Re: Mac or Pc ??????

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

As a CS major myself, lemme recommend against Macs and to a lesser
degree PCs, especially at the start for one reason: Memory
Protection. That's an OS-level feature that prevents errant programs
from doing much damage to the whole system when they malfunction.  And
you *will* write and debug many such programs unless you stick with
languages like LISP without any pointers.

Standard action after memory trashing on a system w/o Memory Protection:
*reboot* [wait... wait... wait...] Reload editor, etc..

Standard action after memory trashing on a system with Mem Protection:
switch to debugger and/or editor, continue.

   Memory protection will save you so much time you'll wish all
systems had it. Macs don't. Win95 sorta does, but I've still seen lots
of 32-bit programs that can toast the system. Both systems keep
promising to get better about that shortly, but don't hold your
breath.

   Therefore, get a real OS: a unix variant. Linux is a great free
system for PCs (386s and up) and also Macs. Yes, you will need to be
able to follow directions to install it, but consider it a warmup for
the rest of your CS classes.

   You can also get a machine that rebootes in seconds, like an Apple
II. Or, move to a usenet group that shows you know what you're talking
about.

Nathan Mates

--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  -R.A. Heinlein