Amen. That's the thing. You don't realize how many hoops you've been jumping through to do the same things that devs on Linus or OS X do effortlessly until you make the switch. But people don't make the switch because they have this blind loyalty to whatever theyre using. So whenever they see someone else loving a different OS they dole out ad nominee attacks, call the products over priced, or too complicated for normal users, or elitist. It's all to do with justifying one's decision to use X despite evidence that Y may be better or just as good and possibly some jealousy in some cases.

In any case it's all dumb blind loyalty the vast majority of the time. And that applies to Linux, Mac, and Windows. You can't have a discussion about operating systems with 90%+ of people because everyone just defends their favorite and facts are distorted to suit those preferences. It really is just about useless to have a discussion about operating systems as "substantive" or "meaningful" discussions about the subject are about as rare as unicorns.

As a cross platform open source developer that uses Mac OS X and Linux about the same (Mac OS X on desktop, Linux on laptop) I don't see what's so horrible about Mac OS X in this regard. At worse, it's the same. I don't prefer either for programming (I do prefer Mac OS X for other things, though).

Ubuntu works just fine for two kind of users:

1.) Grandmothers and the like who just want to read their mail and check the news.

2.) People like me who can and will use 4 + 2 + 1 + 0,5 hours to customize it over the course of 6-12 months to have an almost perfect working environment instead of living with a slower OS without virtual desktops.

The only thing I can think of that needs tinkering is some online banks that require applets to work, but then again even Windows doesn't come with Java preinstalled.

Wasn't talking about visual studio, I mean the UX as a whole. It is hugely inconsistent, slow, and hard to get sane information about whats going on. Once you are in an application, then generally its ok, its just up to that application, other than things like where new windows are created which are also broken. Oh and focus and switching, as things are always getting hidden.

Lots of programmers were doing just fine with punched cards and teletypes. That doesn't mean that punched cards and teletypes were not horrible. People just learn to be comfortable with their tools.