Really? STEM Students Require a PC?!?

[headlessmike]

Which also means that any BSD or Linux server would work as well (and likely be much cheaper).

Edited to add: and iMac Pros are still intel. It might not be as easy to switch as you think to ARM:

"The CIAO system depends on a number of 3rd party software packages or off-the-shelf software (OTS) and not all of these have native Apple ARM support (at the time of the release of CIAO 4.15.2). The CXC will monitor the situation."

As you point out, most of this software would run equally well on macOS, Linux, or any other Unix-like system. Where macOS really shines in my opinion is that it is well-supported by commercial software as well. With macOS you can natively run things like IRAF, Adobe’s software, and Microsoft Office all under one operating system. Linux under Windows has its issues, as does things like WINE.

My colleagues (physicists and astronomers) running Linux often run into issues when an administrator or conference requires files in one of Office’s formats. Likewise, Windows users struggle with some of the tools we use that are designed for *nix systems.

I haven’t encountered any open source package in my work that won’t compile equally well on ARM64 as x64. All of the commercial software that I use in my field is already native as well.

 

[Schlumpf]

Yeah this is kind of what I got low-key tired of though. Work arounds. Work arounds to make my iPad work right, mac work right, etc., I agree that a desktop or server can do the job, but so can a windows gaming laptop. And it doesn't require workarounds.

Edited to add, although, to be fair, My Zephyrus G14 requires workarounds to get the battery through a full day if I was using it constantly - I get about 6 hours of battery life (same with my SP9)...

For me the way I can copy-paste between iPhone and Mac saved me hours last year. We have to deliver a lot sketches in reports. Also not having to charge during the is a huge plus, my peers all carry big charging bricks. And I love the displays.

But I guess a computer is a tool, but not just any, it is a bit like a car, you can have a “relationship” with it which absolutely depends on your likings and needs.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

For me the way I can copy-paste between iPhone and Mac saved me hours last year. We have to deliver a lot sketches in reports. Also not having to charge during the is a huge plus, my peers all carry big charging bricks. And I love the displays.

But I guess a computer is a tool, but not just any, it is a bit like a car, you can have a “relationship” with it which absolutely depends on your likings and needs.

Yeah I never used that continuity stuff anyway. Want my phone to be my phone. I always immediately disabled facetime, messages, etc., from working on my macs first thing.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

As you point out, most of this software would run equally well on macOS, Linux, or any other Unix-like system. Where macOS really shines in my opinion is that it is well-supported by commercial software as well. With macOS you can natively run things like IRAF, Adobe’s software, and Microsoft Office all under one operating system. Linux under Windows has its issues, as does things like WINE.

My colleagues (physicists and astronomers) running Linux often run into issues when an administrator or conference requires files in one of Office’s formats. Likewise, Windows users struggle with some of the tools we use that are designed for *nix systems.

I haven’t encountered any open source package in my work that won’t compile equally well on ARM64 as x64. All of the commercial software that I use in my field is already native as well.

So have you never used LibreOffice? Because LibreOffice can read and save files in Office's formats. I used LibreOffice during college since I didn't want to pay hundreds for Office. (which is a good thing I didn't as my first college laptop died after a year so I would've had to spend even more for another license.)

 

[ArkSingularity]

So have you never used LibreOffice? Because LibreOffice can read and save files in Office's formats. I used LibreOffice during college since I didn't want to pay hundreds for Office. (which is a good thing I didn't as my first college laptop died after a year so I would've had to spend even more for another license.)

Libreoffice's compatibility with MS office formats is less than perfect. It's okay for simpler things, but it's mangled documents with more complex formatting for me before.

 

[unrigestered]

yes, LibreOffice is great on it's own, but in my experience not very good when it comes to correctly import MS or Apple documents. Especially when it comes to the latter

to it's defense, i have no experience in how well Apple's or MS products are handling importing from other brand's formats, so this might well be a general issue that every product is facing with imports.

 

[WilliApple]

It’s mainly engineering that is not running on the Mac, never had, but hopefully Apple Pay’s companies to fix this in WWDC24.

As for computer science, I take an AP class in high school, and we do everything in a web browser. I do it in Safari, and I am looking for colleges that don’t have this stupid requirement because my M1 air is working like an champ!

 

[headlessmike]

So have you never used LibreOffice? Because LibreOffice can read and save files in Office's formats. I used LibreOffice during college since I didn't want to pay hundreds for Office. (which is a good thing I didn't as my first college laptop died after a year so I would've had to spend even more for another license.)

Of course I have. I've used it or its predecessors for two decades. But its support for Office files is far from perfect. iWork's support is actually much better in recent versions.

I would never pay for an Office license for my personal use, but for my work it is unfortunately a must and luckily my institution pays for a perpetual site license (we aren't allowed to use 365).

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Of course I have. I've used it or its predecessors for two decades. But its support for Office files is far from perfect. iWork's support is actually much better in recent versions.

I would never pay for an Office license for my personal use, but for my work it is unfortunately a must and luckily my institution pays for a perpetual site license (we aren't allowed to use 365).

Shame. Office for Mac 2022 was actually on sale for $50 a couple months ago.

 

[headlessmike]

Shame. Office for Mac 2022 was actually on sale for $50 a couple months ago.

That’s fine. I just meant that I don’t need it for my personal use. iWork has gotten really good at handling Office documents in recent years, good enough for my needs anyway.

 

[DevNull0]

I strongly disagree. A SOC Mac is more than capable and in my experience superior. What a STEM student requires is a laptop that they can write and run Python (and possibly R), write and run MatLab (and possibly Mathematica) and spreadsheet with plotting. What a student does NOT need is to be battling an operating system, fighting with configuration management and constantly worrying about viruses, malware and ransomware. And a battery that last longer than 40 minutes, is really useful too.

Seems like the article’s authors [Falsely] believes student need a gaming machine to do STEM course work.

Any other thoughts?

It really depends what you mean by STEM.

I did a computer science degree, and no we didn't use simple high level apps exclusively. Linux on x86/x64 was absolutely required for nearly every single class. The intel Macs were actually perfect for 95% of the degree but AppleSilicon wouldn't work. In my concurrency class we used μC++. Two courses involved writing OSes, one was just using NACHOS but the second was a real time OS from scratch on bare x86 hardware. YACC should work on a modern Mac, but I doubt the prof's own extensions we had to use would. I'm certain it's completely possible to run Lisp or Scheme on a Mac, but can you run the version the prof is expecting you to, and will your result be code compatible with their automatic grading software? It's just a nightmare of every single thing being a compatibility issue.

That said, it is totally possible to do 100% of the coursework in the school's computer labs without owning a computer, so you can use a Mac as a toy and do your work at school on their desktops, but that's not exactly your point

Also back when I was in school, there were a lot of people in my class with macs. Running windows with boot camp. It was the perfect windows machine in class, and the perfect mac outside of class.

 

[theluggage]

I'm certain it's completely possible to run Lisp or Scheme on a Mac, but can you run the version the prof is expecting you to, and will your result be code compatible with their automatic grading software?

THAT is the important issue. If someone is starting an undergraduate course, they want to pass the course with the minimum of fuss and inconvenience. They don't want to be the one swimming against the tide.

It's not hard to point out the failings of a computer science course centred on x86 in an age when that is rapidly becoming the niche, legacy architecture. Yup, its a pretty big "niche" but the subject is "computer science" not "business computing" - and your future operating system-writing career is just as likely to be on embedded systems or mobile devices than PC. DOS/Windows was always something of an aberration in being mostly tied to a particular ISA (and a kludgey stop-gap one at that). The best target for learning OS programming would probably be a software simulation of a CPU - maybe an idealised one - that could be spied on in interesting ways, anyhow....

BUT - pro tip - maybe wait until after the prof has given you a passing grade before critiquing the course - its probably not even something they can change without 5 years of committee meetings & hopefully they were concentrating on the underlying principles rather than x86-specific details.

Anyway, any fule kno that all you really need for a computer science course is an infinite strip of paper tape and an erasable marker pen... (read/write heads? luxury!)

 

[eltoslightfoot]

THAT is the important issue. If someone is starting an undergraduate course, they want to pass the course with the minimum of fuss and inconvenience. They don't want to be the one swimming against the tide.

It's not hard to point out the failings of a computer science course centred on x86 in an age when that is rapidly becoming the niche, legacy architecture. Yup, its a pretty big "niche" but the subject is "computer science" not "business computing" - and your future operating system-writing career is just as likely to be on embedded systems or mobile devices than PC. DOS/Windows was always something of an aberration in being mostly tied to a particular ISA (and a kludgey stop-gap one at that). The best target for learning OS programming would probably be a software simulation of a CPU - maybe an idealised one - that could be spied on in interesting ways, anyhow....

BUT - pro tip - maybe wait until after the prof has given you a passing grade before critiquing the course - its probably not even something they can change without 5 years of committee meetings & hopefully they were concentrating on the underlying principles rather than x86-specific details.

Anyway, any fule kno that all you really need for a computer science course is an infinite strip of paper tape and an erasable marker pen... (read/write heads? luxury!)

I don't know if I would go that far. There are tons of C# systems, .NET systems, and even more legacy systems than that. It's easy to point to the "cutting edge" and all that, but really most of the time, Visual Studio with plugins is what is used in the corporate and academic environments out there.

Even in the incredibly large enterprise where I work, there is Palantir used somewhat, but mostly .NET and BI Tools from MS--which is mostly PowerBI these days. The future is the MS Azure platform. This is not an uncommon situation out there either.

 

[theluggage]

There are tons of C# systems, .NET systems, and even more legacy systems than that.

Yes - and I have .NET installed on my Mac and my Raspberry Pi (to run third party programs - particularly NextPVR). Half the point of .NET/C# is that it compiles to bytecode that runs on a virtual machine, not x86 binaries.

...but obviously that doesn't help if you're talking about Windows apps written in C#/.NET rather than server/webapp stuff, or even if all the coursework is supplied as Visual Studio.

The question for, say a CS course, is whether it is about vocational training for people destined to maintain legacy systems (in which case, COBOL, C++/MFC and Visual Basic should still be on the list) of if it should be "running to where the ball is going to be" which is probably not native Windows apps (in whatever language). As a previous poster said, Visual Studio for Windows is declining and VS Code (which can do multiplatform C#) is more applicable to the growth areas in modern computing.

 

[headlessmike]

The question for, say a CS course, is whether it is about vocational training for people destined to maintain legacy systems (in which case, COBOL, C++/MFC and Visual Basic should still be on the list) of if it should be "running to where the ball is going to be" which is probably not native Windows apps (in whatever language).

Funny you should mention "running to where the ball is going to be". My wife finished her CS degree a little over 10 years ago, almost entirely using SPARC Workstations (and her own Mac for writing). 😅

 

[tubuliferous]

Can I ask what field are those people?

Biology

 

[Tagbert]

Biology

That highlights that the original assertion was overly broad. ALL STEM fields is a very broad group with very different computing needs. You need to be more specific to have any real meaning.

 

[dmccloud]

I don't know if I would go that far. There are tons of C# systems, .NET systems, and even more legacy systems than that. It's easy to point to the "cutting edge" and all that, but really most of the time, Visual Studio with plugins is what is used in the corporate and academic environments out there.

Even in the incredibly large enterprise where I work, there is Palantir used somewhat, but mostly .NET and BI Tools from MS--which is mostly PowerBI these days. The future is the MS Azure platform. This is not an uncommon situation out there either.

The primary tools my school used were cross-platform tools such as NetBeans, Brackets/Atom, VSCode, and the JetBrains suite. VSCode will likely become even more popular given that Microsoft is killing off VS for the Mac.