Ooh I’ve never heard of it. netcat I mean, cause I’ve heard of Linux 😆.

The File Transfer Protocol is just very antiquated, while scp is simple. Possibly netcat is too:-).

Then switch to use sth more like scp ASAP? :-)

Oh wow, good points!:-)

Sir if you will simply fill out this form in triplicate…

And initial here, and here, provide your SSN#, yes and bank account and a credit card number there, and mother’s maiden name yes, and provide rights to the soul of your first, second, and third-born child…

Then you are all set! Oh wait, now just watch this advertisement, and this other one here, and this other one here, and also this other one, and we will allow you to save… hey, where are you going?

It isn’t just a language, but it is a language - as it eventually gets around to saying, but it starts off by saying that it isn’t, then later corrects itself to say that it is, etc. I feel like the focus of this ignores the historical context of what C was written to be for - at the time there was like Assembly, BASIC, Fortran (?), other long-dead languages like was it A and/or A* or whatever, there was a B language too! (developed by Bell Labs, if Google can be trusted these days), etc. - and C was developed to be better than those. So saying that like it lacks type conversions is very much missing the point - those were not invented yet. A lawn mower also lacks those, but it’s okay bc it doesn’t need them:-) I am probably nit-picking far too many points, I suppose to illustrate that the style of the article became a hindrance to me to read it b/c of those reasons. But thank you for sharing regardless.

That’s the kind of insight I was hoping for, thanks for sharing!

C is also just a fun language to code in. You know, aside from pointers ofc:-). Though I have never done more than dabble around personally.

What is C essential for anymore these days? Genuine question btw.

I thought C++ was essential for microprocessor control, but that it depends and sometimes I gather people use C instead, but not always.

Use the language that the company hires you to know:-).

Oh that’s definitely true - if their existing machine works and they only want to get away from Windows then it’s not even a question (putting Mac OSX onto a not-Mac hardware just isn’t quite the same experience…:-P), definitely go with Linux then.

Yeah there is no OS in existence and never will be one that has zero issues, true dat. Windows included.

Okay but… will putting Linux on it be any better, in your view, or are you saying Windows or bust?

Yikes, that’s… a good perspective. We all did not used to be this poor, especially with the expectation that it will never get any better, so I hope that my comment was not too terribly insensitive. Maybe I’ve led a charmed life - e.g. I’ve literally never had to repair any Mac device that I’ve ever worked with, mostly work machines but one in particular that I bought entirely on my own lasted a good 10+ years before it simply gave up one day (whereas another was stolen, etc.) - but yeah they definitely don’t make them to be easily repairable, being made mostly out of like fucking glue or some such.

I would definitely sell a homeowning millionaire a Mac though - at that point they can afford whatever they want, so I’d happily take the cut:-).

And I would still hesitate to recommend Linux to an old person - if only for fear that I’d be stuck answering all their numerous requests for free tech support - but yeah I get you that it’s a solid option, and a way more cost-effective one if that is the chief concern i.e. not a homeowning millionaire.:-D

Thank you for sharing your perspective.

I may prefer Mac OSX, but Linux really is a fantastically beautiful - and functional - OS, so I am glad that she can enjoy it better with this!:-)

Boomers in particular are known for extremely often falling into the trap of “ask not what I can do for you but what I can get out of you”, so yeah, that makes sense. And when it comes to a personal desktop I actually get it b/c while you may be busy with work + kids & having a real life where you touch grass, and then something doesn’t work, at that point it’s less of a choice to have to spend hours trying to find why this driver doesn’t work with your hardware, and what older dependencies you are not meeting, so you have to roll backwards and then set up multiple concurrent installations of whatever e.g. Python and then change EVERYTHING to either use one or the other by default… it’s exhausting.

Which as a “hobby” is fine (is it thogh…?:-P), but if you were simply trying to look at pics of your newest grandkids or something, is standing in the way of the real fun that you want to be having instead.

And using computers - and software - is literally a shittier experience today than it used to be, where even the major vendors (Google, Microsoft, etc.) don’t walk you through what you need to do in order to get some particular setting applied or working right. For some reason they cannot be bothered to always put onto their tech pages tiny little details like what version of the software a tidbit of advice is meant for, or what I would want would be to see all of the versions collated together on the same page. It’s too much work to keep up, therefore they simply don’t. And average people just give up in frustration.

Therefore fwiw I like Macs b/c you need that support far less on one of those, where it truly does “just work”, far more often than Linux, yet doesn’t have literal ads in the Start Bar like Windows.

Okay so (1) very good points, especially the details but also (2) genuinely, have you ever actually tried using a Mac? e.g. the glass feeling of the touchpad is noice, for someone who can afford it. And those built-in Expose features are astonishingly useful, in providing things that I had previously only ever seen on a Linux or even new features that I never had. They are super-light, and functionally beautiful. The “Air” in particular at that point was iirc more of an almost tablet concept, not meant to be a full laptop, so like something to take to class and write notes in, not perform video editing in like a Pro - though it still had a full-sized standard keyboard, unlike some ThinkPads that I had to use (though way back in the day so not sure about modern ones there) where the keyboards were all smooshed and I had to spend 15 fucking minutes hunting for the damn tilda/backtick key.

Ngl, Apple got complacent and for several years fucking Microsoft Windows has been the one actually innovating the UI/UX, and yes Linux far more so as always, but the Apple experience is still fairly solid.

So if we are talking about “parents”, who may even own their own home b/c those things weren’t fantasy way back in the day (when, no kidding, the government actually paid out socialist subsidies to encourage people to do just that; back before that ladder was yanked up for the rest of us), then for them cost might not be the overriding factor? Or some people may just be okay with paying the premium price to get the good stuff? Again that trackpad… hmm…:-) - if it were free I doubt you’d turn it away at least (b/c if nothing else you could put Linux onto it):-D.

You do have an excellent username btw:-).

I hate Windows with a passion, but when forced to at work, Windows 7 is the only thing I would consider. Until they allowed me to switch fully over to Mac that is:-). (Linux was not an available option.) Hey, maybe one day Microsoft will make something that is somewhat good like… hehe I can’t even finish that sentence with a straight face:-P.

WHAT!? Apparently desktop icons are forcibly rearranged and while the location of the setting varies across versions, you can turn off the auto-align to let her do that. I haven’t used a Linux UI for a few years but this may help: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=288291.

I hope that helps make her happy:-).

True… though Windows itself keeps changing things between major releases, so someone may feel that they need to learn a new interface either way, which lowers the barrier to such a switch-over. For myself I did not think it was that hard, but then again I came from Linux to Mac OSX so I am definitely not the average use-case:-P.

Anyway, good point.

As long as you are available to be on-call to fix literally all of their support issues:-). That’s an old joke, back from the time people used to have “printers”, and so like on a Windows and Mac machine adding a new peripheral is trivially easy whereas to install a new printer/scanner/whatever on a Linux machine, even if it is as simple “apt get whatever” can be quite intimidating to elderly people (tbf the OP does say “parent” and not “grandparent”, but I was thinking both).

Anyway, that’s a good point that I have no fully thought through yet:-).

That is a very good point. If the constraint was added that someone would need to purchase a new machine either way - their old one died lets say, and possibly they want to switch form factors from desktop to laptop or vice versa - then would it change your answer?

Trying to put Linux onto a new machine can involve literal horror stories, especially with a particular vendor of graphics cards (Nvidia) that seems to enjoy breaking things. And too many of the cool/special features that would “just work” on their machine if it were on an OS provided by the manufacturer - some neat-o keyboard buttons lets say - could take potentially hundreds of hours and ultimately writing your own driver coding to make it functional on Linux. Not always, obviously, but it can, whereas with a manufacturer-provided OS it is guaranteed to function right out of the box.

But yeah, getting a new Mac is something on the order of like $1000 USD, plus older machines have had more time for Linux drivers to have been written anyway, so cost and newness of the machine are definitely major factors.

Just a shout-out that Mac OSX is also a very nice OS that is neither Windows nor Linux. In fact I am interested: would anyone argue against this, again this is for parents, presumably someone who has (been forced to) used Windows their entire lives at work yet knows nothing whatsoever about tech?