Re: Macs in Astronomy Updated; Canon 20D under Mac & Windows

From: Pierre Vandevennne (pierre_at_datarescue_ns.com)
Date: 03/01/05 

Date: 01 Mar 2005 01:42:04 GMT

Chris L Peterson <clp@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote in
news:2td721luvdqkl6tarkrs6ckh68fope1dhg@4ax.com:

> (multiple) systems moderately unstable, too. Also, I see many Mac apps
> that are not very well written. Crashes are quite common (no damage to
> the system, but the local process terminates). App crashes under XP are
> rare.

It's actually a bit hard to define "well written". We've got apps running
on both OSes (actually more than that, but direct comparison isn't
possible) with the same code baseline. The same apparently harmless memory
allocation can die on a Mac and never does on PC. Experience does also play
a role. There is well written, in general, in the somewhat abstract sense
of the term and there is well written in the context of what the OS offers
or can stand...

> I wouldn't say that Macs are crash prone- nothing like, say, Windows 98
> and earlier. But they are nowhere near as stable as my W2K and XP
> machines, which are really abused by the development environment I work
> in, and which essentially never crash. My XP workstations run for weeks
> on end without problems.

Same experience here. XP is far more reliable. A heavily used Mac will
crash once every two days or so, XP just doesn't crash anymore: we've had
resource strained machines on the net for close to a year without a single
crash (but not running usually risky MS server software).
 
> The same sorts of exploits used to trick Windows users would be
> generally effective on Macs, too, if anyone bothered to write them.

Definitely. 

--
Pierre Vandevenne - www.datarescue.com
IDA Pro - world leader in hostile code analysis
Now with 64 bit remote debugging & much more!
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