In the midst of the current G5 lust (If you can afford one ? buy it!), I'm wondering what cooler heads might argue is a reason not to buy one?yet
Rev B? Optimized software? Panther? Etc., etc.
Thoughts (for a guy who's thinking about getting one now)?
I'll tell you why I am not buying a G5. Recommended prices in Russia are: $2549 for 1.6GHz, $3079 for 1.8GHz, <drumroll> $3849 for 2x2GHz. That's $550, $680 and $850 over US prices, accordingly. I don't have the budget.
I?m waiting for the next revision, having a Pantherless G5 just doesn?t make sense. 10.2?s finder drives me crazy it?s slow, buggy and just plain crap. Having a faster machine would just make it crash faster. I want Apple to release a legacy code free OS for us Unix users. I find myself killing the finder at least twice a day and starting up Afterstep due to its inconsistencies. I don?t mind the price to much as I like Apples design a lot, and I?m willing to pay for the look. JUST KILL THAT CLASSIC, 0S9, LEGACY GARBAGE! It's 2003......
I'll tell you why I am not buying a G5. Recommended prices in Russia are: $2549 for 1.6GHz, $3079 for 1.8GHz, <drumroll> $3849 for 2x2GHz. That's $550, $680 and $850 over US prices, accordingly. I don't have the budget.
I think this is the better argument to not buy a G5.
It's clear that Apple didn't want to announce the G5 when they did, and that the leaked specs fiasco forced their hand.
As a result, Apple has done everything to rush the G5 to market, and I suspect that there will be a number of issues that'll need to be ironed out.
This isn't an Apple only problem. I've seen a lot of motherboards from big name manufacturers where they've been manually patched, but I suspect that Apple hasn't been able to spend as much time as they would have liked to triple checking everything.
The only reason I would have for thinking twice about the G5 is SJ's comment that the G5's architecture was specifically designed from the ground up to support multiple processors. But 2/3 of the current range is based on single processor machines. That doesn't make sense to me.
I would be very disappointed if I bought a single processor machine and Apple announced another all-dual line up six months later.
If VPC and Classic booting is important, then hold off on a G5 purchase. When VPC (or something else) is available for the G5 and your OS 9 needs are no more then G5 is the answer. Price also factors in especially with the low end being one buck short of 2 grand.
In the midst of the current G5 lust (If you can afford one ? buy it!), I'm wondering what cooler heads might argue is a reason not to buy one?yet
Rev B? Optimized software? Panther? Etc., etc.
Thoughts (for a guy who's thinking about getting one now)?
I'm not buying one because our wonderful US politicians are giving incentives to companies to bring in foreign programmers, even though there are American workers that have been unemployed for 6 months or more. While I'm lucky to have a job, I haven't gotten a raise in two years and my living expenses have now exceeded my pay.
It's clear that Apple didn't want to announce the G5 when they did, and that the leaked specs fiasco forced their hand.
Excuse me? Everything was pointing to the release, including the fact that reps from IBM were there for conference sessions. Do you think Apple threw together that whole presentation, including the demos from third-party developers like Luxology and Wolfram, and the displays of Power Macs in the exhibition hall, over the weekend? What do you think Steve was planning to talk about for two hours?
I agree that the first generation of any computer is more likely to have problems, but I don't think the G5 was "rushed to market" any more than any other Apple product.
4. Unable to use VPC ? will be fixed soon, of which I am 99% sure. [/B]
I'm a bit worried that the bug fix will wipe out any speed advantage that VPC running on a G5 might have otherwise had over VPC running on a G4. VPC got a big performance boost in version 4 when it started taking advantage of the G3/G4 "pseudo little-endian mode" (let's call it PLEM for short). Any fix for the G5's lack of PLEM (the only G5 backward compatibility flaw I've heard about) will mean sacrificing that earlier performance boost.
Still, this isn't stopping me from getting a G5. My dual has been on order since the day after the WWDC announcement. I figure I'll have my G5 on eBay in around a year anyway when the dual 3.0-GHz systems come out. It would be especially nice if IBM can add PLEM back into a later G5 or G6 by that time. VPC is probably the only major piece of software that cares about PLEM (not much use for it anywhere else but emulating x86!), but maybe VPC will be considered important enough to merit the necessary chip redesign effort.
(Of course, one has to wonder if future versions of VPC will still support PLEM. Microsoft might, I imagine, simply junk support for PLEM altogether, playing to the lowest-common denominater, rather than taking on the extra burden of supporting and testing two different x86 emulation cores. It could turn out the VPC 7.0 will run slower on current G4 systems than 6.0 does!)
It's clear that Apple didn't want to announce the G5 when they did, and that the leaked specs fiasco forced their hand.
As BrunoBruin has pointed out, that argument doesn't hold water. The G5 announcement was clearly a well-planned event, not a last-minute contigency. I think Apple announced the G5 when it did simply because there was a growing desperate need to demonstrate that the Mac platform was going somewhere -- that it wasn't going to stagnate along with the G4.
Some people will complain if you pre-announce a product and don't ship right away. Others will complain that they need to know how to plan for future purchases and software development, so they need to know what's coming as soon as possible, even if shipping isn't imminent. You can't make everyone happy either way. Personally, as much as I hate waiting for my G5, I think Apple made the right decision and struck the best balance that they could at the time.
I'm not buying one because our wonderful US politicians are giving incentives to companies to bring in foreign programmers, even though there are American workers that have been unemployed for 6 months or more. While I'm lucky to have a job, I haven't gotten a raise in two years and my living expenses have now exceeded my pay.
nice rant...now what are your qualifications & what do you do ?
In the midst of the current G5 lust (If you can afford one ? buy it!), I'm wondering what cooler heads might argue is a reason not to buy one?yet . . .
If you want to avoid installing a new OS real soon, wait for Panther. Otherwise, most reasons for not buying would still apply a year from now. No matter when you buy, you can bet on speed bumps, new features and maybe price cuts coming within a year.
How much pain is your present system causing you? For me, the pain level was getting too high. I bought my G5 last week and took it home with me.
nice rant...now what are your qualifications & what do you do ?
Nice try but its a well known fact that American companies are outsourcing development to third world countries to save a buck. The jobs that are here are getting taken by H1B Visa holders on a special program set in place by our wonderfun government.
Nice try but its a well known fact that American companies are outsourcing development to third world countries to save a buck. The jobs that are here are getting taken by H1B Visa holders on a special program set in place by our wonderfun government.
it was a genuine question...
i was a H1B myself. I bust my ass to be where i'm at
& now as a citizen(soon to be) should i turn around & start
moaning too ?
we are #1 in the world beacuse we lead in ingenuity
& technical innovation & we should keep that going.
If you are in IT you need to keep up...after isnt thats
why people get into computing ? to learn ?
fwiw ive worked with a lot of people from different countries & am constantly amazed at their brilliance & willingness to give so much back to this country.
i'm glad they are here & if they make america their permanent home like I have then its all the better for us here.
I'll have to do research to be sure, but if the version of OS X which supports the G5 has X11 1.0, I thought I read somewhere that MATLAB does not run on the latest X11 (i.e., post-Public Beta 3).
Officially, MATLAB is not supported with X11, and Mathworks recommends removing X11 and using the OroborOSX included on the MATLAB installation disk, so perhaps this is not a concern.
I haven't run MATLAB with OroborOSX in so long, that I forgot what the difference is.
i was a H1B myself. I bust my ass to be where i'm at
& now as a citizen(soon to be) should i turn around & start
moaning too ?
we are #1 in the world beacuse we lead in ingenuity
& technical innovation & we should keep that going.
If you are in IT you need to keep up...after isnt thats
why people get into computing ? to learn ?
fwiw ive worked with a lot of people from different countries & am constantly amazed at their brilliance & willingness to give so much back to this country.
i'm glad they are here & if they make america their permanent home like I have then its all the better for us here.
my 2c
pete
Well, yes. You should start moaning. You have no future. I'm one of about 20 people left of a bustling 150 person IT shop. My friends and colleages have all left Tampa looking for work in Atlanta, Dallas, and Detroit. But these jobs are drying up too. Companies can outsource their work to places like India and Pakistan, where the developers accept 1/3 the salary (and can live on it). I was upset not to get a raise this year until I called my previous employer and found out that the developers still there have taken a 7% pay cut and given up all of their hollidays to stay employed. They're doing another 30% layoff by the end of the year. It frustrates me further to see companies offering 80K+ exclusively to people with H1B visas, rather than looking at qualifications. I can be the greatest developer in the world and I'm not elligeable for the position because someone's greasing the politicians. I consider it to be the ultimate qualification just to still be employed. People ask me how I do it and I tell them a little skill and a little luck.
Meanwhile, I agree that we have to be ingenious. Unfortunately, ingenious doesn't work when nobody even pays attention to the work you do. I'm starting my own company because I believe my software has merit. But it takes time, money, and tremendous risk. Long term, if things stay this way, I will get out of this industry.
One last thing to add: Developers are begging to work on the current technologies. Employers don't want that right now. They're scaling back their new developments, so they want monkeys to sit and keep guard over their old powerbuilder, cobol, c, and c++ programs. So if developers want to keep current they have to work on the side. They sure as heck cannot afford to go back to school to pick up the new skills and companies are not paying for it.
Comments
Originally posted by C-Bear
In the midst of the current G5 lust (If you can afford one ? buy it!), I'm wondering what cooler heads might argue is a reason not to buy one?yet
Rev B? Optimized software? Panther? Etc., etc.
Thoughts (for a guy who's thinking about getting one now)?
I'll tell you why I am not buying a G5. Recommended prices in Russia are: $2549 for 1.6GHz, $3079 for 1.8GHz, <drumroll> $3849 for 2x2GHz. That's $550, $680 and $850 over US prices, accordingly. I don't have the budget.
Originally posted by costique
I'll tell you why I am not buying a G5. Recommended prices in Russia are: $2549 for 1.6GHz, $3079 for 1.8GHz, <drumroll> $3849 for 2x2GHz. That's $550, $680 and $850 over US prices, accordingly. I don't have the budget.
I think this is the better argument to not buy a G5.
Why get the next rev. when rev. C will come out slightly after.
Then when rev. C comes out, you may as well wait for rev. D because that will be better.
In fact, I am considering selling my G5 and just wait for rev. D when it ships with 10.4 Lynx.
Well, I could then wait for the G6 and 10.5.
Hmm......
1. Price
2. Size
3. Lack of internal expandibility
4. Unable to use VPC
Originally posted by BeigeUser
Nothing will stop me from getting a G5 if I really wanted one. But here are some minor obstacles (in order of importance):
1. Price ? no comment.
2. Size ? when G5 on 90nm arrives, Apple may choose to make towers of various sizes.
3. Lack of internal expandibility ? depends on your needs only.
4. Unable to use VPC ? will be fixed soon, of which I am 99% sure.
As a result, Apple has done everything to rush the G5 to market, and I suspect that there will be a number of issues that'll need to be ironed out.
This isn't an Apple only problem. I've seen a lot of motherboards from big name manufacturers where they've been manually patched, but I suspect that Apple hasn't been able to spend as much time as they would have liked to triple checking everything.
The only reason I would have for thinking twice about the G5 is SJ's comment that the G5's architecture was specifically designed from the ground up to support multiple processors. But 2/3 of the current range is based on single processor machines. That doesn't make sense to me.
I would be very disappointed if I bought a single processor machine and Apple announced another all-dual line up six months later.
Originally posted by C-Bear
In the midst of the current G5 lust (If you can afford one ? buy it!), I'm wondering what cooler heads might argue is a reason not to buy one?yet
Rev B? Optimized software? Panther? Etc., etc.
Thoughts (for a guy who's thinking about getting one now)?
I'm not buying one because our wonderful US politicians are giving incentives to companies to bring in foreign programmers, even though there are American workers that have been unemployed for 6 months or more. While I'm lucky to have a job, I haven't gotten a raise in two years and my living expenses have now exceeded my pay.
Originally posted by Messiah
It's clear that Apple didn't want to announce the G5 when they did, and that the leaked specs fiasco forced their hand.
Excuse me? Everything was pointing to the release, including the fact that reps from IBM were there for conference sessions. Do you think Apple threw together that whole presentation, including the demos from third-party developers like Luxology and Wolfram, and the displays of Power Macs in the exhibition hall, over the weekend? What do you think Steve was planning to talk about for two hours?
I agree that the first generation of any computer is more likely to have problems, but I don't think the G5 was "rushed to market" any more than any other Apple product.
Originally posted by costique
4. Unable to use VPC ? will be fixed soon, of which I am 99% sure. [/B]
I'm a bit worried that the bug fix will wipe out any speed advantage that VPC running on a G5 might have otherwise had over VPC running on a G4. VPC got a big performance boost in version 4 when it started taking advantage of the G3/G4 "pseudo little-endian mode" (let's call it PLEM for short). Any fix for the G5's lack of PLEM (the only G5 backward compatibility flaw I've heard about) will mean sacrificing that earlier performance boost.
Still, this isn't stopping me from getting a G5. My dual has been on order since the day after the WWDC announcement. I figure I'll have my G5 on eBay in around a year anyway when the dual 3.0-GHz systems come out. It would be especially nice if IBM can add PLEM back into a later G5 or G6 by that time. VPC is probably the only major piece of software that cares about PLEM (not much use for it anywhere else but emulating x86!), but maybe VPC will be considered important enough to merit the necessary chip redesign effort.
(Of course, one has to wonder if future versions of VPC will still support PLEM. Microsoft might, I imagine, simply junk support for PLEM altogether, playing to the lowest-common denominater, rather than taking on the extra burden of supporting and testing two different x86 emulation cores. It could turn out the VPC 7.0 will run slower on current G4 systems than 6.0 does!)
Originally posted by Messiah
It's clear that Apple didn't want to announce the G5 when they did, and that the leaked specs fiasco forced their hand.
As BrunoBruin has pointed out, that argument doesn't hold water. The G5 announcement was clearly a well-planned event, not a last-minute contigency. I think Apple announced the G5 when it did simply because there was a growing desperate need to demonstrate that the Mac platform was going somewhere -- that it wasn't going to stagnate along with the G4.
Some people will complain if you pre-announce a product and don't ship right away. Others will complain that they need to know how to plan for future purchases and software development, so they need to know what's coming as soon as possible, even if shipping isn't imminent. You can't make everyone happy either way. Personally, as much as I hate waiting for my G5, I think Apple made the right decision and struck the best balance that they could at the time.
Originally posted by Jukebox Hero
I'm not buying one because our wonderful US politicians are giving incentives to companies to bring in foreign programmers, even though there are American workers that have been unemployed for 6 months or more. While I'm lucky to have a job, I haven't gotten a raise in two years and my living expenses have now exceeded my pay.
nice rant...now what are your qualifications & what do you do ?
Originally posted by C-Bear
In the midst of the current G5 lust (If you can afford one ? buy it!), I'm wondering what cooler heads might argue is a reason not to buy one?yet . . .
If you want to avoid installing a new OS real soon, wait for Panther. Otherwise, most reasons for not buying would still apply a year from now. No matter when you buy, you can bet on speed bumps, new features and maybe price cuts coming within a year.
How much pain is your present system causing you? For me, the pain level was getting too high. I bought my G5 last week and took it home with me.
Originally posted by C-Bear
In the midst of the current G5 lust (If you can afford one ? buy it!), I'm wondering what cooler heads might argue is a reason not to buy one?yet
Rev B? Optimized software? Panther? Etc., etc.
Thoughts (for a guy who's thinking about getting one now)?
The best reason not to buy a G5 is if someone is giving you one as a gift.
Originally posted by madmax559
nice rant...now what are your qualifications & what do you do ?
Nice try but its a well known fact that American companies are outsourcing development to third world countries to save a buck. The jobs that are here are getting taken by H1B Visa holders on a special program set in place by our wonderfun government.
Originally posted by Jukebox Hero
Nice try but its a well known fact that American companies are outsourcing development to third world countries to save a buck. The jobs that are here are getting taken by H1B Visa holders on a special program set in place by our wonderfun government.
it was a genuine question...
i was a H1B myself. I bust my ass to be where i'm at
& now as a citizen(soon to be) should i turn around & start
moaning too ?
we are #1 in the world beacuse we lead in ingenuity
& technical innovation & we should keep that going.
If you are in IT you need to keep up...after isnt thats
why people get into computing ? to learn ?
fwiw ive worked with a lot of people from different countries & am constantly amazed at their brilliance & willingness to give so much back to this country.
i'm glad they are here & if they make america their permanent home like I have then its all the better for us here.
my 2c
pete
Originally posted by C-Bear
I'm wondering what cooler heads might argue is a reason not to buy one?yet
I'm not buying for one reason and one reason only, I don't have the funds for it just yet.
Dual 2Gig with a 23" display + RAM. Lota $$$. But that's what I want. Nothing can touch that.
Officially, MATLAB is not supported with X11, and Mathworks recommends removing X11 and using the OroborOSX included on the MATLAB installation disk, so perhaps this is not a concern.
I haven't run MATLAB with OroborOSX in so long, that I forgot what the difference is.
Originally posted by madmax559
it was a genuine question...
i was a H1B myself. I bust my ass to be where i'm at
& now as a citizen(soon to be) should i turn around & start
moaning too ?
we are #1 in the world beacuse we lead in ingenuity
& technical innovation & we should keep that going.
If you are in IT you need to keep up...after isnt thats
why people get into computing ? to learn ?
fwiw ive worked with a lot of people from different countries & am constantly amazed at their brilliance & willingness to give so much back to this country.
i'm glad they are here & if they make america their permanent home like I have then its all the better for us here.
my 2c
pete
Well, yes. You should start moaning. You have no future. I'm one of about 20 people left of a bustling 150 person IT shop. My friends and colleages have all left Tampa looking for work in Atlanta, Dallas, and Detroit. But these jobs are drying up too. Companies can outsource their work to places like India and Pakistan, where the developers accept 1/3 the salary (and can live on it). I was upset not to get a raise this year until I called my previous employer and found out that the developers still there have taken a 7% pay cut and given up all of their hollidays to stay employed. They're doing another 30% layoff by the end of the year. It frustrates me further to see companies offering 80K+ exclusively to people with H1B visas, rather than looking at qualifications. I can be the greatest developer in the world and I'm not elligeable for the position because someone's greasing the politicians. I consider it to be the ultimate qualification just to still be employed. People ask me how I do it and I tell them a little skill and a little luck.
Meanwhile, I agree that we have to be ingenious. Unfortunately, ingenious doesn't work when nobody even pays attention to the work you do. I'm starting my own company because I believe my software has merit. But it takes time, money, and tremendous risk. Long term, if things stay this way, I will get out of this industry.
One last thing to add: Developers are begging to work on the current technologies. Employers don't want that right now. They're scaling back their new developments, so they want monkeys to sit and keep guard over their old powerbuilder, cobol, c, and c++ programs. So if developers want to keep current they have to work on the side. They sure as heck cannot afford to go back to school to pick up the new skills and companies are not paying for it.