Really? STEM Students Require a PC?!?

[JustAnExpat]

My opinion:

1. It's Forbes. Forbes is a muckraker magazine, and they publish pretty much anything.
2. STEM is a very broad field. I'm almost certain there are some STEM fields that need a Windows PC. Others don't. Just handwaving saying "STEM needs a Windows PC" is very bad reporting. Don't forget, STEM is short for "Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics".

 

[zach-coleman]

For clarity, I attended between 2018 and 2022. In my school for CS, our very first year only we used Visual Studio (non code) which required Windows. After that you could have had a Mac the rest of the time with not much special consideration. At the time M1 Mac’s weren’t out so you could also use bootcamp if you really wanted, but good luck these days. The Mac instructions were usually not very well considered, either. Especially for M1 Macs. I don’t think the problem is horsepower, it’s probably windows-only workflows.

I didn’t have a Mac until my junior year so this didn’t affect me, but I had to walk some people through setting up boot camp my freshman year.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

For clarity, I attended between 2018 and 2022. In my school for CS, our very first year only we used Visual Studio (non code) which required Windows. After that you could have had a Mac the rest of the time with not much special consideration. At the time M1 Mac’s weren’t out so you could also use bootcamp if you really wanted, but good luck these days. The Mac instructions were usually not very well considered, either. Especially for M1 Macs. I don’t think the problem is horsepower, it’s probably windows-only workflows.

I didn’t have a Mac until my junior year so this didn’t affect me, but I had to walk some people through setting up boot camp my freshman year.

Yeah I can't imagine that most CS programs wouldn't need Visual Studio at some point. C sharp is used at many, many places.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Yeah I can't imagine that most CS programs wouldn't need Visual Studio at some point. C sharp is used at many, many places.

Where did you go to college? I talked to several graduates (in the last 5 years) who were still pounding out dos C++ applications for their final exams at a major Californian 4 year university.

 

[Ctrlos]

Any Thoughts or comments on the Forbes Article A STEM Degree Requires a Real PC see: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tirias...em-degree-requires-a-real-pc/?sh=50a0923378b8

This article states “While these Apple processors and PCs may be optimized for a wide variety of entertainment, productivity, and design applications, they are not optimized for many STEM applications. As I mentioned previously, it is difficult or sometimes impossible to run some STEM applications on x86-based laptops without a discrete GPU. It is even more of a challenge on a Mac because in my experience, the vast majority of STEM-oriented applications are written on and for x86-based PCs.”

I strongly disagree. A SOC Mac is more than capable and in my experience superior. What a STEM student requires is a laptop that they can write and run Python (and possibly R), write and run MatLab (and possibly Mathematica) and spreadsheet with plotting. What a student does NOT need is to be battling an operating system, fighting with configuration management and constantly worrying about viruses, malware and ransomware. And a battery that last longer than 40 minutes, is really useful too.

Seems like the article’s authors [Falsely] believes student need a gaming machine to do STEM course work.

Any other thoughts?

There are an absolute shedload of indie apps that sadly have no Mac equivalent, particularly in the realm of scientific apps.

A SOC Mac is a lot better than most PCs but unfortunately the PC market is just so much bigger and easier to support.

 

[zach-coleman]

Where did you guys go to college? I talked to several graduates (in the last 5 years) who were still pounding out dos C++ applications for their final exams at a major Californian 4 year university.

We got to that later on! Don’t you worry.

Yeah I can't imagine that most CS programs wouldn't need Visual Studio at some point. C sharp is used at many, many places.

Unfortunately for my employment prospects we never got to C# in my program.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

This thread is quite funny because it shows what a crapfest the industry is and how polarising everyone wants things to be platform-wise.

Realistically I work in a STEM field and it doesn't matter if we use a Mac or PC. Everything works on everything absolutely fine. We have people writing C# on Macs and Python on PCs. And I'm writing LaTeX on a Mac with Visual Studio!

I also am doing a second degree (mathematics). The university in question specifies only a recent Mac or PC is required.

And if you hit a wall with any of these, you don't fire up your fat $20,000 Mac or PC, you fire up a instance in Amazon AWS for an hour to run your simulation on then kill it for $20

 

[eltoslightfoot]

This thread is quite funny because it shows what a crapfest the industry is and how polarising everyone wants things to be platform-wise.

Realistically I work in a STEM field and it doesn't matter if we use a Mac or PC. Everything works on everything absolutely fine. We have people writing C# on Macs and Python on PCs. And I'm writing LaTeX on a Mac with Visual Studio!

I also am doing a second degree (mathematics). The university in question specifies only a recent Mac or PC is required.

And if you hit a wall with any of these, you don't fire up your fat $20,000 Mac or PC, you fire up a instance in Amazon AWS for an hour to run your simulation on then kill it for $20

I would tend to agree with you. I have been using servers to do all of my visual studio work for over a decade. In fact, 99% of all of my work is done by remoting into servers and working there.

My education experience is a bit dated at this point however, so I will definitely defer to you on that.

 

[throAU]

What would they be doing that requires something other than Macs?

Unless they have their own in-house developed ERP, they won't be running the server for that on Macs internally.

Servers in general.... macOS Server is no more.

 

[Schlumpf]

I'm currently studying engineering; my uni doesn't recommend Macs because of software support. That's basically it, with Parallels I get by very well, even with just 8 gb of RAM. Most of the time you're doing other things than running heavy simulations, at which point you might be better of offloading it to a desktop or server anyway. My warning: SolidWorks works well, but the electrical component won't install.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I'm currently studying engineering; my uni doesn't recommend Macs because of software support. That's basically it, with Parallels I get by very well, even with just 8 gb of RAM. Most of the time you're doing other things than running heavy simulations, at which point you might be better of offloading it to a desktop or server anyway. My warning: SolidWorks works well, but the electrical component won't install.

Yeah this is kind of what I got low-key tired of though. Work arounds. Work arounds to make my iPad work right, mac work right, etc., I agree that a desktop or server can do the job, but so can a windows gaming laptop. And it doesn't require workarounds.

Edited to add, although, to be fair, My Zephyrus G14 requires workarounds to get the battery through a full day if I was using it constantly - I get about 6 hours of battery life (same with my SP9)...

 

[Pet3rK]

Most of the scientists I know use Macs almost exclusively. I guess if you wanted to train/run ML models locally, a discrete graphics card would be a benefit, but even that use case is becoming less limiting for Mac users as the major ML libraries are becoming more feature-complete on Apple Silicon GPUs.

Can I ask what field are those people?

 

[Pet3rK]

I need to supplement what I said earlier. This software in my field of interest(X-Ray Astronomy) is only compatible with Mac and Linux. My friend is on Radio Astronomy so they are likely using either AIPS and CASA which only have support for Mac and Linux.

Besides that, IRAF which is supported on Mac and Linux only(WSL but it isn't perfect).

Even tho I am more interested on X-Ray Astronomy, I am still tempted to go with the Infrared and Visible Light Astronomy so I can use Hubble and JWST(it's currently the "in" telescope right now) and their software are compatible only to Mac and Linux(WSL is there but I'm worried on the support part).

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I need to supplement what I said earlier. This software in my field of interest(X-Ray Astronomy) is only compatible with Mac and Linux. My friend is on Radio Astronomy so they are likely using either AIPS and CASA which only have support for Mac and Linux.

Sounds like as soon as Rosetta ends, Mac users could be in trouble as well.

 

[4sallypat]

wow

Back on the topic, my daughter is a senior in HS, and she's considering STEM, I've been expecting to buy a MacBook and I do think that's what we'll be buying but its interesting to see that this may not be the case.

I prefer Windows machines for a variety of reasons, but I think the MBP would be such a better laptop for her, I hope the PC isn't a requirement for her. Otherwise, I may be getting tech support phone calls from her

I am the IT for a middle school (grades 7 & 8) and our STEM labs are Chrome, PC and Mac platforms.

It's evenly split - PCs for certain vocational subjects like mechanical, ICE, broadcast, vet med, culinary, etc..

The Macs are used for video editing, robotics, graphics, digital photography, etc...

Chrome is used for web editing, cloud computing, etc..

Students rotate to different stations so they get experiences for all platforms.

 

[Pet3rK]

Sounds like as soon as Rosetta ends, Mac users could be in trouble as well.

And they will likely to be updated with native ARM version in the future. My friend can be comfortably safe since AIPS is natively optimized with ARM. And my dream of Infrared Astronomy would be fine too since the environment is already ARM native.

That said, it shows that Macs isn't stranger to sciences. Like I said earlier, my Astronomy professors have iMac Pros(yes, it's macOS installed and not a flavor of Linux or Unix) to do their heavy research while the remaining Windows laptops are used for administrative and teaching reasons.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

And they will likely to be updated with native ARM version in the future. My friend can be comfortably safe since AIPS is natively optimized with ARM. And my dream of Infrared Astronomy would be fine too since the environment is already ARM native.

That said, it shows that Macs isn't stranger to sciences. Like I said earlier, my Astronomy professors have iMac Pros(yes, it's macOS installed and not a flavor of Linux or Unix) to do their heavy research while the remaining Windows laptops are used for administrative and teaching reasons.

Which also means that any BSD or Linux server would work as well (and likely be much cheaper).

Edited to add: and iMac Pros are still intel. It might not be as easy to switch as you think to ARM:

"The CIAO system depends on a number of 3rd party software packages or off-the-shelf software (OTS) and not all of these have native Apple ARM support (at the time of the release of CIAO 4.15.2). The CXC will monitor the situation."

 

[theluggage]

"The CIAO system depends on a number of 3rd party software packages or off-the-shelf software (OTS) and not all of these have native Apple ARM support (at the time of the release of CIAO 4.15.2). The CXC will monitor the situation."

Rosetta is a bit of a red herring here - if any dependencies aren't being actively maintained then, sooner or later, they'll be broken by a new version of MacOS or version conflicts with newer packages. If you're really worried about long-term support then its Linux or Windows for you.

Apple's problem is their stupid obsession with pushing out a new version of MacOS every year which doesn't usually become remotely stable until the next version is almost out. In the case of Rosetta 2 it looks like it's still in Ventura so any Macs bought in the next year will be good for 3 years or more - the problem for organizations is that 2 years down the line they won't be able to buy new Macs which can run Ventura... Still, that's not really an issue if you're just buying a MacBook to start college...

Still, the situation with Windows 10/11 upgrades (at least on consumer versions) isn't exactly moonlight and roses...

 

[leman]

Not only that but the software that is available on Apple Silicon due to the limitations of Metal and lack of GPU acceleration making CAD models on macOS is a lot slower.

Apple GPUs as well as Metal are more than capable to do CAD (no idea which "limitations" you refer to specifically). I know that it's popular to bash Apple for all kinds of reasons, but let's at least try not stoop down to the reddit level.

The simple fact is that historically CAD never had a strong presence on the Mac, and because of that CAD software companies are unlikely to invest into a Mac version of their software. That said, AutoDesk at least seems to have Apple Silicon support (including Metal) for some of their popular products, so it's not like nothing is happening.

 

[Pet3rK]

Which also means that any BSD or Linux server would work as well (and likely be much cheaper).

Edited to add: and iMac Pros are still intel. It might not be as easy to switch as you think to ARM:

"The CIAO system depends on a number of 3rd party software packages or off-the-shelf software (OTS) and not all of these have native Apple ARM support (at the time of the release of CIAO 4.15.2). The CXC will monitor the situation."

Servers aren't portable. Having your own local machine to process data is great tho. At least you won't worry to connect to the internet just to get your work done outside the local network.

And they know the ARM transition. It means they are aware and they plan to release the future ARM version. I'm sure they can do it.

 

[chrono1081]

Depends on what part of stem. Mac hands down beats the hell out of Windows for a Comp Sci degree in my opinion.

 

[ThrowerGB]

What would they be doing that requires something other than Macs?

Like many large businesses, Apple runs and leases resources on massive server farms for iCloud & App Store, run their world wide physical stores, their world wide support systems, logistic control, interactive design systems, operate large scale business management software, etc, etc. There's a huge amount of stuff going on in the background of businesses like Apple that we don't see.

 

[theluggage]

And I'm writing LaTeX on a Mac with Visual Studio!

Last time I looked "Visual Studio" could refer to:

1. Visual Studio for Windows (what most people mean)
2. Visual Studio for Mac (formerly Xamarin Studio - bought & re-badged by MS)
3. Visual Studio Code (IDE/text editor with plugins up the wazoo running under Electron)

They're all fairly general purpose "jack of all trades" IDEs but they're quite different products. (1) is the go-to for Windows native app & SQL Server development, (2) is primarily for a cross-platform mobile development in C# and (3) is great for mixed-environment full-stack stuff, python, typescript etc.

You can certainly "do C#" on native Mac or linux but not necessarily with the particular libraries/application frameworks needed for a particular job. Ditto for Swift - the language is available for PC or Linux but that won't necessarily be a viable replacement for XCode.

Many of these issues are soluble in theory, but someone doing an undergraduate course really needs to be able to concentrate on doing their assignments and not (e.g.) faffing about trying to install the correct version of .net on their Mac.

The bottom line is that the only way to choose a computer platform for a job/college is to Do The Research and find out what specific software you need to run - and the best way of doing that is to arrive with a cheap junker that can do email and web, and find out what you really need once you're 'on the ground' - especially if a lot depends on what courses/options/major you choose.

Just ignore advertorials like the Forbes article trying to ramp up computer sales during the summer lull by convincing parents that their little angel needs a new computer every September. You can at least wait for Black Friday!

 

[adrianlondon]

And I'm writing LaTeX on a Mac with Visual Studio!

I wrote my thesis on my Macbook using LaTeX within a plug-in for IntelliJ, because just learning LaTeX wasn't painful enough.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

Last time I looked "Visual Studio" could refer to:

1. Visual Studio for Windows (what most people mean)
2. Visual Studio for Mac (formerly Xamarin Studio - bought & re-badged by MS)
3. Visual Studio Code (IDE/text editor with plugins up the wazoo running under Electron)

They're all fairly general purpose "jack of all trades" IDEs but they're quite different products. (1) is the go-to for Windows native app & SQL Server development, (2) is primarily for a cross-platform mobile development in C# and (3) is great for mixed-environment full-stack stuff, python, typescript etc.

You can certainly "do C#" on native Mac or linux but not necessarily with the particular libraries/application frameworks needed for a particular job. Ditto for Swift - the language is available for PC or Linux but that won't necessarily be a viable replacement for XCode.

Many of these issues are soluble in theory, but someone doing an undergraduate course really needs to be able to concentrate on doing their assignments and not (e.g.) faffing about trying to install the correct version of .net on their Mac.

The bottom line is that the only way to choose a computer platform for a job/college is to Do The Research and find out what specific software you need to run - and the best way of doing that is to arrive with a cheap junker that can do email and web, and find out what you really need once you're 'on the ground' - especially if a lot depends on what courses/options/major you choose.

Just ignore advertorials like the Forbes article trying to ramp up computer sales during the summer lull by convincing parents that their little angel needs a new computer every September. You can at least wait for Black Friday!

Well the Visual Studio situation is not quite as straightforward as it sounds.

Visual Studio "Classic" is quite frankly dead bar some groaning zombie version updates and marketing faff. The classic .Net framework is also nearly completely dead having paused on development of 4.8. They're literally running it in maintenance mode while they port their stuff internally over to .Net. None of the open source vendors that you depend on via nuget are supporting it for a lot of rather large and important packages now either. Nearly the whole industry, bar some legacy stuff, has shifted to VScode or off the platform entirely.

What I would find rather problematic is that if a university undergraduate course is using vendor based products from Microsoft rather than something wholly open.

Spot on with the Forbes point though.