Subj : Re: 2017/2018 PC to modernize it.
To   : Nightfox
From : esc
Date : Sat Dec 10 2022 03:23:38

 Ni> I don't think I necessarily agree with that, nor do I think computers
 Ni> should just be front-ends for the internet.  Not everything is well
 Ni> suited to run as a web/internet based app.  Photo and video processing,
 Ni> software development, and other number-crunching tasks lend themselves
 Ni> to having a powerful computer at home that you can use for those kinds
 Ni> of things.  Video games is another example.

Yeah, but if you consider the number of people that use computers, the actual number of people that do any real gaming, development, photoshop, etc., is a pretty small chunk. The majority of people use computers rather casually, in which case computers basically are frontends for the internet.

 Ni> Sometimes it seems like some software companies want us to use web apps
 Ni> though, as they can easily charge a subscription fee.  In some ways it
 Ni> seems like a step backwards - I remember hearing about people using dumb
 Ni> terminals connected to powerful central mainframe computers in the 60s
 Ni> and 70s..  As computers became smaller, more affordable, and more
 Ni> powerful, it became much easier to have a fairly powerful computer at
 Ni> home that could run software locally, and generally that was seen as a
 Ni> good thing.

This is true, but it's also much easier to maintain. Build a web app, and then anyone with a browser can basically use it. You don't need to deal with customers downloading and installing things, really you can just offload all that burden onto the web browser itself. At the end of the day it lowers the burden significantly for development.

 Ni> Yeah, I'm not sure any particular computer OS has any killer feature
 Ni> these days.  As you said though, Windows just being a known thing means
 Ni> that pretty much all types of software are made for Windows
 Ni> (particularly gaming).

Agree. Honestly for casual web browsing and basic usage, essentially when I'm not doing dev work for my job or BBS stuff or gaming, I tend to use my iPad. It's just easier and gets out of the way.

 Ni> I've seen certain programs that some people just seem to love which are
 Ni> only made for one platform (i.e. Mac-only versions of certain programs),
 Ni> but I don't think there's any limiting factor where it would really need
 Ni> to be platform-specific.

Agree, however I am sympathetic to game companies refusing to release for linux...it's a pain in the ass building something closed source and trying to support linux as a platform for your software, due to the bespoke nature of what 'linux' means for basically every type of user.

 Ni> Oddly, I've noticed that a large percentage of people who do photo &
 Ni> video editing and making music (content creators) still seem to prefer
 Ni> Mac, and a lot of web developers seem to like working on a Mac too. 
 Ni> I've heard that music software for Mac in general tends to "just work"
 Ni> and have low latency, but (in my limited experience) I haven't seen much
 Ni> problem with latency with Windows music software either..  The web
 Ni> devleopment connection with Mac is one thing I don't quite understand
 Ni> though.

I prefer doing web dev on a Mac, I also prefer photo editing and making music on a Mac. Doing any kind of dev work in Windows has always been a bit of a nightmare for me. I use a Mac for doing dev stuff at work, but it's also an amazing personal computer. I prefer it infinitely over Windows.

For personal stuff, I use linux, unless I want to play a modern game (Windows) or I want to do some creative type things (Mac).

To each their own *shrug*

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