> the only time I notice that I'm not on an x86 system, is when I run Electron apps compiled for x86 only.

Maybe it's just from working in devops at a Mac shop, but getting dev environments working on M1 with deployment parity is nearly impossible. It requires vast redesigns of preexisting architecture and forces a lot of software off of the table. It's wholly a YMMV situation, but I've seen things on both side of the fence; I still reach for x86 when I'm getting work done.

> Portability tends to contribute to software quality [...] everyone wins.

I don't really mind that aspect. What I don't appreciate is Apple raising the walls around their garden; Sure, you can claim it's being done to make people safer, but as someone without much skin in the game, this just makes Apple look worse to me.

> You don't need the App Store to run arbitrary code on your iPad/iPhone - you only need a Mac and XCode.

I mean, at that point it's no better than a microcontroller.

"Want to run your code? No problem, all you have to do is plug it into the ROM programmer!"

My gripe is that Apple goes out of their way to prevent people from distributing software anywhere that they might not profit from/control. If I buy a computer, I ought to be able to run the software I want. That logic extends to phones and every other device in their lineup, for that matter.

> But just having the mechanism at all is scary, it has a lot of potential to bring harm, and it's a very dangerous precedent.

Sure, I don't think many people will disagree here. The posturing here is what scares me, and it's the sort of sociopathic "we know what's right for you" behavior that turns me right off.

> I will blame their "honest" incompetence, carelessness, and ignorance before I will accuse them of malice.

I would too. One problem though: they seem to have a hard time admitting when they're wrong, and insist that everything they do is deliberate. Remember "you're holding it wrong"?

> Same on every BSD. macOS is just staying true to its roots ;)

I would have preferred an "it just works" solution, but I'm sure that's the answer most Mac users would issue me so I'll take it.

> Personally, I'd stay away from Bash. If an otherwise POSIXly kosher shell script becomes hairy enough to call for Bash's extensions

I do, I use Fish as an interactive shell. But running recent bash is a requirement for maintaining servers, cross-platform *NIX development and a huge number of toolchains. I don't like it, but the ease-of-installation partially predicates how difficult it is to set up my dev environment.

> If I don't like an Apple toy, I simply don't buy it.

I mean, I just take this ideology to it's logical conclusion; if I presently think Apple is being scummy, I don't even give them my money. Explains why I haven't paid for an app since 2013...

> I develop and/or test across five different OS+arch combinations, which often catches bugs and hardcoded assumptions. I often wonder if it's worth it, but then remember how monocultures tend to just rot.

I write/test across multiple arches as well, I just end up writing the code on Linux. It's really not worth it to use Mac when you're only actually deploying to x86_64-Linux.