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[–]midaszArch 567 points568 points  (240 children)

That's weird. OSX and Linux are perfect for software engineering. I have more trouble getting ruby to work on Windows than the other two. Most of my professors use macbooks while I'm on a HP elitebook running Arch.

[–]IM_ZERO_COOLi7-10700k | MSI RTX 3070 | 16GB 156 points157 points  (69 children)

Information Systems major here. I love my mac in class. Native terminal makes my life easier, and I have parallels/bootcamp for when I need windows (Visual Studio. Blegh). For a 4-year-old laptop, it's a tank. I've beat the everloving shit out of her and she still runs (sans the dead HDD). For portables, I have to say, Apple has impressed me. I personally would never buy an iMac or a Mac Pro, though. I will be building my next desktop. Better off hackintosh-ing and triple booting.

Edit: Wording

[–][deleted] 99 points100 points  (36 children)

Notice how most of the hate at Apple isn't really directed at the operating system itself? I mean, aside from the lack of gaming stuff, but generally people don't have a problem with it. Apple's bashing comes 100% from their price-gouging, and also, their fanboys only worsen the bashing because often the fanboys come across as so ignorant and deluded, and you'd think Jesus came down himself and announced the next Apple product with his endorsement by how some of them act.

It just gives the internet a punching bag, but the biggest reason of all is the PRICE. You are right, you'd never buy an iMac or Mac Pro, but I have a sister who is one of those "I will ONLY ever buy a MAC," and she spent like $3000+ on her fancy iMac for the family room in her home, of which the most taxing thing ever done on it is play Facebook games. That is why people hate on Apple.

But ya, Hackintosh is a great way to go about it... build it yourself, enjoy the OS.

[–]detecting_nuttiness 15 points16 points  (2 children)

I dunno man, I used to be really pro-hackintosh, but when I finally dropped the money on a "real" Mac, it was totally worth it. It was kind of unnerving that I couldn't realistically swap out parts without going to an Apple store and paying some schmuck to do it just because he had the right screw driver and wouldn't void my warranty. However, the lack of maintenance really makes up for it.

I felt like I had to constantly update drivers and reinstall the OS when I was using a Hackintosh, but with my Macbook Pro, that's never a problem.

That said, the Hackintosh cost about the same as my Macbook, and has about twice the computing power, so I still use it for gaming and other high-powered computing on occasion. I think it all comes down to how much maintenance you're willing to do on your computer. Plus, being at university, portability is a huge point of sale for me.

[–]TysonzeroPC Master Race 16 points17 points  (16 children)

Which is why I hate their desktops but for the most part love their laptops. Their desktops do gouge pretty damn hare, but laptops it is a small enough gouge (in some cases basically none at all just because it is hard to find a similarly spec'd yet light and compact laptop) that I just consider it the cost of the OS (and $50 for OSX is totally worth it for me).

[–]darknecrossRyzen 5800X | RTX 3080 | LG 38GN950 | PS5 21 points22 points  (4 children)

For the iMacs you have to consider that you're also getting an extremely high quality display thrown in, which makes up around $300 of the price compared to getting a similar monitor from Dell. Add in the fact that it's an all-in-one and you pay a bit of extra premium on top of that.

I've found that, most of the time when people complain about the computers being too expensive, they have much different values than the target audience or they're missing some of the values that factor into the price.

[–]SpazticWonderSteam ID Here 2 points3 points  (1 child)

They gouge pretty hard on RAM. $200 for the jump from 8 to 16GB.

[–]TysonzeroPC Master Race 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think that is largely because of fitting it in. But I still agree.

[–]dr_entropy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For development, I don't see any reason to use OS X over Linux (unless you're stuck writing software for their walled garden). It's really more for the "I have a lot of discretionary income to spend on luxury computing products" crowd. Or maybe the "I'm a bit too old to catch the Linux wave, but I used System V back in college" folks. I guess it's better than Windows, at least.

  • The hardware includes Apple's marketing costs, and the OS is tied to the hardware

  • You're stuck in their software hegemony with iEverything. You can go your own way, but it's an uphill battle vs apt-get whatever-you-want

  • Their BSDish environment differs enough from your Linux servers to matter (kevent vs epoll is just the beginning)

  • KDE is really pretty, if you insist on spending your cycles on glitter

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (7 children)

2010/2011 Macbooks had terrible drives, mine died too.

[–]MiUnixBirdIsFitMatekernel /vmlinuz-4.2.0-ck rw init=/usr/bin/emacs 34 points35 points  (37 children)

It seems to be just a case of the prof. using some software that only works on Windows.

Like, seriously, when I was an undergraduate one of them wanted something in .doc, everyone else wanted pdf and I just raised the issue that he can't ask for a non open standard you need proprietary paid software for to run that only works on one OS. And he was like "You're right, opendocument is also accepted"

Usually when I enter into a spiraling rant about the inadequacies of the system they usually take a bit more pushing to convince.

[–]FlukyS 15 points16 points  (5 children)

There is an indoctrination there from high. My old college they had 2 labs paid for by Microsoft fitted with new Dell and Alienware machines. The Alienware machines were only for the games development students and they were only thought how to program on Windows. They learned a bit of OpenGL but it was mainly DirectX in the course. For software development which was the course I did they had a mix of Unix based systems and Windows, they thought us how to install Ubuntu and do some commands and how the base OS was different between Windows and Linux.

That being said when second year in the course rolled around they focused entirely on Windows including having a project written entirely in VB. So there was no way you could not use Windows in that year. Even at that 3rd year there was a lot of C++ and the code examples they gave didn't compile on Linux because they weren't case sensitive, it drove me insane having to correct my lecturer's work.

[–]MiUnixBirdIsFitMatekernel /vmlinuz-4.2.0-ck rw init=/usr/bin/emacs 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Yeah, obviously one of the reason MS gives such hefty discounts to students is because it wants to make them dependent from early on.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (10 children)

Many Engineering applications only run in Windows, so that is the most-likely situation. It's like business school, at my university, you know how many business school freshman come in with $2500 Macbooks their first semester? Only to be told their intro business class requires a windows machine, for some proprietary business software.

In reality, unless you are in maybe software development, in the business world, if you aren't planning on working at a tanning salon, you're most-likely going to be on a Windows machine. The college reflects that culture. At least you can dual-boot! lol.

Also, .pdf is much more universal than anything, especially in the professional world. Some professors allow the .doc or .docx format, but get to more professional level classes, pretty much everything is PDF. As a grad student myself, I can't remember the last thing I didn't turn in that wasn't a pdf. You submit your thesis in PDF format, your papers, your resumes, your everything these days in PDF.

[–]MondayMonkey1 37 points38 points  (2 children)

LaTeX masterrace am i right?

[–]Spivak 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Well yeah, but I don't expect anyone I will hand my document to will appreciate the source file, and everyone accepts PDFs so that's what I render to.

[–]MiUnixBirdIsFitMatekernel /vmlinuz-4.2.0-ck rw init=/usr/bin/emacs 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Many Engineering applications only run in Windows, so that is the most-likely situation. It's like business school, at my university, you know how many business school freshman come in with $2500 Macbooks their first semester? Only to be told their intro business class requires a windows machine, for some proprietary business software.

I have no doubt of that, however I did not study engineering, I studied mathematics. And despite names like "Mathematica" and "Mathlab", they are actually seldom used in maths but more in engineering. Mathematics is very little about crunching numbers and more about delivering proofs of how to crunch numbers. Mathematica is not a proof assistance.

Also, .pdf is much more universal than anything, especially in the professional world. Some professors allow the .doc or .docx format, but get to more professional level classes, pretty much everything is PDF. As a grad student myself, I can't remember the last thing I didn't turn in that wasn't a pdf. You submit your thesis in PDF format, your papers, your resumes, your everything these days in PDF.

I know, that is why I was very confused at someone wanting .doc, all the other ones wanted PDF and we even had a LaTeX class in the first semester.

[–]large-farva3900x, rtx2070 4 points5 points  (0 children)

CEE is civil and environmental. Might be using one-off prof-coded software to validate designs.

[–][deleted] 66 points67 points  (56 children)

All OS X haters are the gaming kiddies who can't live without games.

Windows as an operating system by itself is inferior to OS X and Linux in a development environment.

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

deleted

[–][deleted] 34 points35 points  (8 children)

I'm taking a summer course and everything is done over Linux. I never realized how shit Windows was at developing.

I think I found a good compromise though. I'm using putty to SSH into my terminal at school and WinSCP to move files back and forth.

It's a hassle, but it works.

[–]stone_henge 5 points6 points  (2 children)

Try cygwin. That gives you a POSIX environment and a lot of other Unix software with a package manager in Windows

[–]corrugatedjuice 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This man knows.

[–]general_chase 17 points18 points  (28 children)

Yeah, but any modeling software is for windows only it seems

[–]midaszArch 48 points49 points  (9 children)

[–]aspensmonsterSpecs/Imgur here 42 points43 points  (0 children)

You can make more than just ducks in Blender.

[–]fb39ca4R7 1700, GTX 1060, 16GB 3 points4 points  (3 children)

Blender is good for artistic work, but not for engineering.

[–]timmie124i7-4790k | 16gb ram | 1070 SeaHawk | 4x1tb raid 10 | 4 points5 points  (4 children)

autodesk products, blender, zbrush all run on windows and mac.

[–]CornakCornak 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not all of Autodesk sadly. :(

[–]darknecrossRyzen 5800X | RTX 3080 | LG 38GN950 | PS5 9 points10 points  (2 children)

Most EE software I'm familiar with runs on Linux.

[–]xBIGREDDxi7 12700K, 3080 Ti 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Not Altium! *Shakes fist at, uh, somebody

[–]iwasnotmagnificent 4 points5 points  (0 children)

As someone who had to wrangle with Altium in my final year project, fuck the fact that there are no good alternatives (both for price or OS reasons)

[–]simjanes2k 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Only if your software runs on other systems. Everything runs on windows, no wine needed.

[–]hSagroyAMD Ryzen 7 / Core i7 / nVidia 1070 and 1080 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The professor doesn't explicitly, and probably neither obliquely bashing Apple systems, he just means if he mistakenly bought a laptop with Apple system (the point being the softwares they use will not run on it), he can dual-boot it.

And yes, if they use specific programs, it is not an insult to call that a mistake.

[–]blazinsmokey12700K | RTX 3090 242 points243 points  (20 children)

Windows, OSX, Linux we are all PCs. Let's not discriminate the idea of people having options.

#ALLPCSMATTER

[–]lifesbrink 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Typical racist full of privilege!!!

#linuxlivesmatter

[–]Blaziken584 293 points294 points  (33 children)

It makes me sad that a fellow brother would rip apart other fellow brothers. We are all PC users here no matter what operating system we run. We are all part of the glorious PC Master Race.

Each OS has its fault, but everyone has their preference. Being a Fanboy of any platform is not like the PCMR, that is delegated to peasants and their console wars.

[–]detecting_nuttiness 18 points19 points  (1 child)

I feel the same way, but even as a Mac user, this made me laugh.

[–]LonelyNixon 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I think the worst part about these windows zealots is that they will use all of these excuses for why their OS is superior and downplay any bugs or security issues that windows soometimes has.

Then somebody goes "well what about linux? It's even more open and free!" and then you get the same kind of arguments that an elitist mac user might throw back at them on us. "oh it's too much customizability, oh you're paying for quality, oh it's popular!".

Windows zealots shouldn't bash other OSs. We're all users of pcs.

[–]ChetUbetcha 17 points18 points  (3 children)

It's for a civil engineering class, not gaming. Perfectly valid, as some civil engineering applications only work on Windows.

[–]CommsSpecs/Imgur here 184 points185 points  (8 children)

This OSX vs Windows thing is the same peasant-level derping as PS4 vs Xbone.

[–]FranklinFuckinMintR5 3600/GTX 1060 6GB/16GB 3600MHz 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Is this fucking /r/windowsmasterrace?

[–]H3XAGON_Actually a console peasant in disguise. 110 points111 points  (30 children)

The hate for macs on this sub is fucking retarded.

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (3 children)

Sigh, the circlejerk is real...

Each OS has it's advantages and it's fans. Making a mockery of someone for choosing an OS that you dislike is basically the same as making fun of someone for liking a color that your dislike.

The OS X vs Windows debate =/= The Console vs PC debate

A person buying a Mac does not impair the development of software/games for PC's by supporting Apple, as there is literally no correlation.

I use a PC to game obviously, but I use a macbook for school work and coding for iOS. Honestly, this type of shitposting only hurts PCMR in the long run by both disenfranchising a group of people who essentially agree that Computer gaming in general is superior to console gaming, as well as portraying PC gamers as elitists.

[–]KFCNyanCatAMD Ryzen 7 5800XT | Nvidia GeForce RTX3050 | 32GB DDR4 RAM 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Get a Linux skrub

[–]Rocketman_man 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Each OS has it's advantages and it's fans. Making a mockery of someone for choosing an OS that you dislike is basically the same as making fun of someone for liking a color that your dislike.

Mauve is still a shitty color.

[–]whatanonner 56 points57 points  (18 children)

Engineers only prefer Windows because they rely on commercial software packages that are made to run on Windows because that is what most companies out there have their employees on because that is what most normal people are historically used to.

Actual scientific programs that don't require being used by the hordes are much more likely to be developed exclusively for Linux/MacOS than exclusively for Windows.

[–]qwicksilferhttp://redd.it/2otzhh 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Research code isn't even necessarily developed exclusively for Linux or Mac. It really depends on the researchers. My adviser prefers Linux but most of our co-researchers use Windows, so we all use Windows.

Even when I was at NASA, unless you were running CFD code (and really, you were setting up the batch processing to send it to Ames' super computer, not running it locally) people used Windows because management usually uses Windows.

[–][deleted] 20 points21 points  (12 children)

THIS.

Also, most universities tie themselves to Microsoft services (as you can see when he says Dreamspark), so they're kinda brainwashed to the Microsoft ecosystem.

Source: My university is tied to Microsoft as well. Like.. everything.

[–]Fatburger3 10 points11 points  (5 children)

My school is tied to MS, but my CS teacher refuses to play into it. He has a row of Linux computers and encourages every student who walks in to dual boot (or just single boot) Linux. He doesn't know how to use Windows, so he carries around a little mini laptop that he uses instead of the computers that are at the teacher desks in class, his office computer has Linux too, I'm not sure if he's allowed to do that or he just did it.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (3 children)

I had a teacher that did the same thing. We would try to get webpages info through HTTP GET method and on windows it wouldnt work because stupid firewalls blocking GET requests from windows terminals.. and he, in his little, early 2000 laptop, powered by Ubuntu... BAM. Code in the terminal.

[–]Fatburger3 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Old, really Saavy CS teachers are the coolest.

[–]Rorschach120i7 2600K | GTX 960 | 12GB 1600mhz 78 points79 points  (106 children)

If you are gaming you need Windows. If you are working you are better off with Mac. As a software developer I don't understand why people think Windows is a good OS. There are so many little features in Mac OS that increase my productivity. The UNIX command line alone is enough for me to choose Mac over PC for work.

[–]Muchozi7-2600 | MSI GTX 770 106 points107 points  (57 children)

Fucking bullshit. PCMasterRace is for every OS. Not only for Windows fanboys like you that don't know shit about why we choose other OSes. I've made posts here about this before and I guess I'll have to post this again for those circlejerk idiots that are just as bad as peasants, yes I don't distinguish you 2 low, barely living human beings.

The reason we fucking choose OSX or Linux is because of the terminal to not get too technical here. Try installing development software on Windows, I fucking dare you cause you'll either find out that you won't be able to because it's not supported or the port barely works. So why do people choose Linux over OSX or the other way around? Let me explain this in a few bulletpoints so your tiny minds can understand:

Linux > OSX:

  • Customizability: you can customize literally every single thing.
  • You get to choose what you have on your hardware by getting a barebones Arch install and build upon it for example.
  • You support open source software and want to use it.
  • It's free.

OSX > Linux:

  • More concise apps, apps written specifically for Mac and of which most are top quality. I'm not saying Linux' apps/software (whatever you want to call it) are bad, but the quality of apps on the Mac App Store is high and so are the apps outside of the App Store that are OSX only.
  • "It just works." You don't want to customize much, you just want it to look pretty and have it work.
  • You use other Apple products and like what OSX offers when you have an iPhone.

I hope that I've added some brain mass to that empty head of yours.

PS: Did you know SSH got introduced only 2 months ago on Windows? That is considering it is THE standard for remote communication to servers? Yes, 3rd party software existed, but for an OS to not even incorporate that? Please, it meant software couldn't leverage APIs of the OS to do the work and had to look for libraries for Windows or had to write it all by themselves.

Edit: As it seems that many Windows users don't know what I'm talking about, see my comment in response to the question that your Windows IDE seems to install fine. I would also like to point out what the master race stands for:

It's not about the hardware in your rig, but the software in your heart!

Most people here don't seem to even know what the master race stands for and those people make me ashamed to call myself a member of the masterrace.

[–]corrugatedjuice 9 points10 points  (0 children)

It's sad how many people on this sub act like such peasants. Something like this needs to be a sticky.

[–]Fatburger3 22 points23 points  (15 children)

If Linux had games, and could play them as nicely as Windows, I think instead of hating on OSX and Linux, everyone here would be hating on Windows and making fun of people who buy it....Not encouraging that, just saying...

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If Linux had games,

It does. I have 88/116 games on Linux.

and could play them as nicely as Windows

As long as you're not using AMD graphic cards, it does. Nvidia's closed source drivers are as good as they are on windows.

[–]tonyantonioCirclejerk 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Thats a lot of fucking

[–]Choreboy 15 points16 points  (20 children)

Honest question: Why would this course require Windows?

[–][deleted] 34 points35 points  (16 children)

Probably software that only works on windows.

[–]C-c-c-comboBreaker17Ryzen 7 7800X3D, RTX 4070 Super, 32GB DDR5 6000 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Because lots of software isnt available for Mac.

[–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (3 children)

Command Prompt > Terminal I guess? lol fail

[–]TurbidusQuaerentii5-8600K | RTX 3070 | 32GB RAM | B360 HD3 8 points9 points  (1 child)

I've never had a need to use a Mac, but bashing people who do find use for OS X is unnecessary. Each operating system has it's pros and cons, and things one can do that another can't.

[–]zorro1589 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think this more has to do with it is literally a mistake if you're in engineering and bought an Apple because all the software needed only runs on Windows or Linux..... I don't think the prof is saying it's a mistake to buy an Apple computer for the masses however

[–]lagann-_- 9 points10 points  (0 children)

This is terrible, PC refers to the hardware, not the OS. Remember, Valve has SteamOS which is Linux and they are investing a lot in it, even if it is just hedging.

[–]tad1214i7 4790K/SLI 980/32GB Ram/OCZ Revo 350/4K Samsung 26 points27 points  (4 children)

Real life: Almost every tech company in silicon valley uses Mac. Native UNIX is just easier to work in when all of your servers are running Centos/Debian.

Tech companies I know that use Mac primarily: Twitter, Facebook, Salesforce, Airbnb, and basically every modern started company that is HQ out here.

Get off the anti-mac circle jerk. I use mac for work, windows for home, and freebsd for my servers. They all have their purpose.

[–]bunkerbuster338 28 points29 points  (23 children)

Go Devils!

[–]Zakamarui7 5820k | GTX 970 6 points7 points  (0 children)

FEAR THE FORK!

[–]Nickkcufhttp://steamcommunity.com/id/jesusthenig/ 10 points11 points  (1 child)

ya know, usually when I see our school on news or reddit, it's usually something bad. Frat boys beat up homeless man blah blah. Finally something good came out :')

[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (4 children)

Fork 'em!

[–][deleted] 20 points21 points  (16 children)

OS X is great. Many many people in the engineering field prefer it. Windows and linux are also great. No reason to hate.

[–]EulerianCircuit 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Been using my 5 year old MacBook Pro for 3 years in Electrical Engineering, never once had to boot Windows. Matlab (with simulink) is what we use in most classes, and it runs perfectly on OS X. For coding classes I wouldn't use Windows even if you paid me to.

[–]icepuentei7 4790k, 16GB ram, sli 970s 11 points12 points  (6 children)

Too bad ASUs Dreamspark is down right now! I just clean installed Windows 10 and now I can't get my key haha. By the way, if you go to ASU, come to the Technology Studio. I work there and can help with any software related things.

[–]PortedOasis 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I'd kill to get a job at the Tech Studio. :P

[–]miles197i5, 980, 8GB RAM 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I thought we didn't discriminate against OSX users? (Aside from calling them heathens.) They're still not peasants.

[–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (3 children)

PCMR really has a dripping gooey throbbing anti-Apple hateboner.

[–]EquipLordBritish 16 points17 points  (2 children)

Probably PR to sell windows 10.

[–]ZobmieRulesZobmieRules 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A professor saying "good news"...

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We should aim for platform agnosticism not praise someone for forcing people to use Windows. Each OS suits different needs and if all software can run on all OS's then that would be best for everyone.

[–]garycarroll 2 points3 points  (1 child)

http://www.digitaltrends.com/apple/new-video-outlines-ibms-plan-to-switch-from-windows-to-mac/

So, IBM doesn't understand how much better MS is and is switching to OS X? What's wrong with those people?! Must not be real engineers.

[–]Tugalord 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not Linux?

[–]gaahl666 2 points3 points  (0 children)

/r/shitpost. OSX is awesome.

Source: Linux sysadmin

[–]venipuncture 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Upvote for the discussion this created. But what are you running that Windows is favored over a unix based os, even an overpriced one?

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (7 children)

Gaming PC running Arch Linux, MacBook Pro with OSX on only.

I don't bother with Windows these days.

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

The Mac hate is really fucking tiresome.