Losing my religion

TECHNOLOGY is a cold and logical field, casual observers might think. Computers are machines that can only recognize ones and zeroes, so where’s the room for emotion, right?

Wrong.

For as long as I can remember, people have always made technological choices with the passion and fervor of a religious war.

My first glimpse of this came in the late 1980s. As the editor of a technology magazine, I innocently ran an article that dared to suggest you didn’t need a Macintosh to do desktop publishing - you could do it on a PC as well. This didn’t sit well with the exclusive distributor of Apple Computers at the time. After that, no attempt to make nice would do; we were branded as heretics in one of computer industry’s longest running holy wars, the Apple Macintosh versus the IBM PC.

The war has since been recast as the Mac versus the Windows PC. Despite being in the minority (2 percent market share worldwide and 3 percent in the United States in 2003), Mac users have lost none of their zeal in promoting their computing platform of choice.

I tread carefully here because some of my friends and colleagues are Mac users. What puzzles me is the compunction some Mac users seem to have to explain to the world why they use a Mac (i.e. it’s easier to use, it’s more stable, it’s not made by Microsoft, and so on). Often, this is accompanied by a condescending attitude toward Windows PCs and people who use them. I remember picking up a copy of a local humor magazine, now defunct, and reading a lengthy article explaining why the author was a Mac user. After reading the story, I wondered: why bother? Why did the writer need to explain herself? Nobody had questioned her choice.

As in real religious wars, the converted are often the most fervent and vocal believers.

In “Computing’s Holy War,” technology writer Cary Lu, who clearly favors the Mac, warns against bigots on both sides of the fence. In deciding which system to buy, he adds, be wary of advice that comes from a person who is familiar with only one system.

I readily admit to being such a person. I’ve never used a Mac for any significant length of time, so I’ve never been able to compare one system versus the other. I know a lot of Mac users who swear by it and this is what I tell people when they ask me which way they should go. On the other hand, I tell them I don’t know this firsthand and can only offer useful advice when it comes to Windows PCs.

In recent years, another religious war has developed around open source Linux and Windows. The open source community has some really catchy mottos. My favorite is: “Open Source. No Gates. No Windows.”

I’m a strong believer in the open source philosophy and the alternative it offers. But I’ve also observed that some open source zealots put on blinders when it comes ease of use and performance issues.

Unquestioning faith is expected in religion, but it doesn’t really help anyone in technology.

Here, we need to be logical and pragmatic. We need to lose our religion.