1) Macs Rock : This comes as no surprise to people who actually own macs. There is a perennial belief in the computing universe that:
Macs are good for the "creatively inclined" (the writers, graphic designers and photographers) and the more "technologically challenged" (parents, grandparents et al).
Somehow, over time, that belief begat this belief:
Macs is not for the more serious workers among us - say, for example, scientists, engineers and programmers.
I fall in that category and believe me, the second is complete hogwash. The Mac Rocketh ! It is a Unix machine, only cooler. Read more here. Oh, and if you don't want to take my word, may be you will listen to Paul Graham[1] in his essay Return Of The Mac. No? How about Tim O'Reilly[2] in Watching Alpha Geeks ? No? Now you are just being difficult !!
2) Hackers : You should have noted above in Paul Graham's essay, that he refers to hackers. If not there, you MUST have come across it somewhere or the other. Chances are, that if this "somewhere" is the television or the newspapers, you have come to believe that all hackers are crooks. Even more hogwash ! I beg you to read this ! If you want more, you can even go and get this and this.
3) Computer Science Research : Another issue that Paul Graham nailed right on the head in the Mac essay was the fact that what researchers and hackers (I hope you read (2) above) do today is what usually tends to become the dominant technology of the future. Yes, it might sound like I am tooting my own horn but I am not. You want examples? Here you go :
- Google : 2 PhD Students in Stanford
- Linux : 1 Graduate Student at University of Helsinki, Finland
- BSD Unix : Students at University of California, Berkeley
- Cisco Systems : Computer Operations Staff at Stanford
- Mach-Kernel (the core of Apple's Mac OS X operating system) : Reserachers at Carnegie Mellon
- The World Wide Web (what we call the "Internet" or "The Net" or "Online" today) : A graduate student at CERN. Thank you, Mr. Tim Berners-Lee (It just seemed wrong not to mention his name !)
- Mosaic (the first web browser and precursor of Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer) : NCSA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
So there. I've said my piece(s). Thanks to Paul Graham for providing the impetus[3].
[1] if you are interested in functional programming and LISP would know him from On Lisp and ANSI Common Lisp.
[2] If you do anything with computers, you know O'Reilly Books.
[3] His other essays are equally brilliant.
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