Saturday, March 12, 2005

Some Reasons Why Mac OS X is Better

If you didn't real all of the previous post, here's the point. Keeping a well formed directory structure with all a user's data under one root, in simple file format without unnecessary per machine specifics is really superior to Windows. And the install process for applications on a Mac is a dream, I don't know why I don't see more about it. For most applications, you download (or get on a CD) a disc image file which you open and then see a volume (a special kind of folder) mounted. Inside a directory with your applications icon and maybe a README. Just drag the icon to your system's Application folder (or any folder) and it's installed. Trash the disc image and volume and you're done. The apps all store their data and config in your home folder (in "~/Library/Application Support/"). There's (typically) no installer which questions to answer that moves all these files and writes to the registry and requires a reboot. And the uninstall is easy, just drag that icon to the trash, or double click it to start the app, or drag it to the dock to make it easily accessible. I think this all possible because of the Mac's "folder options" but I have to look into it more. Regardless of how it works, it does work wonderfully, and it's a great advantage over Windows.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You realize that "Keeping a well formed directory structure with all a user's data under one root, in simple file format" has been the unix way since bell bottoms were cool... The first time.