This evening I went along to a Mac developers meeting. We were invited to sit in a circle and introduce ourselves one by one.
"Hi, I'm Jessica and I'm a Linux geek and open source hacker. I don't use macs."
It was primarily a presentation about Web Objects. It was interesting, although it mostly made me think 'I must get around to reading up on Ruby on Rails'. One quote from the presentation was 'If you're writing code, you're doing something wrong'. I tried really hard not to smirk. I've always found it amusing the style of marketing Apple seem to focus on: 'If you're too stupid to use a PC, this is the OS for you'. In the buzz of mingled conversation afterwards I heard KDE mentioned a few times.
On mentioning KDE I saw reactions I'd observed in the past. Some people there had impressions of KDE from early versions, mostly of interface inconsistency between KDE and non KDE applications like Netscape. Even though these versions are quite a few years old these negative imprints are retained - and even worse, expressed as opinions to others who may not have tried Linux or KDE at all. I'd like to think of some effective ways to promote what KDE's strengths are today to Unix user/developer groups.
An interesting night.
Syndicate Blogs
well
It's funny you should say that. Because a lot of people get their impressions of Mac OS from very early versions as well. A lot of people hear "Mac" and don't immediately think BSD, POSIX, command-line shells, Aqua, fancy graphic transitions and all that other stuff. Which is sad, really, because OSX has been out for four years now, and was first released as a beta in 1999 or so.
That's something we all have to deal with -- people's impressions are always quite a bit out of date. Some ten years in the industry has taught me that there's probably no real way to speed up their enightenment. I tend to just accept and move on.
By the way, I think you made a mistake in your jump from "If you're writing code, you're doing something wrong" to "If you're too stupid to use a PC". It sounds like the presenter was discussing a specific aspect of high-level programming -- RAD, graphical programming languages, etc -- and you made a mental leap from that comment which is pretty accurate in context (if you're trying to use a screwdriver to pound in nails, you're doing something wrong), over to your impression that Apple markets to stupid people.
I have no desire to get into a debate over the truth of either statement, but the two are most definitely entirely unconnected. WebObjects was an old NeXT technology that was created for Unix-derived servers and targeted squarely at enterprise needs. It is deliberately designed and intended to eliminate most uses of code (and thus sources of bugs and maintenance costs) by providing lots of high-level relationships that can be connected and automated. It's not designed for stupid people; in fact it was designed for smart people who had to solve particularly large and difficult problems...
I love my little green candy-computer
Given that I'm involved in KDE development and not OSX development you can probably understand that I don't really care about the impressions people have about macintosh computers. I don't hate macintosh computers, but obviously I don't care passionately about them the way I care about KDE.
As far as my 'mistake' goes, you can think that if you like
Or you could rethink that perhaps this is just a silly little blog post written by a girl who's just come home from feeling uncomfortable at an all male, all mac meeting and felt better for making a dig 
You'd be nearer the truth at any rate.
I'm currently writing this comment on my IBM thinkpad running Slackware Linux & KDE, listening to music being played in iTunes on my little green iMac. ( I love that thing, since I pulled it apart and put a new seagate drive in it's basically silent and it takes up almost no room, requires only one power cable. Yay!) There are 2 more macs and 4 more linux boxes in my house. Why? I use the best tool for a particular task. It just so happens that the best tool for 99% of my tasks is KDE
panic("esp_handle: current_SC == penguin within interrupt!");
Ruby on Rails
There is real a need for for step-by-step tutorials for getting started with Ruby on Rails -- especially getting everything installed and set up. I did this for Windows users in my two part series published on O'Reilly's ONLamp.com (http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/01/20/rails.html), and I would love to see something similar for KDE.
There are plenty of tutorials for various aspects of Rails itself, but nothing that would take a beginner by the hand and lead them through setting up the development environment and then a writing a small app.
If you're really interested in learning more about Ruby on Rails, having a focus like this could provide the motivation to actually do it. If you were interested in doing this, I would be willing to help you find a publisher (of course, if you're already published then you already have contacts and wouldn't need any help).
Ruby on Rails
I would most definitely be interested in writing such a how-to if you think you could find a place to put it where people would read it =)
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panic("esp_handle: current_SC == penguin within interrupt!");
Ruby on Rails
Great! Let's take this offline. Email me (curt at hibbs dot com)and lets talk about it.
Next Time
Next time be prepared and have a Live-CD with KDE at hand
, the Kubuntu PowerPC live cd comes to my mind.
Next Time
This is a very good idea - I already carry a Klax live cd around with me for x86
panic("esp_handle: current_SC == penguin within interrupt!");