Mac and Linux, Why I'll never go back to Windows

I wrote recently, that after my most recent experience on Windows (specifically Windows 7 over the last 8 months), Windows is dead to me.

I didn’t decry Windows in a way akin to internet flame wars, as people have been known to do; but simply made a statement based on my perspective and experiences with Windows both recently and over many years now.

After being asked why, by Bruno Škvorc, and reading his perspective, it seemed right to flesh out my reasons why and not just write so simple a statement. So here are reasons for walking away from Windows.

But first, my story

My first computers were an Apple IIc and IIe which my Dad brought home from work for us to use. With my childhood friends we played on Ataris and Commodore 64s. So right from the start, I never used Windows or DOS.

Oh the speed of loading software from tapes just blew my mind (not!). On the two Apples I had my first taste of programming.

But, unlike many of my peers, I didn’t grab a programming book straight after getting the computer. I played, experimented a bit, then left them alone for some time.

After some years away from computers I came back, but this time with Microsoft and Windows. Beginning with Windows 3.1, then 3.11 I rather quickly upgraded to the much heralded Windows 95*A*. It was meant to be IT, the next big thing, the revolution in home computing.

The ‘A’ deserves emphasis, as this is where things went wrong. It was during this time that I also began my University years and Windows made it an frustrating experience.

How, you may ask? Well it constantly crashed with blue screens of death, all too commonly during the writing of Uni assignments. I’d be in the middle of a train of thought and wham! Word or Windows crashed (again).

Windows wasn’t endearing itself to me at all. In an attempt to combat this, I formed the habit of typing with one hand and ctrl-saving every few mins with the other.

Needless to say, when auto-save came along I jumped on it with great relish. The ‘95 upgrades (B, C etc) then followed. Each one bringing more and more stability, yet also more issues, crashes and viruses.

If you don’t share this same experience, perhaps you remember the many times have we seen Bill Gates, or other senior people from Microsoft, on stage giving demonstrations for the world’s media, only to have an awkward pause as the Blue Screen of Death reared its ugly head.

Have you seen that at WWDC?

It seemed completely anathema to me that such a clearly buggy operating system could engender such high demand and loyalty, as so many of my friends afforded it. Where was Apple you may ask? It was in the doldrums in these years, hovering constantly near bankruptcy before the lifeline injection, ironically from Microsoft.

Then Linux Appeared

It was around this time that I saw a job ad in a national paper requiring UNIX & Linux skills. I asked a good mate what this technology was. After finding out, I implored him to help me install it. After installing of Redhat 6.0, I was hooked.

The geek had come alive!

I could see possibilities like never before. I felt like I was now in the real world, where the real developers were. To me, this was on the road to big iron and serious computing.

My passion and enthusiasm for Linux and all things Open Source continued from strength to strength with distros such as Mandrake, Suse, Fedora, Debian, and Ubuntu; I played with Apache, PHP, BIND, iptables and more; anything I could get my hands on.

It even became my daily desktop and development machine for close to 10 years.

However, with time I formed an opinion of it, which I still hold to this day; that whilst it’s far more stable, reliable, efficient, and for a developer feature rich, out of the box in ways Windows never will be – as a desktop it just wasn’t there.

On the server, unbeatable. But the desktop, thanks, I gave it a good go. Seriously I did. But it’s just not there. For me.

In Flew The Mac

I’m unashamed to admit it, I appreciate visual perfection, art, style, beauty, fashion and the finer things in life. I don’t see a beautiful GUI and a stable, feature-rich, system as mutually exclusive entities. So when I saw Mac OSX – that was it for me. Plus it reminded me of my childhood.

Apple became the ideal for which others should strive. This comes not out of any sense of fanboy love. You’ll never – EVER – see me waiting in a queue like those we see, every year, for product launches; Lines which stretch round city blocks after they’ve serpentined outside of the store doors. I have a life, thank you very much!

The Mac approach is just right. This was further reinforced when I read The Art of UNIX programming. It spoke of an approach which put the user front and center. The interface was designed from the perspective of the user and then the question “how do we actually implement this” was asked.

What’s more, the little touches aren’t forgotten, they’re embraced. “Oh it’s almost working, you just finish up the rest” isn’t acceptable. It’s both beautifully designed – and engineered, primarily from the perspective of the end user. Now yes, the critique of a walled garden is quite fair. Compared to building your own PC, with Apple gear, you have limited choice.

However, only on very rare occasions have I seen the spinning beach ball of death or a system crash. I did see it more than I’ve experienced before or since with Lion however. But since moving on, it truly is a rarity.

As a Software Architect do I deploy to a Mac though, no. Do I deploy to Windows – seriously?! Unless something rocks my world, I’ll always use Linux, and likely always a Debian-based distro. Debian to me is the gold-standard of Linux distros.

In this regard, Linux is my best friend, like a comfortable pair of shoes. What’s more, hosting is really affordable with such services as cloudControl, Heroku, Digital Ocean and Rackspace; plus so many tools, scripts, configuration options, and setups just work for Linux. If you develop with Linux, you develop for the Web.

The Mac Critiques

I find it rather comical when colleagues and friends chide me for even using the Mac to develop on in the first place. So oft comes the line:

But there’s no software for the Mac, you mustn’t do anything…

Really? I beg to differ. Here’s a healthy list, which I’ll happily stand behind as a starter kit:

• Xcode
• Google Chrome
• Firefox
• Safari
• Atlassian SourceTree
• PhpStorm
• Eclipse
• NetBeans
• GNU tools
• Vagrant
• VirtualBox
• Parallels
• Cornerstone
• Photoshop

And the list goes on. As it’s UNIX at its core, so many of the open source tools can be ported to it far far simpler than they ever could be for Windows. Even the terminal itself, whilst subtly different, still feels like home, albeit a much better looking one!

Not It’s Not Perfect {#not-it’s-not-perfect}

Yes, I have a Mac, iPhone, and an iPad. But I’m not a fanboy, at least in the self-absorbed, insular way. I respect that it’s not perfect. But for me – IT JUST WORKS. Period!

So that’s me. That’s the core set of reasons why I’ve formed the opinions I hold regarding computing and desktop computing specifically. I don’t expect anyone to see it as I do, but then, no one needs to. It’s my opinion and I’m very happy with it.

I’m really happy with where I stand because it works for me. But I’m equally as happy to accept that others have a contrasting position, which works equally well for them. All I ask is that people know why they stand as they do, and are honest about it – at least with themselves.