a post about fruit ... as tools?

Jon Gruber has a thoughtful response to Mark Pilgrim’s switching away from the Mac and the flood of commenters he unleashed on Mark’s site. I’ll point the way over there and let you make up your own mind about the respective arguments. There’s a lot of depth in both posts, and they’re both worthwhile reads.

Reading Mark’s writing reminds me of why I don’t listen to Led Zeppelin anymore; it’s excellent, superb in places, but tinged with too many memories of sadder times. Unresolved issues from my youth keep me from enjoying Thank You or Four Sticks. Ditto for Dive Into Mark. Sorry: it’s me, not you.

While I personally think the arguments are interesting, I ultimately don’t see it as an either/or proposition. I currently use a Mac as my primary machine, Linux for my servers, and Windows at work. I may not be happy about the last one, but ultimately I can do my job with the tools at hand..

When I switched from Linux to OS X, I experienced a sense of great relief. More than the pretty shiny thing, I got time back. And time is precious. No more working with hardware incompatabilities. No more constant monitoring of security lists, upgrades, updates, tinkering to make it work better. Life will be perfect with a Mac!

Then an upgrade broke bluetooth, and I still read all the same security lists, and the wireless network needed upgrading… but overall, I still had more time. Using the Mac as my primary computer did not solve everything. But it made enough things easier to make a difference.

When did the choice of tool acquire such moral overtones? This thing on my lap — whatever thing you’re reading this on — is a glorified screwdriver. That’s it.