Looking at platforms objectively (was Re: [X4U] Re: Lack of sleep)

[Michael Winter]

On Sep 1, 2005, at 10:44 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote:

> Performance
> WinXP wins over Mac OS X, BUT looses to just about anything else  
> besides Linux.

I just like to point out one often overlooked factor in performance.  
In most cases the performance bottleneck isn't CPU speed, it isn't  
the OS, it isn't hard disk speed, it isn't this bus or that, its the  
operator. It doesn't matter if the fast system can do the operation  
in 100 ms vs. 200 for the slow system, if it takes 5 seconds of  
operator work to initiate it on the fast system, but only 3 on the  
slow system.

So yes, Mac OS X may take a "performance" hit, but its an engineered  
trade-off to increase the performance of the user. That's an  
engineering factor that's rarely taken into account when people do  
their "performance" comparisons.

-Mike