undefined | Better HN

0 pointsepolanski1y ago0 comments

I use it everyday in place of my MBP.

1) WSL2 is fantastic to work. Having various Linux images on my system is nice, this is huge for me alone

2) plenty of things work just better on windows like Docker

3) stuff like power tools is insanely useful

4) monitor, windows and desktop management is very well done in comparison to the mess of MacOS

5) I don't have all these issues the article describes. An automatic update has never broken my computer let alone ruined my flow

6) I don't see these ads, maybe in the start menu there are but I just never use it I have shortcuts

7) MacOS is way more annoying for me. I really dislike the filesystem, the window management, the fact that it will be always a third class citizen to Linux for software development (still have nightmares about installing Haskell and other languages on MacOS), the fact that it keeps resetting the output of my monitors at every sleep

I could provide other reasons but essentially it is way better for me and my use case than alternatives.

Unless I'm using a laptop, there I prefer MacOS for hardware.

0 comments

stavros1y ago

I find it curious that you say things like "Docker runs better on Windows" but also "MacOS is worse than Linux for development". It reads like you think you have two choices Windows or MacOS, and that it's very unfortunate that they're both worse than Linux. Why isn't Linux one of the options?

And yes, Docker and most other development works better on Linux than any other OS.

epolanskiOP1y ago

> Why isn't Linux one of the options?

Because WSL 2 satisfies all my Linux needs, and yes, it runs Docker perfectly and Windows is a better desktop OS, with more tools and software.

I used to run mint, ubuntu and some others up to Windows 10 I never considered a productive machine on my desktop but this has changed during the last years and Windows is an incredibly productive machine for software development.

Anyway I'm not trying to sell anybody Windows, was just answering a pointless comment like "I don't understand why would anybody use Windows", and I answered that there's plenty of reasons and tools for me, but I ain't gonna die if you force me on other OSs too.

lelanthran1y ago

> Windows is a better desktop OS, with more tools and software.

What tools are you using on Windows specifically? Visual Studio, maybe?

I only ask because, other than workflow-specific tooling (Photoshop, etc), no one is creating non-Electron GUIs anymore, and with non-GUIs Windows used to be far behind for Windows-specific software.

fourfour31y ago

I’m very surprised re “docker works better on windows” - at work we do web dev and we use mostly macs.

We’ve tried windows machines for docker and hit a ton of performance problems that just aren’t there on modern docker for mac.

irusensei1y ago

> plenty of things work just better on windows like Docker

This makes no sense. It’s a Linux virtual machine. You are not running docker on windows.

asyx1y ago

He's comparing it to macos and there it is a VM as well but it feels less well integrated.

hylaride1y ago

1) I'll agree that WSL2 is excellent, but the native "unix" environment of macos has meant that I haven't had very many issues doing work that ultimately runs on linux natively from a mac.

2) This makes no sense to me. I've run docker on my mac with zero issues, except that the move to apple silicon has caused some disruption for cases where I build and push images locally (99% is done via CI/CD, but there are always exceptions) and I have to specify linux/amd64, which with some tooling is actually quite painful.

3) Yeah, powertools is nice.

4) This is absolutely true. The most recent macos announcement does add some better native window management, but all I really want is to be able to plug in my external monitors and have macos not switch them around half the time. It's frustrating as this used to work until around 2012 or so, and then just broke and was never fixed.

5) I've run into windows updates reverting settings or replacing defaults that point to third parties. To be fair, macos has sometimes done this, too. In particular it used to re-enable siri after every OS point release.

6) The ads are there and (with effort) can be removed. But it's the principle. Some product manager thought that this is a good idea - the good idea being something that's good for microsoft and not the user. This way of thinking can and does lead to rot by a thousand cuts. What's next enabling location tracking for the advertisers, thus making my laptops battery slightly worse? - google did this with android. This way of thinking has been killing google.

7) Most of this is repeating point 4 which I agree with, but its filesystem is just a posix filesystem. Mind you the finder has it's strengths and weaknesses - it took awhile to get used to, but it's never really gotten in my way. Calling macos third class for linux development is just plain incorrect. One of the main reasons MacOS took off when it did is because so many developers moved to it because they could use the same "unix/linux" tools more natively than windows, but didn't have to deal with linux on the desktop. Web developers in particular could easily run apache/php/etc as well as various design tools from Adobe or whoever. I've not seen too many complaints with most languages on it, but I could see more niche ones like Haskell being painful.

> I could provide other reasons but essentially it is way better for me and my use case than alternatives.

This is what ultimately matters. :-)

> Unless I'm using a laptop, there I prefer MacOS for hardware.

Hilariously for me, the one thing that's more painful than anything else when using windows is the poor quality of the bloody trackpads, even on more expensive/premium hardware (I haven't bought a windows laptop since before covid, so maybe this is better now?). Though a close second is having to deal with various pop-ups (from both windows and other software/utilities) that seem to vie for my attention.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse