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Joerg Plewe  Joerg Plewe is a (desktop-) Java developer since 2000 and has been in many areas of IT ranging from embedded programming to bioinformatics and games before. Joerg studied physics and used to work with many languages like C/C++, Forth, Lisp, assembly and others in all kinds of environments. He has four kids, enjoys sports such as cycling, underwater-rugby and flying around in light aircrafts - as aviation is his passion. In 2007 he was honored by being chosen as a founding member of the NetBeans Dreamteam. Joerg Plewe's blogiRantPosted by herkules on November 28, 2009 at 10:59 AM PST
Do you know that feeling? Something annoys you and you have to tell somebody? This is the bare reason for this blog entry. Don't read it. It is just for me to make me feel better. When I joined my new company in January, they let my choose my weapons freely. For I've heard so much about these Apple machines and how cool they are and so far ahead of the Windows world, I was curious and ordered one for myself. MacBook Pro 17". Very new, very expensive. Must be great. As my grandma used to say (or was it Forrest Gump?): if you say something, try to say something kind. The display, the battery and the touchpad are great. Outstanding, excellent. The rest was quite disappointing. First, besides the lack of some keys (PgUp/Dn....), many very important key labels are just missing (at least on the German keyboard). []{}~|\ ... try to find them. Very annoying on a coders machine. And why? My old, cheap discounter notebook had them. The aluminium case looks very stylish but unfortunately is quite thin-skinned and soon had a first bump which no longer looks so cool. But worse, the bottom edge is very sharp and tries to shave my wrist. Which might be part of the plan, for it often gets quite hot on the lower left side which might be easier to bear with if your skin is properly shaved. Software ... well. The darkest part maybe (I'm an UI guy, so maybe I'm too sensitive here). Try to find a svn client. You have to buy it or go back to the commandline which always gives me that nice feeling of the 80th ... spooky. The Finder needs to go back to usability lab. Even Mac-enthusiasts do say that. Explorer is far ahead! The basic desktop handling is clearty motivated by technical reasoning instead of by a users perspective. Use cmd-tab to switch process, than use cmd-shift-' (German keyboard) to switch applications windows ... what the f**k? Users deal with windows, they don't care for processes. Anyway, often it is very hard to get that far. Instead, I admire the spinning beach ball of death. This always seems to happen if MacOS runs out of physical memory. Which is ... always. Or the camera doesn't work any more. For that, Apple very frequently publishes system updates that require a reboot. I assume this is a trick... Finally, Java applications are somewhat different than they used to be on windows. They feel sluggish and less responsive. I use VirtualBox with Windows if I want to work with NetBeans e.g. (not a joke!). I don't say its a bad thing overall, it's ok, some things are really nice. The blog just emphasizes on the annoying parts. But next time I'll save my companies money, and will buy a common notebook for less than half. I have no idea where Macs reputation comes from but I suspect it is kind of reality distortion and wishful thinking. It's a linux for the rich. Did I mention that I also ordered an iPhone? :) »
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Mac Java Comments
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thanks
Submitted by herkules on Wed, 2009-12-09 17:33.
Thanks for calling me an idiot and involuntarily prooving me right the same time. dito
Submitted by mystermask on Thu, 2009-12-10 17:03.
"Thanks for calling me an idiot and involuntarily prooving me right the same time."
What did you expect calling Mac users a bunch idiots (Sorry, buddy, but I don't use a Mac because of some reality distortion or because of wishful thinking). I can safely say that I use a Mac because of good reasons (and I have enough experience using Mac, Windows and *nix nearly on a daily basis for several years now) . And I really don't like some Windows convert telling me that the Mac experience is bad because he wasn't prepared for something else than Windows. If you can't get used to something else and are not willing to learn new ways, don't even try it! But most of all, don't insult others because you made a wrong decision.
"Did you notice that you provided cumbersome workarounds for nearly every single issue? :)"
Pardon me? Googling for a SVN client is not cumbersome - you'd do the same thing on Windows. Using the "Tastaturübersicht einblenden" is actually fare more useful and proper solution than relying on having every special key printed on the keyboard - neither do you find all of them on a Windows keyboard. Ever been abroad and having to use a keyboard from a different country? Ever searched for double angle quotation marks or the "less than" / "greater than" sign? - They are not printed on german keyboards but sometimes you still have to use them. The Windows helper tool for this is - sorry - pathetic and more or less useless (why the hell does it tell me that I have to use ALT-0xyz for guillermots when in fact ALT ; / ALT : does the job (Swiss German Mac Keyboard)?)
If you can't get used to the Mac way of App- (CMD TAB) and Window (CMD >) switching, "Witch" is a good utility for you - not a "cumbersome workaround". However, Exposé is still the preferred way and also not a "cumbersome workaround". It's exactly build for that. And using the command line on any *nix OS is also not a "cumbersome workaround": used the proper way, it's allows for elegant and easy solutions you'd never get in any GUI. Concerning speed: You obviously have not enough memory for what you do. But - like it or not - exactly the same thing can happen on any OS and you get exactly the same bad experience. So don't tell me I have a reality distortion when in fact you try to blame an OS for something that's obviously not an OS problem ..
Apple downward-politics sucks
Submitted by ckrause on Wed, 2009-12-02 07:26.
I did not understand, why so many people love Mac`s.
In my opinion, Mac`s are status symbols and no programmer-machines (reasons are listed on top). Furthermore i hate Apple`s downward-politics, for example "java-versions":
Another Example is "Ipod"
I made the switch to a Mac
Submitted by paedagogus on Mon, 2009-11-30 19:57.
I made the switch to a Mac when the Intel processor was adopted. I have some of the same observations, and some suggestions for you. Living life as a coder, I found the keyboard mapping to be my biggest hurdle: the command key usually functions the way I an alt key works in Window... except when it functions the way the control key works in Windows. I hate to leave the keyboard, and the fact that I couldn't tab to a drop-down list in most applications (especially a browser form) was very frustrating. Fortunately, it's configurable in the system preferences. Page Up/Down needing two keys (fn+up/down) is a joke especially since there is room for two more keys with the arrow keys. The sharp edge hurt my wrist until I adjusted my hand position a little. I'll defend Apple by saying that a laptop keyboard is a poor choice for full time work. You can plug-in a PC keyboard or use Apple's external keyboard (Bluetooth or USB). I'm not sure about your German specific hangups, but I can imagine that would be frustrating. Your application switching experience is very different from mine. Command-Tab on a Mac is suppose to work like Alt-Tab in Windows -- it does on mine.
The case is not that thin. It takes more of a bump to dent it than I want to subject any laptop to. I took a spill on an escalator and used my 17" to break my fall. It took a serious hit, and was glad for the aluminum. It has a heavy dent, but didn't shatter like plastic would have.
The lack of a SVN client is annoying, but as a keyboard jockey and NetBeans user, you should be comfortable on the command line for what NetBeans doesn't support. As a coder, we (myself included) could contribute to an open source client. If it were really that important to serious coder's, don't you think someone would've started an open source SVN GUI?
Finder is simply a different way to think about how you work. There were things that took me a while to warm up to, but I'm far more comfortable with the Finder now than I am with Windows Explorer. My non-technical wife, children and mother would disagree with your usability opinions. They were all Windows users until two years ago. They hate to use Windows now.
Hide makes all windows and the menu disappear for the active application. Minimize hides the active window. Close ...well... closes the window (not the application).
VirtualBox is my preferred virtual solution for Windows, but I don't run it very often... only to test web apps in IE. It's not speedy, but it's not suppose to be. If you are running Windows full time in VBox, I suggest you check your VM configuration Windows is a huge memory hog, VBox is additional overhead. I think your performance problem may be related, at least in part, to this. I would NEVER want to run NetBeans in VBox. It runs just fine on the Mac (6.7+ has been a disappointment on both environments).
Spinning beach ball of death, huh? I've not seen that. My machine is very responsive, and I only have 2 GB on this machine. Right now I'm running MySQL Admin, X11, Dictionary, 2 Terminal sessions, iPhoto, iTunes, Preview, iCal, Address Book, VPN Tracker (because SonicWALL sucks), iChat, Firefox, Safari, Mail, TextEdit and TextWrangler. I have no spinning ball of death, and I've totally blown the 2 GB physical boundary.
Camera not working? Also very strange, and this makes me think that you have something else going on. You may have a defective machine, or maybe you added some junk after-market memory. Even if your machine is solid, I do think that you need to reconsider the way you are using it. You also need to give it some time. It's a different piece of equipment, and needs to be used accordingly. A Corvette is fast and handles well. A Porsche is also fast and handles well. If you have driven both, you surely know they require very different driving techniques. It takes time to adjust to the differences.
Check your equipment, and drive it the way it was meant to be driven. Both products have short-comings, but I've fallen into the popular camp: the Mac has far fewer defects and astonishingly better stability, fewer security problems, blah, blah, blah. However, it took some practice for me to figure out how a Porsche likes to be driven. That doesn't mean I like everything about my Porsche, but it sure is more refined and sophisticated than the Corvette. YMMV. :-)
The lack of menu mnemonics was a deal-breaker for me
Submitted by cayhorstmann on Tue, 2009-12-01 09:07.
When I tried switching to the Mac as my development machine, I had the same experience that you did. I was willing to forgive the spinning beach ball, the stylish but dysfunctional casing, the horribly borked driver for my HP printer/scanner, and even those dainty cursor keys. What I couldn't take was the lack of the menu mnemonics. My fingers know dozens of shortcuts (such as Alt +S , F in Eclipse to reformat code, Alt+F, L in Thunderbird to send a message later, Alt+E,G,R to record changes in OpenOffice, etc. etc.) You know, those things with the underlined letters.
On the Mac, this doesn't work. The best you can do is install a key mapper program. You then get to laboriously map those dozens of shortcuts to unintuitive combinations such as Shift+Command+Cokebottle+L. It's not the same.
Why do I care, when there are reams of research showing that keyboard shortcuts are an illusionary gain? I think the researchers miss the point. It's not about 1 second faster or slower here or there, it is about the flow. When I keep my hands on the keyboard and my eyes on the screen, I stay in the flow. Once I move the mouse, I lose the flow. For a coder, that matters.
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