Comment by Snapz@lemmy.world on Stuck in the middle with you

iOS is literally designed for toddlers to be able to use it. “iPad kids” aren’t especially gifted, “iPad adults” are especially stupid.

But on the bright side, those same groups think they “know computers” because they can press large, brightly colored buttons - so they walk around with unearned confidence in their abilities and impatience/lack of appreciation for the people that actually have to fix things.

It’s also why a large swatch of these same fucking idiot, drains on humanity loudly challenge the validity of voting tech infrastructure without any factual basis to their argument - they just “feel” like they get it.

My boss very confidently proclaimed that all serious IT professionals use a Mac. Said Linux “is for programmers and nerds”

So, programmers != IT professionals, huh…

IT professionals are more the folks that install and maintain large scale computer systems and networks, like a company’s IT department or MSP. Programming is closer to engineering. Software engineering.

“IT professional” does typically lean more towards that yes, but it also encompasses software developers.

If they work professionally in IT, then they’re by definition “IT Professionals”.

Absolutelly, the definition of “IT Professional” starts at lower (or maybe the correct term would be “more generic, maintenance-oriented and less specialized”) levels of domain expertise than “Software Developer” and most people out there’s contact with an “IT Professional” won’t include a software developer (even in the average business, which is unlikely to directly use Programmers but will almost certainly use the services of System Administrators and Network Engineers), but saying they’re not IT Professionals would be a bit like saying that the people who design cars aren’t Auto Industry Professionals, only Car Mechanics are.

Mind you, I don’t disagree that Programming is closer to Engineering: my point is that Engineering IT Systems is still a profession in IT, just like car design (in the technical sense) is both an Engineering practice and a profession in the Auto Industry.

Linux is for programmers and nerds

…and your ideal system administrator is neither of those?

As an IT professional, Macs are used by people that couldn’t figure out Windows. Linux is for people that understand enough about Windows to live in constant fear of the next newsworthy workday.

Macs are for people who want a high performance laptop with great battery life and build quality. Hardware and driver issues are extremely rare. An out of the box Unix environment and great desktop applications for everything round it out. Macs are for people who want a to get actual work done and not lose time babysitting or tinkering with their computer.

Windows usability has become worse since 7 and it’s now filled with crap and ads. The different settings applications are an embarrassment and insult to users.

couldn’t figure out windows

Decided their time is too valuable to spend it on dealing with Windows‘ bullshit.

did apple pay you to write this

Ha! I totally agree! But I also can’t resist defending Mac a little bit.

Maybe I’m just weird, but I grew up on Commodore, then DOS + Windows, then Windows (when it became all-in-one and not just a GUI shell over DOS). I got into Linux desktops and servers in college and will only ever do a server on Linux, of course. Throughout all of this, both software consumption and development have been constants for me.

Right now, I greatly prefer MacBooks for productivity, and I have been keeping a Windows PC going for flight simming, though I’m tempted to switch that to Linux ever since MS declared it too old to run Windows even though it’s still perfectly capable of doing everything I care about–MS just insists on “trusted platform” hardware now.

Anyways, the point I’m going for is that Mac is also for nerds, especially ones who understand Windows and Linux and just enjoy a nice workstation that combines the best of both worlds. Windows is trying to catch up with WSL, but it’s still a bolt-on, whereas Mac is BSD under the hood. I’ve been hearing about nice Linux laptop options and hope it will get to an equally nice experience, but, for now, Mac, for me, is like a new car. Sure, I used to do my own maintenance and some repairs on my old cars, but now I have a job and can pay for something that usually just works, that allows me plenty of ways to tinker, and that I can pay to have fixed when I don’t want to spend my time grinding on something unfulfilling.

IMHO,

Windows has completelly stopped its trend of becoming less shit over time and has actually started going backwards.

Modern Macs (having used both, I would say they aren’t really direct descendants of the original Macs but rather they’re major redesigns) already started at a point when usuability could be done better, kept improving for longer and, even though they stopped improving in terms of usability, unlike Windows they haven’t gone back.

Linux is the only one that still keeps on improving (though usuability-wise it started ever further back than Windows), though slower than the others and often in a two-steps-forward-and-one-back fashion, so it’s about to go past Windows (one might stay that it has already done so in usability and is only the large number of Windows-only applications that keeps Windows ahead) and hopefully will eventually pass Macs too.

Whilst what I expect for Linux has a big dollop of hopefulness, for the rest I think it’s pretty obvious that Windows has never surpassed Macs in terms of usability and will never do.

the point I’m going for is that Mac is also for nerds,

Don’t you find them extremely restrictive and hard to repair? I know they want the walled garden, and absolutely don’t want anyone opening up a Mac/iphone and changing hardware other than a Apple tech. That removes all the fun from tinkering with and customizing your stuff.

Fair point! I don’t know what I’ll do whenever I eventually have to replace mine. I was lucky (I guess) to get the last model that had a removable drive and the keyboard I ended up loving. I upgraded my storage to 2 gigs and felt that covered everything I cared to change on this one.

But I’ll have to seriously reconsider on future models, as I am enticed by the newer Apple chips but have certainly heard the uproar about the relatively small amount of ram offered. And now that we’re on the subject, I’m not thrilled about the idea of Apple dropping OS support (i.e., security updates) for older models. I want to upgrade when I’m ready for an overhaul in performance, not just because they want to sell more.

I guess I need to be more specific about “nerd.” I find it great for software nerdiness, but I have to admit the only physical use case nowadays is plebian: “just take my money and make it work.”

As an IT professional that uses a Mac and runs multiple Linux boxes, Windows is for people who don’t know about computers. MacOS and Linux are for people who do. Some Windows people should be the other two, but live on Windows because they’ve learned enough to deal with it.

I’m in IT, from my experience, most people who use Macs either use it for media, because it is easy to use for the common man, or it is the most expensive option.

Also most people who use Macs need help from their Linux using coworkers to get anything moderately difficult done on their systems.

I’ve been in IT for over 20 years the most of the people who use Macs do so because there’s supported business software written for it while still being Unix under the hood.

I too been in IT for over 20 years and most people I’ve seen using Macs were Graphics Designers and Marketing types.

I’ve seen but a handfull of IT Professionals using them and I’ve seen significantly more IT Professionals using Linux for work than Macs.

My experience covers a couple of countries and various industries since I’ve worked as a contractor (a kind of Freelancer) for most of the time so moved around a lot more than people working as permanent employees would.

Maybe one or two people I’ve seen using Macs cared about it being Unix under the hood and I think all of those were the above mentioned IT Professionals who used Macs.

People doing Graphics Design and other such digital media work (which is how Marketing types commonly ended up using it) really loved them because they were easy to use, had proper color calibration together with really great quality high resolution screens (the first properly supported 4K computer screens were Mac), plus the whole Adobe Suite as well as pretty much all other top professional design and media work software has full native Mac versions. These people were, however, not computer experts in the IT Professional sense of the word (even the Graphics Designers working on Tech Startups were tech users, not tech experts) and did not at all value the “Unix under the hood” characteristic of Macs.

Mine was mainly at startups that did big data and open source software, and the only folks in the org who used Windows were generally the accountants.

Yeah, during my period in Tech Startups I did see a bit more of usage of Macs than in other places (such as Finance, Software Products, Software Consultancy and even Publishing), but always felt it was driven by the whole halo of “fashionability” around Apple Products, which isn’t really a rational reason.

In my experience Mac use is also more likely in people doing Frontend work than Server-side work, maybe because the latter is not at all about visuals and most server-side work targets Linux so it’s way simpler to just have Linux in your workstation.

Then again I’ve been using Linux since the 90s so maybe I’m biased ;)

all serious IT professionals

programmers and nerds

TIL, not the same group.

If you laugh, even once, they throw you out of the serious IT group.

Which group do programmer socks put me in?

I say… where is your top hat, Sir! This is not stone story of a layabouts IT group! Have you no decency, Sir!

people like your boss are awesome. managing their macs pays so stupid well, it feeds my linux home sever upgrade habit.

Looks like a win win situation.

So what do they make of people like me who who use Linux on a Mac, with e.g. Colima or Rancher desktop - doing cloud/kubernetes/python development? I moved to a Mac a couple of years ago after 20 years of using Linux as my daily driver because frankly Bluetooth audio on Linux sucks and because I was tired of getting endless different video conference / screensharing solutions working at short notice for interviewing.

He’s not wrong. There is a lot more money in selling hype and style, than functionality and substance. Pro’s need pay.

”iPad adults” are especially stupid.

Does this mean a specific type of adult, or adults who use iPads? Cause…I consider myself pretty technically gifted, I’m a software developer, previously worked IT…and I love my iPad (for the things it’s good for).

Not OP but I suspect they mean adults that struggle with normal technology but thrive on ipads (can remember the button they use to open sodoku)

Nothing at all wrong with making technology easy to use for the masses, but this can create problems.

Even the “problems” are only really a problem for those who value understanding how Tech works and hence see a lack of it as a problem (welcome to Lemmy!).

I’m not so sure that, in the greater scheme of things, not understanding the innards of Tech is a “problem” anymore than not knowing how to fix your own car is a “problem”.

The only way I can see that it might be a problem in a more general sense of the word is if that’s helping enabling enshittification because people don’t understand Tech enough to be able to avoid or more away from enshittified options.

I like the size and heft of the ipad - I never sit at a desk with a computer anymore outside of work, and feel like I thoroughly earned the right to that. But as a productivity device it feels like a straitjacket.

Love my iPad for making art with Procreate, reading, playing media, as a universal remote for home automation, games, showing photos to friends, looking up stuff of the internet, reading, for DJing.

There are no messengers, calendars, or communication apps configured on it. So there are no notifications.

I sometimes try it for productivity, but run into limitations quickly. It’s okay for editing a document for a bit, but managing files is already torture.

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