The Register - There are still crypto reg's...

[Harmon Seaver]

Ray Dillinger wrote:

> On Thu, 1 Feb 2001, Phillip H. Zakas wrote:
>
> >Apple is a pretty computer and everything, but there's so much to be desired
> >from their os programmers (not saying microsoft is the best, just saying the
> >mac os really stinks.)
>
> There's kind of a feedback loop here; Windows achieved critical
> mass and Apple didn't.  Hence, MS can afford to hire lots more
> engineers to work on their CRAPPY os than Apple can hire to work
> on their mediocre os.  So, after a while, Windows got better than
> the MacOS.
>

    Says who? I mostly run unix boxes for a living and for fun, but I also have
a Mac at home for DTP and stuff like that. It's a million times preferable to
windoze -- ask any of the pre-press and other graphics professionals. Mac's rule
in that arena, except for those who can afford SGI.

>
> I remember how hard Win3.11 sucked compared to MacOS 5.  But once
> true multitasking was under WinNT3.51, it was about Neck-and-neck
> for quality with MacOS 7.  And like Mr. Zakas, I'm pretty convinced
> that even though MacOS 10 has true multitasking, it has definitely
> fallen behind WinNT 4.
>

       Well, as one who has to support a large number of windoze boxes (tho my
staff does most of the PC stuff), I'll take Macs over windoze any day of the
week. A single sys admin can support 4 times the number of Macs than windoze
boxes. NT might be more stable than 95/98, but it doesn't have the multimedia
and other features that Macs/windoze have, so it just doesn't make it for
desktops. And 2000 is not an option for most of the 400 or so boxes we have,
they barely have what it takes to run 95. Heck, one of our biggest libraries has
mostly 486's. I'd trade every windoze box we have for Macs if I could. They are
not just 4 times less hassle to support, but they are much, much easier to use
for the non-geeks.
       If you have to deal with windoze a lot on a lot of different machines, it
becomes pretty clear that it is just a truly disgusting piece of garbage, just
endless weirdness, one app install trashes another, an uninstall trashes
something else, just weird, weird, weird. Mac's just work, and work right, for
the most part. Of course, nothing is as nice as unix, but at least Mac's are
tolerable.