When that happens I don't feel any loyalty to apple and will happily move over.
- tmux works
- vim works
- bash works like on a Mac
Those were my first impressions. I'm cautiously optimistic about it though, and confident they'll work out the kinks with time. But right now it's still better to be on BSD/Mac if you like a unix-like development environment without running linux.
Are you needing to `init 1` or `systemctl isolate rescue.target`?
Or is it perhaps a need to `systemctl status` on services?
I might just not be that experienced with the wide use-cases for these applications, but what are your hypothetical use cases?
I don't like logging into my dev box and then manually starting one-off scripts for all of the services that I like running (docker, dnsmasq, apt-cache, foo.py, etc etc).
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416376
* http://jdebp.eu./FGA/daemontools-family.html
I don't know whether the Debian-packaged nosh will install on Ubuntu as it stands.
* http://jdebp.eu./Softwares/nosh/debian-binary-packages.html
* http://askubuntu.com/a/754951/43344
That's the reason I'm currently working on an Android tablet, though Chrome OS is also promising.
It actually works better. Since everything is completely updated. In line with Ubuntu 16.
A tiling and scriptable window manager.
Which they walked back heavily after the overwhelmingly negative reception. A company that makes mistakes isn't a bad thing as long as they listen to their customers and are willing to admit when something isn't working. Would you rather no one ever try anything new?
> In my view, the rMBP is the best "traditional PC" anybody makes. No touchscreen...
Only for the next hour or so.
> It's not the one whose flagship "PC" is a touchscreen convertible gimmick.
If you don't want that one, the OEMs will happily sell you laptops that don't have those things. Dell and HP have actually gotten their act together and are making pretty good ones.. That's what makes it an "ecosystem", something Apple can't really claim. What if you want a 17" MacBook, or one with a gaming GPU? You're SOL.
The XPS15 is the closest rMBP competitor, but even that has a smaller battery, and much worse battery life with high-DPI screen (only moderately worse battery life with 1080p screen).
The closest competitor to the rMBP is the T560. It's more than half a pound heavier with extended battery, has only a 1080p screen, and only a dual-core rather than quad-core processor.
Apologies for the rant
The X1 Carbon is a 14" laptop (Lenovo doesn't really make a flagship 15" laptop). The battery is not replaceable on the fly, which is a big problem because it's only 50 watt-hours (versus 75 on the 13" rMBP and 100 on the 15" rMBP). The screen is meh (PWM). The keyboard is good, though.
The Thinkpad's vaunted build quality is also mostly a pre-Lenovo thing. I have a T450s through work, and the backlight bleed is atrocious and the keyboard is warped and sticks up near the palm rest.
You're comparing apples to oranges.
Best 15" model I could find was the latitude 15 5000. 47 WHr batter. 4.6 lbs. Almost twice as thick.
It's been said the best Windows laptop is a Macbook and I totally agree with that.
Apple has gutted formerly excellent programs meant for professionals. I believe the photography and videography fields had controversies. But I'll speak to what I use personally.
Apple had an excellent word processor, Pages. It could be used for print publishing. Then in 2013 they rewrote Pages to sync is with iOS.
In doing so they removed most of the features professional writers needed. Many authors, such as myself, were left stranded.
The old program still runs, but eventually an OS X update will break it.
Increasingly Apple has turned away from its professional user base, and caters to mass needs. This is shortsighted, as the pro users tend to be evangelists, and also the ones that create software. Every developer apple loses to Microsoft hurts its ecosystem.
But, all that said, I find OS X is generally still great. I'm just....uneasy in a way I never was before. And I'm glad Microsoft is now a viable alternative. I never thought I would say that, and that says something about Apple.
I'd forgotten about, mostly because I don't use them, their applications. I'd used Pages ages ago in grad school, but that's before 2013 so I didn't experience that transition.
I do realize I'm probably a bit of an outlier. I primarily use Safari, Mail.app, and a terminal with tmux and emacs. Scrivener, as well, when I'm in a more creative phase. The handful of other apps I use haven't had any problems (that I've noticed) with recent OS updates.
I will concede that, regarding hardware, they're heading towards a gray area for me. I really like the idea of the MacBook, but dislike the single connector (we'll see what happens today). And the relative stagnation of their hardware is annoying for many. But the 2012 rMBP has lasted quite well for me, I've only recently begun to notice issues with the battery life and I'm pretty sure that's because I forgot to turn off Docker (wanting to understand containers/VMs better, trying to bring my current office's development workflow into the 21st century).
EDIT: Given my relatively low resource use on the laptop, the reason I don't go with Linux is (from another post the other day), I got tired of trying to make things work on laptops. Along with rayiner, the MBP is a really solid and reliable laptop, and I want the Unix-underpinnings of OS X, without the hassle I experienced in Linux. Building a new desktop soon so I'll install linux there, see if things have changed enough for me.
Back when they were struggling with relevance, they had to supply it all. Who else would? They wanted to be the "digital hub," digital hub software wasn't available, so they had to provide it themselves.
That's not the situation anymore. Adobe stuff is great and it runs on Macs. Microsoft stuff is great and it runs on Macs. Google stuff is great and it runs on Macs. Why should Apple try to compete with all them?
I disagree that Apple is turning away from professional users. They still sell great computers for professionals. They're just stepping back from trying to compete in the space of professional application software. That's not hostility, that's focus.
I know some customers really liked the Apple productivity products, and disappointed that they've been scaled back or killed. But I think it's a good move, and I hope Apple continues to focus more resources on improving their OS, developer tools, security, and services.
When I upgraded my Macbook Air to Mavericks (10.9), the Wi-fi died. I had to wipe the drive and reinstall from scratch. Not good for a computer that doesn't even have an Ethernet port. When I upgraded to Yosemite (10.10), the installation process stalled for three or four days. Why? I don't know, maybe because I had LaTeX installed, that's the best I could surmise. When I upgraded to El Capitan (10.11), a bunch of my software broke. Apps breaking upon OS upgrade is classic Apple, admittedly, but it's not a good look as a third strike after the previous two upgrades. I've been using OS X since 10.1.
In general, I just don't agree with the direction they're taking with the OS. The low contrast and unreadable fonts. The constant nagging from the software updater. The way they're hiding more and more functionality behind the option button. The severe reduction of functionality in previously wonderful apps like Pages. I understand the feelings of instability mentioned elsewhere. The ship does not appear to be on a steady course, Apple is not articulating a clear vision for the future of macOS, and it's hard to get a read on where the OS is going next. Even Microsoft wins here because you can reasonably expect all your apps to continue soldiering on, and you can see how MS is striving toward an overall aesthetic, even if Windows undergoes significant changes from release to release.
And macOS cannot be considered apart from its hardware, because that's Apple's bargain with its customers. The laptops are nice, but everything else sucks. The hardware is ancient. Maybe that will change today, but how long until the next upgrade?
Wasn't this too much?
Having said that, the video I watched yesterday of the Surface Studio presentation was really impressive and I'm sure the content creation people will love it. Apple seems to have decided that they no longer care about that market, one they used to own. I'm saddened by that.
Edit: I especially liked the 3:2 aspect of the Studio screen! 16:9 is not the One True Aspect Ratio!
In the latest version, 1607, I can't even disable the lock screen when I resume from sleep ffs. So frustrating.
And...?
Windows, by default, will kill your machine and reboot it to apply patches, will install them when shutting down, and generally goes out of its way to be as annoying as possible. You can turn this off, but it's a lot harder to disable all the update settings.
The other problem is some of the Windows options are pretty buried, that Control Panel is turning into a toxic waste dump.
Seems like the majority of the rest of the internet as well. Haters gonna hate, for all time.