Sweeping the Nation

Mac mania has returned.

My laptop is on the way out. It has given me a good couple of years, but it's time to have it put to sleep (or at least put Linux on it). It has numerous problems: screen goes red, DVD rom doesn't do anything but spin, that sort of thing.

For the past year or so I have been thinking about getting a Mac. This thought has been a low-priority thread in my brain. It pops up to do some processing only when something new goes wrong with my laptop or I reinstall the OS on my desktop.

I really confirmed this think by a few really interesting essays/interviews that read recently (referenced from the venerable Slashdot).

The interview with John Rentzsch convinced me through the following: "...Each major OS release makes my old hardware go faster -- not exactly the way to push newer hardware, Apple" I really like the idea of being able to use my computers for the lifetime of the hardware. The way I do this now is install Linux on the older hardware (see above), which helps to get (a) some more life out of the hardware, and (b) a playground to do stuff I wouldn't normally do on my every day hardware (I don't like to burn out my laptop, its too important).

Additionally, I'm a java developer. In theory, this means that I can do the same things that I do now, only on a better OS. I don't limit myself to just java, however. I dabble in other things, like lisp, or nesC. Given that the OS is based on FreeBSD, it has been much easier to port open source implementations of compilers and interpreters for these langauges. Consequently, the are ports of many open-source applications. The gain here is openness and flexibility.

Paul Graham, a lisp advocate/author-of-books-and-essays-on-the-subject-of, wrote one of the most convincing arguments: "The reason, of course, is OS X. Powerbooks are beautifully designed and run FreeBSD. What more do you need to know?"