Macbooks are not an incentive

I've seen a number of job postings that include the line "all employees use MacBooks".

I suppose that this is intended as an enticement. I suppose that a MacBook is considered a "perk", a benefit of working at the company. Apple equipment is considered "cool", for some reason.

I'm not sure why.

MacBooks in 2018 are decent computers, but I find that they are inferior to other computers, especially when it comes to development.

I've been using computers for quite some time, and programming for most of that time. I've used MacBooks and Chromebooks and modern PCs. I've used older PCs and even ancient PCs with IBM's Model M keyboard. I've worked on IBM's System/23 (which was the origin of the first IBM PC keyboard). I have even used model 33 ASR Teletype terminals, which are large mechanical beasts that print uppercase on roll paper and do a poor job of it. So I know what I like.

And I don't like Apple's MacBook and MacBook Pro computers. I dislike the keyboard; I want more travel in the keys. I dislike the touchpad in front of the keyboard; I prefer the small pointing stick embedded in Lenovo and some Dell laptop keyboards. I dislike Apple's displays, which are too bright and too reflective. I want "matte" finish displays which hide reflections from light sources such as windows and ceiling lights.

My main client provides a computer, one that I must use when working for them. The computer is a Dell laptop, with a high-gloss display and a keyboard that is a bit better than current Apple keyboards, but not by much. I supplement the PC with a matte-finish display and a Matias "Quiet Pro" keyboard. These make the configuration much more tolerable.

Just as I "fixed" the Dell laptop, I could "fix" a MacBook Pro with an additional keyboard and display. But once I do that, why bother with the MacBook? Why not use a Mac Mini, or for that matter any small-factor PC? The latter would probably offer just as much memory and disk, and more USB ports. And cost less. And run Linux.

It may be some time before companies realize that developers have strong opinions about the equipment that they use. I think that they will, and when they do, they will provide developers with choices for equipment -- including the "bring your own" option.

And it may be some time before developers realize that Apple MacBooks are not the best for development. Apple devices have a lot of glamour, but glamour doesn't get the job done -- at least not for me. Apple designs computers for visual appeal, and I need good ergonomic design.

I'm not going to forbid developers from using Apple products, or demand that everyone use the same equipment that I use. I will suggest that developers try different equipment, see which devices work for them, and understand the benefits of those devices. Pick your equipment for the right reasons, not because it has a pretty logo.

In the end, I find the phrase "all employees use MacBooks" to be a disincentive, a reason to avoid a particular gig. Because I would rather be productive than cool.

Programming languages and the GUI

Programming languages and GUIs don't mix. Of all the languages available today, none are GUI-based languages.

My test for a GUI-based language is the requirement that any program written in the language must use a GUI. If you can write a program and run it in a text window, then the language is not a GUI-based language.

This is an extreme test, and perhaps unfair. But it shows an interesting point: We have no GUI-based languages.

We had programming before the GUI with various forms of input and output (punch cards, paper tape, magnetic tape, disk files, printers, and terminals). When GUIs came along, we rushed to create GUI programs but not GUI programming languages. (Except for Visual Basic.) We still have GUIs, some thirty years on, and today we have no GUI programming languages.

Almost all programming languages treat windows (or GUIs) as a second thought. Programming for the GUI is bolted on to the language as a library or framework; it is not part of the core language.

For some languages, the explanation is obvious: the language existed before GUIs existed (or became popular). Languages such as Cobol, Fortran, PL/I, Pascal, and C had been designed before GUIs appeared on the horizon. Cobol and Fortran were designed in an era of magnetic tapes, disk files, and printers. Pascal and C were created for printing terminals or "smart" CRT terminals such as DEC's VT-52.

Some languages were designed for a specific purpose. Such languages have no need of GUIs, and they don't have any GUI support. AWK was designed as a text processing language, a filter that fit in with Unix's tool-chain philosophy. SQL was designed for querying databases (and prior to GUIs).

Other languages were designed after the advent of the GUI, and for general-purpose programming. Languages such as Java, C#, Python, and Ruby came to life in the "graphical age", yet graphics is an extension of the language, not part of the core.

Microsoft extended C++ with its Visual C++ package. The early versions were a daunting mix of libraries, classes, and #define macros. Recent versions are more palatable, but C++ remains C++ and the GUI parts are mere add-ons to the language.

Borland extended Pascal, and later provided Delphi, for Windows programming. But Object Pascal and Windows Pascal and even Delphi were just Pascal with GUI programming bolted on to the core language.

The only language that put the GUI in the language was Visual Basic. (The old Visual Basic, not the VB.NET language of today.) These languages not only supported a graphical display, they required it.

I realize that there may be niche languages that handle graphics as part of the core language. Matlab and R support the generation of graphics to view data -- but they are hardly general-purpose languages. (One would not write a word processor in R.)

Mathematica and Wolfram do nice things with graphics too, but again, for rendering numerical data.

There are probably other obscure languages that handle GUI programming. But they are obscure, not mainstream. The only other (somewhat) popular language that required a graphical display was Logo, and that was hardly a general-purpose language.

The only popular language that handled the GUI as a first-class citizen was Visual Basic. It is interesting to note that Visual Basic has declined in popularity. Its successor, VB.NET is a rough translation of C# and the GUI is, like other languages, something added to the core language.

Of course, programming (and system design) today is very different from the past. We design and build for mobile devices and web services, with some occasional web applications. Desktop applications are considered passe, and console applications are not considered at all (except perhaps for system administrators).

Modern applications place the user interface on a mobile device. The server provides services, nothing more. The GUI has moved from the desktop PC to the web browser and now to the phone. Yet we have no equivalent of Visual Basic for developing phone apps. The tools are desktop languages with extensions for mobile devices.

When will we get a language tailored to phones? And who will build it?