Researchers who use Macs, PLEASE don& #39;t upgrade to MacOS X Big Sur or buy a new M1 mac yet: a short thread. (1/n)
I know it& #39;s hard to resist when a little pop up shows up to suggest upgrading to the latest MacOS X, and oooooo shiny new laptops, maybe I can replace my obsolete 7 month-old laptop (2/n)
(You were also probably looking forward to being able to spend a couple of work hours avoiding work while your computer updated, but it& #39;s ok, I won& #39;t tell https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😉" title="Zwinkerndes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Zwinkerndes Gesicht">) (3/n)
But here& #39;s the thing: unless you mostly use your work laptop for browsing the web and doing emails, you probably use a whole bunch of more advanced software, including (I am guessing) some open source software. (4/n)
I& #39;m going to bet that the very large majority of maintainers of open source software haven& #39;t had advance access to either Big Sur or new macs with M1 chips, both of which are significant updates/changes. I certainly haven& #39;t been able to test any of the packages I maintain. (5/n)
Python wheels (binary releases) of most packages won& #39;t work at all on the new M1 macs, and you& #39;ll find yourself suddenly having to build many Python packages from source. (7/n)
If you upgrade now, you will likely be frustrated at the number of things that will break or not work anymore - and you will likely be angry at the wrong people, by blaming the maintainers of the packages you use. (8/n)
If you want to blame anyone, blame Apple for yet once again creating a lot of extra work for developers - especially for people who volunteer time to maintain open source projects. (9/n)
Your research computer should be a stable work environment. There is very little in Big Sur that you actually NEED to be a more productive researcher. So resist the temptation to upgrade until you know that your favourite research software will actually work on it. (10/n)
Likewise, while the new Macs are supposed to have blazing fast processors, things are only faster if they work, and some of your favourite research software won& #39;t work. (11/n)
So the bottom line is to wait a bit - at least a few months, if not more. Maybe a better way to think about it is to update once you actually need to, rather than when things are new and shiny! (12/n)
That& #39;s all I had to say. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. (13/n)
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