[wh-uws]

Agree with most of it except its not that thats the wrong question its just that the answer is to try.

Get started and build something. Stumbling and not knowing already but figuring it out are part of the process and are valuable skills.

Also the whole buy a mac thing. It never ceases to amaze me how many people completely fail to realize how much privilege it takes to have the money to purchase a mac. Or the time it can take to save the money. When someone can get started on things that are a fraction of the cost.

You can get a cheap office depot or walmart laptop and an entire year of linode or whatever vps you like for the cost of a used mac

[anthonyb]

The quote on the Mac was actually:

  "You buy a Mac because you’re embarrassed that you ever used anything else."

The assumption there is that using a Mac will make you orders of magnitude more productive as an engineer. Possibly, if you're comparing it to Windows, but that's a real stretch for Linux, particularly given the level of support online and cost (likely $0, if you can snag an old PC).

Although there's the argument that that's likely what they're already used to, and trying to learn two things at once is probably going to stunt their growth.

A pity, since most of the rest of the article was spot-on.

[chc]

It doesn't take that much privilege to save $350 within a reasonable amount of time. It's probably unreasonable if you're in poverty, but even much of the lower class in America has things like TVs that cost in excess of the price of a Mac.

[wh-uws]

Not attacking you asking you a serious question.

Please tell me where I can get a $350 mac. I want one, seriously. And not a mini.

You're going to want a laptop/notebook so you can go to hackdays / meetups to get to know like minded people and learn.

[chc]

I just looked on Craigslist and found a few Mac laptops for under $400. Most were lousy in some way, but a few were legitimately just older models that people didn't want anymore (e.g. white MacBooks). But I wouldn't recommend a laptop if you're just this side of destitute. They're generally not as good a value on the low end.

[kaganmerkin]

Fair point on the Mac. It's a luxury no one should take for granted.

[pnathan]

accidental downvote, sorry. :(