May, the month of bitching

May month seems to be everyones month of bitching. Spring is not here, it feels like winter, I gotta get my winter tires off, jQuery 1.6 is gonna break my code, oh the Lion is here and it doesn't support Java, evil Apple locking everyone in with the store, iPhone is following me ... and on the list it goes.

The one that hit home is lack of support of Java on the new OSX Lion. Before I get into a rant here is a why I buy a Mac:
1) Quality and support.
2) Solid OS. Windows 7 is not there yet, Photoshop doesn't run on Linux and alternatives make me cry.
3) Buying options make sense. Lenovo and Dell need to read up on Paradox of Choice. I have a degree in Computer Science and I can't make sense out of their laptops.
4) I can run other OSes.

Point 4 is the one I am going to rant on about. Apple provides a great OS to serve as a basis for everything else. Having everything conveniently in one place is nice, but, as Windows has shown with registry, it doesn't take too long before a mix of programs creates a cluster fuck in a happy eco system. This really pisses me off because when I open a computer I want to work on it, not debug, defragmnet or reinstall. Then VMWare Fusion came along. For those not familiar with VMWare it's a way to virtualize any OS in OSX without dual boot. Run Windows, Linux, whatever and it just works in its own designated space. The previous 3 I bitch about, I do use because they serve their purposes for something, but just not that well to be used for everything. Linux is great for my server work, Windows for IE testing (that's about it) and for all my other stuff I have OSX. If I had to lean towards one specific OS it would be Linux and with Lion stripping Java I'll just have to run Eclipse in a VM. But the bottom line is that the Apple hardware plus underlying software combination is still great and solid and allows me to get work done. And if you don't like VM well you should be blaming Apple either way. If they didn't take Java in their own directions and allowed for a community driven project we wouldn't be in a shit hole to beging with. Personally I think this is a good thing for Java because now we can finally get the latest builds and use them how we see fit. That's my rant and 2 cents! :)

B
PS. The prices can be scary but look in the refurbished section.