[Shacs] switching to mac - need some advice

[Peter Cooper]

Depends how you measure it.
Go onto Dell's site and price the biggest baddest (?!@) laptop.  It  
should hit around the $3,700 to $4,000 mark (actually the most  
expensive today was $4,541)
Do the same on Apples site.  You'll get a similar result. (most  
expensive $4,048 and that is with the overpriced 4GB memory)

Try and get the cheapest... well then Dell will win. (apple, $1099,  
Dell, $499) You can get a dell laptop as a prize in a box of  
crackerjack. The question is, as a CS professional or academic, do  
you really want to work on something that came out of a crackerjack box?

You can run Windows on a Mac
You can run OSX on a PC (check with RRR on that one)

The only point that is really of interest professionally is "Are you  
functionally competent on on any hardware running any operating  
system and any combination of compilers, assemblers design tools  
etc ?  Can you come up to speed on anything you've never met before  
and still be productive?

Sticking one's head in the sand and refusing to acknowledge that  
'your way is not the only right way' is professionally  
counterproductive. :-)


PAC


On Jun 24, 2007, at 6:08 PM, Dathan Bennett wrote:

> "a machine that can handle everything (and do it well) and one that  
> does only one thing"
>
> I wouldn't say PC's only do one thing.  All the editions of  
> Windows, UNIX, a gazillion flavors of Linux, three types of BSD  
> that I know offhand, Solaris, OS/2, FreeDOS, ReactOS...  The list  
> goes on and on.  And with clones of many of the OS X tools  
> available for Linux, BSD, and some even for Windows, there's no  
> compelling reason that I can see to choose one platform over the  
> other, aside from taste, unless you NEED an application that only  
> runs under OS X, and you don't want to run it in a virtual machine..
>
> I don't really know, as I haven't done any price comparisons, but  
> I've heard that the MacBook Pro's are more expensive than  
> comparable PC Laptops.  Is that true?
>
> ~Dathan
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