I think your intuition is correct: you probably don’t.
That’s also very likely changing. Lookup “project Valhalla”. It’s still a work in progress but the high level goal is to have immutable values that “code like a class, work like an int”.
PS When I say “changing”: it’s being added. Java tries hard to maintain backward compatibility for most things (which is great).
What is "novel results"? A random UUID generator also gives "novel result", every time.
Even if we're to humor the "novel" part, have they actually come up with anything truly novel? New physics? New proofs of hard math problems that didn't exist before?
Yes, exactly. There are other papers, but Google proved it most definitively imo [0], an LLM now holds the state of the art for the lowest bound on a very specific graph problem.
That's not an LLM. AlphaEvolve is a variant of genetic search for program synthesis. Very different from the chat bot that answers questions about ingrown toenails.
I understand the problems of measuring cross-platform performance but anecdotally even on things that it's not specifically optimized for, for example running a Java Virtual Machine with 10s of GBs of memory, it's really fast, efficient and competitive to most non-Mac/ARM setups.
Yes, to convert a certain segment of our customers. They like to meet via zoom - and thats the best way I’ve found to demo our product. The web app just doesn’t cut it from the presenters side.
It’s true that before Apple Silicon one could make the argument that the hardware benefits of a Mac were mostly incremental vs a PC. But today that’s not true anymore. Today Apple is both form and function. I’ve personally heard many misguided people still repeating blindly that Apple is “just” fancy design without having used Apple Silicon computer.
Apple computers (unlike their tablet or phones) are saved by extremely good Devs who managed to implement a very good package versions control, brew, and a lot of external software (non-webkit browser being the biggest) make the computer actually good.
I think Apple native package version control is worse than IIS pre-version 7, and that's saying something (maybe it's better now, but that used to be the worse).
What is Apple native package version control? Almost everyone that I know uses brew. And even people who swear by Linux use it, so obviously props to brew.
Apple computers now use more or less the same architecture as their phones, based on ARM. That is why you can install most iPad apps on macOS, and they typically work surprisingly well without any customization. Shared GPU and RAM are a game-changer for efficiency, speed, and battery life.
What is the distinction between computers and phones/tablets you're referring to?
PS FWIW I've used IIS all the way back in Windows XP days. It worked well enough for my needs at that point to run a basic web server from my home computer!
> What is Apple native package version control? Almost everyone that I know uses brew
Exactly. That mean that if you have two ruby versions, or god's forbid, two Php version (along with php server dependencies), and don't have brew, you're basically fucked. It's unusable. Shoot out to brew developers, they made mac usable.
Let's say i have spent a lot of time setting up Hadoops, installing different ETLs developped on different platforms, and application version control without brew on Mac is still one of the most excruciating thing i've ever done (not difficult, just randomly hard and time consuming. Also hellish to debug)
> What is the distinction between computers and phones/tablets you're referring to?
Can't install anything one phone and tablets. Phones i don't care, because i understand why some user want a walled garden, and you have other choices. Tablets, i don't get. You don't have any terminal access, you can't do anything on it. Maybe new version have changed, but each time my father ask me to fix something on his mac tablet, it's hours of finding the issues. On Mac i usually find/fix the issue in minutes (last time was picture ordering). You also have to run a webkit browser, so you have a way inferior adblock, which make the web less usable.
> FWIW I've used IIS all the way back in Windows XP days. It worked well enough for my needs at that point to run a basic web server from my home computer!
I'm sure it was great for personnal project, as long as you don't have to run multiple versions of software. I had to run php4 alongside php 5.1 (or 5.3, not sure) and php 5.6, with different crypt libraries and different everything, it was hell. Less hellish than running two different versions of Ruby on Mac without brew though, and ruby is more opiniated than php about how it is installed, so it is generally easier to manage dependencies, to my original point.
macOS is a UNIX (a certified one even!) so it really doesn’t care what or how you’re running a program. You can put anything anywhere manually on disk and run it. If some of those languages require any “global singletons”, that’s probably their fault even though I doubt that’s the case.
“It’s not exactly the same as Linux” is not a valid complaint for me, in case that’s the root cause of concern. Yes it’s not, and never tried to be. If “near full” isolation is the goal, Docker-style containers are always an option. Then it’s basically the same as Linux.
Also, Python is notoriously finicky with the slight differences between versions. I mostly use the JVM nowadays and that’s a breeze to run any version on the same macOS using a tool like jenv (which is available for Linux, macOS, etc). I believe Python has some of those tools also to make isolated “environments”.
PS In terms of block ads: I literally just “solved this”. I used to run the likes of AdGuard which works decently but I never felt too good about it because it’s a bit opaque about how it actually works. Here’s how you can get your own DNS-based adblock on Mac for free, in just a few minutes:
