From: Austin Ziegler Date: 2005-04-01T00:18:43+09:00 Subject: Re: Respect and Disappointment On Mar 31, 2005 6:17 AM, Francis Hwang wrote: > But: > > + To say that you have "run all but dry of understanding for > programmers that willfully pick Windows as their platform of choice" to > me seems to imply a complete disinterest in understanding how other > people make such decisions in the first place. For one thing, I know > plenty of people who have never made the switch out of > cost-consciousness, and I live in New York, not a very cost-conscious > place to begin with. Interestingly, the last time I bought a computer was two years ago. At the time, I was looking for a lightweight laptop computer (under four pounds) that was still powerful enough for my needs -- and fit within my budget. The Mac that had the power I wanted was far too expensive, IIRC (this would have included a RAM and hard-drive upgrade, I think), and definitely too heavy. It is only *now* that I look at Mac hardware that I think that the prices are approaching reasonable for the power/weight balance. My criteria limited me to Wintel machines. I won't use Linux -- it's not ready for primetime. I despise Gnome and dislike KDE. There is a striking inconsistency in the usability of Linux GUI applications, mostly toward the "how can you use this stinking pile of..." sort of comment. (Interestingly, with my most recent system recovery, I was looking at doing a dual-boot to the machine I'm talking about; no Linux out there supported my hardware properly. I would have been looking at a 70% functionality limit.) I bought a Tablet PC. It was lightweight (4 pounds with keyboard attached, 3 pounds without) and powerful enough. I have also upgraded its memory and its disk space. There's NO regrets here, and I resent the implication that because I chose bleeding edge hardware that's *different*, I'm a lesser developer. -austin -- Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca