How I Use My Dell

http://nullisnotanobject.com/2008/11/how-i-use-my-dell/

by davejohnson • 18 years ago

19 28 18 years ago

nullisnotanobject.com

Oompa2• 18 years ago

No cygwin or anything, but you use the terminal "a lot?" I think I'd kill myself without a proper shell…

tlrobinson• 18 years ago

Cygwin is only marginally better than the plain old DOS shell. Too much of an "impedance mismatch" for me to handle.

davejohnson3• 18 years ago

updated it - yes I use cygwin :)

dfarm• 18 years ago

If you're stuck in windows like I am at work you really need to try MS Powershell. It works great. I'm just as comfortable with it as I am with bash at home. It's object based scripting is quite cool also; you can do COM automation in a very simple manner. I do traditionally file maintenance stuff and more slick MS Office automation with Powershell. Totally recommend it if you have to use Windows.

Oompa2• 18 years ago

I've heard of the product, but never anyone saying if it's good or bad, thus I never messed with it. Thanks for the heads up.

tapostrophemo• 18 years ago

It's not so bad...plus, you can always do what a Real Man (tm) would do - imlement all the missing shell commands as Perl scripts.

donw• 18 years ago

Um, if you were happy with Windows before, why did you switch in the first place?

One of the biggest things that keeps me from using a Windows machine, is the lack of a proper shell. One that exists as a first-class citizen, and not as some bastard add-on hack. Cygwin really doesn't cut it for me, and the only other real option is to run VMWare, at which point I might as well run Ubuntu.

davejohnson3• 18 years ago

I mentioned in there the main factor is price. The MacBook seemed like a great deal compared to similar dells at the time. Today the prices are reversed :S

I ran VMWare on the MacBook but it was way too slow.

wizlb3• 18 years ago

What do you need a terminal for in Windows?

I'm not being snarky, it's a serious question. I'm a programmer, but I use Visual Studio 2008 and I rarely have to touch a command line to do anything that I need to do...

breily• 18 years ago

I've never done any serious development on Windows, but I'd imagine you need/want a shell for the same reasons you'd use one on a unix system - using vim, scripting, an array of useful programs (e.g. whatever the Windows version of grep is), etc.

iamelgringo2• 18 years ago

If you're interested in a decent shell on Win, you should check out PowerShell. I develop Python/Djanog on XP, and I live in PowerShell and iPython.

unalone4• 18 years ago

What is amazing is that most Apple users even agree with me that it is completely terrible.

How is that remotely amazing? Mac users tend to be honest about what their stuff is like. Liking an operating system doesn't mean you can't be critical of parts of it.

Although, I like Finder more than I do Windows Explorer. What features does Explorer have that put it leagues above Finder, like this article would suggest?

davejohnson3• 18 years ago

Yah Exploring is not for everyone nor is Finder. I think that the tree view in Exploring while still showing the contents of the tree is great (compared to thee sliding panes in Finder for example) and the context menu integration of many apps is also good (eg win merge and tortoise).

unalone4• 18 years ago

I think that the tree view in Exploring while still showing the contents of the tree is great

But that's something that Finder handles, also. The CMD-2 view. Or am I missing something?

Also, what are in Merge and Tortoise? I don't get what context menu integration means.

jwilliams2• 18 years ago

The author claims that with a 2.4ghz/2gb Mac they couldn't run Eclipse... I've been running Eclipse on a similar/lower spec (2yo MBP) for ages - and this is a Java,C/C++/Flex workspace.

No problems at all.... In fact it seems to churn the disk considerably less than my colleague's Vista Dell machine.

So not sure where that is coming from at all. The MBP is almost the ideal Eclipse workstation imho.

DenisM• 18 years ago

Maybe yor are running different version of Eclipse? I have a feeling that Ganymede is slower than Europa.

FWIW, I also find eclipse (Ganymede) to be a bit slow on my 2.4Ghz Mac Book Pro (Mac OS X). I think I'll splash out for a solid state disk as soon I find one with good ratings.

jwilliams2• 18 years ago

Yeah I'm running Ganymede - was running Europa - seems a bit slower, but not significantly.

I'm using Java and C/C++ at the moment - but I used a base install and then added the bits I wanted. Maybe the J2EE/whatever Eclipse releases have a whole lot of other cruft? Not sure, but it's plenty usable for me.

LPTS• 18 years ago

The only thing I'd use a dell for is to order a mac from apple.com. Then I'd wash my hands and read a book.

Flemlord• 18 years ago

Interesting Dell Tip: Don't ever buy a computer straight off of Dell's web site. Set up a corporate account--our account rep always gets us 20-30% off of the list price on their web site.

davidw• 18 years ago

You can search for discount codes too.

josefresco• 18 years ago

Yeah if you're not getting at least $200-400 off the list price with a coupon you're getting screwed. Even big box stores can undercut Dell prices w/coupons. I used to think Dell would always have the lowest price until I found that stores like Best Buy can undercut even direct sales from online.

Brushfire• 18 years ago

Although I cant say I fully agree with his use of eclipse europa and rad rails, I would tend to agree. Ive been more annoyed by macs than I have windows recently.

Although, Git support and proper shells are valid problems with windows. Powershell helps, but the git people really need to get a valid, working, non retarded git client for windows. Like Tortoise SVN which is freaking awesome.

Until then, windows will be an inferior development platform for anyone doing ROR stuff.

How I Use My Dell

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