Platform Polyculture

I currently have 2 computers–a PC purchased in June of this year running Vista 64, and a Mac mini purchased in October 2007 running Leopard. (I also still have my old PC with Windows XP sitting here, but I exclude it from consideration as I don’t use it.)

I bought the mini for 2 main reasons: I was tired of the Windows monoculture and wanted to diversify my knowledge; and in anticipation of getting Vista I wanted an alternative system in case I had trouble with it. I much enjoy the mini. It’s quiet and OS X is good. I don’t like everything about it (future blog post, no doubt), but overall it pleases me well.

As for Vista, it turned out I had no trouble with it, and it actually pleases me too (mostly). I waited until SP1 was released and that may have helped, plus by that time drivers were more mature. Additionally my PC has 4 GB of RAM and Vista was apparently able to access all of it without me having to mess with memory hoisting in the BIOS–Vista does need a lot of memory. A very few programs didn’t work well or at all in the 64-bit environment (Taskbar Shuffle [update: a 64-bit version of Taskbar Shuffle is now available!], Sandboxie) but sometimes I can work around (TortoiseHg) or do without.

Although I do like the Mac and am slowly learning it, I still do all my programming on Windows. I’m far more familiar with it, as I’ve been using it since Win95 (I used Win3.1 slightly but never had it myself; my PCs went straight from DOS 6.0 to Win95). Also I just haven’t the time to spread myself across both platforms right now, and besides the mini is nowhere near as powerful as the PC for graphics. Still, I would like to get around to it eventually.

Further, I will install Linux on my PC “soon”. I planned for it when I installed Vista, setting aside some space  to dual-boot. Since Ubuntu is the wildly popular distro these days I chose that, but I haven’t yet found the time to do it. Intrepid Ibex is the current release, but Jaunty Jackalope may be available by time I’m ready. I will have much learning ahead of me.

Finally I must mention my first computer–the venerable Amiga 500. Fond memories.

Meta-juice

Greetings and welcome! My name is Aravin, and I’m a geek. More specifically, I’m a programmer. This blog will primarily chronicle my programming projects (which are mostly related to graphics and games), though I’m sure various other topics will appear as well.

A little about myself: I’m a graduate of the Software Engineering program at Mohawk College. My current full-time job is at McMaster University, but I still do a few things at the college. Last year I taught Assembly Language, and rewrote the program used in the Amazebot Programming Competition. Presently I’m teaching a course called “Modelling, Simulation, and Game Programming”.

Despite the fact that I somehow managed to become a college professor, I am by no means an expert programmer. Indeed, I must consider myself a noob, but I’m trying hard to level up. I hope that this blog will assist me to connect with others who are similarly inclined.