[usui]

This is exactly it. My 2015 MacBook Pro with an upgraded 2TB SSD has the best balanced software engineer setup I can ask for between customizability and bells & whistles. Every time I have tried to use Linux, I could never find a way to find the very smooth, easy, performant way to clear Terminal buffer with no scrollback (CMD+K). The best I have seen is some kind of reset command bound to a key.

Windows is pure garbage and the only time I ever touch it is in a VM running on my MacBook, and even then I strictly require it to be Enterprise version so that I never have to deal with the adware bloat or forced updates. On regular Windows 10, you can disable updates, but never permanently. It always comes back like a specter.

My MacBook has never forced me to restart or install an update. The UI for updates can get a little annoying, but there are Terminal tricks to disable it, and I still have choice.

The shell library is not as good on Windows. I cannot muster the motivation to learn PowerShell.

I never feel safe installing anything on Windows. What I mean is I never understand what is actually changing on my computer if something installs on Windows. On a MacBook, I can drag and drop to Applications. If I need to uninstall it, I delete it. It's that simple. For anything that forces me to install via pkg file, I am happy that most of the time, homebrew cask has a formula for it, so uninstallation is handled for me cleanly.

The only good thing I can think of for Windows is that GUI automation is much better due to AutoHotKey. MacOS GUI automation is basically deprecated at this point (AppleScript) on most apps, so you are forced to find third-party options.

AirDrop between my iPad Pro and MacBook is so fast, it allows me to copy my iPad's handwritten notes into a pdf in an instant.

One good thing I can say for Windows is backwards compatibility for compiled apps. Most open source projects I see with a MacOS binary have a high chance of not working relative to Windows. On Windows, if I see a compiled binary, I already know it will probably work.

The OS is what keeps me to my MacBook, and if no other competitor can produce the equivalent experience, I can't move away.

Look at all the software engineers in the Bay Area, and you will see waves upon waves of MacBooks. This "standardization" of hardware has also somewhat reduced the instances of coworkers using the excuse of "Oh it works on my computer, must be a hardware issue." If both of us are using MacBooks, I know it's a software issue, and so it's something we can probably figure out and fix.

I'm desperate to move away from the dark, abuse direction Apple is taking macOS, and I love the software so-much-so that I made a desktop Hackintosh, but getting it to run was more work than getting hardware to work on Linux (still was worth it). I only wonder when the final time will come where Hackintosh doesn't work and my 2015 MacBook Pro stops working. 2015 MBP was the last year for selling MBPs with removable storage. 2015 MBP will be remembered as the best laptop for its replaceable SSD and laptop keyboard.

[pedrogpimenta]

> Windows is pure garbage

Yes... pure garbage. Very objective vision.

> On a MacBook, I can drag and drop to Applications. If I need to uninstall it, I delete it. It's that simple.

This is a lie. Applications in macOS save files outside of Applications, sometime you don't know where, and you need other apps if you want to completely delete the data. There are also installers for macOS and portable apps for Windows (where you put it where you want, and to uninstall it just delete it). There are also package managers like homebrew for windows (chocolatey for example) but all of these are not made or endorsed by Apple or Microsoft.

> AirDrop between my iPad Pro and MacBook is so fast

It's fast when it works and many many time it doesn't at first, you need to fiddle around with it. And if any excuse is somethin like "it works with newer machines" they're not valid.

----

With this, I don't want to convince you to switch, but I think Windows can be valid for many people that are not considering it right now, as I wasn't. And it is only getting better, whereas you can't really say the same for macOS.

[Sangeppato]

MacOS Is still much cleaner though. 99% of apps only put some config files in my ~/Library folder (and homebrew can easily remove them all with the 'zap' command). On Windows, I always don't understand what the heck happened when I installed a program and the whole registry thing is just garbage. The other day I uninstalled "Everything" but it was still showing up among "start-up item". I had to go hunting in the registry to make it disappear.

I try to use Scoop whenever I can exactly for this reason: I want to use portable apps every time it's possible, they're just cleaner

[usui]

Take my above post with a grain of salt, as I don't think I need to tell you that I was not going for an objective viewpoint, by any stretch of the imagination.

I just wanted to explain to anyone who was wondering why people would be willing to pay $200 for more RAM unnecessarily. It is be because we are trapped in macOS and there is no good alternative (again, an opinion, not objective). Many people have commented confusion on why we subject ourselves to pricing like this.

Windows UI and Linux Subsystem is a whole other set of things which I disagree with, but I don't want to get into it. All I want to say is that I grew up with Windows, I used it for decades, and it took leaving it for me to realize how much more fun software development could be without Windows.

For gaming purposes, I can be found using Windows, no problem. Either way, this is a very subjective discussion that has been beaten to death by different sides over the decades, so we should temper our expectations on whatever productive discussions can be had over such topics, and the best I can say is that I am happy that we, as users, ultimately have freedom to choose, rather than be forced into a monopoly.

I personally think Linux (smartphone, desktop, laptop) has the biggest delta and promise as of recent, so we should all cross our fingers and hope for the best for an open-source, generally usable OS for everyone.

[pedrogpimenta]

On this I agree with you :)

[whatch]

CTRL+L clears terminal in all Ubuntu versions I have used (16.04+) and works out of the box.

Didn't use Mac for some time. Is CMD+K behavior different in some way?

[usui]

Yes, CTRL+L clears the terminal, but if I scroll up with my mouse, it returns lines that were cleared, making it difficult to distinguish between the two points. On Ubuntu, the closest I have come to macOS's CMD+K is binding a key to either "reset" or "tput", but those have some kind of delay or still add one extra line at the top. On macOS, it's instant, with no artifacts.

[Jtsummers]

C-l is form feed, it makes sense it'd leave everything else visible when you scroll up because it doesn't clear anything, it's effect is that of a page break.