Cheaper and faster, broadly, which has been the same for as long as I remember: for an equivalent price, you can get a much more powerful PC than you can a Mac (though there are exceptions: the surface book matches up closely with a 2015 macbook pro I believe).
After that, it depends on what you are doing. I develop using a PC, macbook (for iOS builds usually) and a Linux machine (running mint).
Linux is best for Node/JS heavy development, IMO, largely because of the long filenames in Nodeland and the general linux-first documentation and help. Recently I have found its also pretty good for Dotnet Core development. The OS is nice as well as in that sort of bare-metal coding, it kind of gets out of the way.
Windows, either with VS or VS Code, is for things that require a lot of power or are huge (usually related): Docker stuff is easier, solutions with hundreds of projects, etc. When I want to throw code against a tiny god, the PC is my go to.
Presumably the author has already purchased the Mac, in which case, s/he's already obtaining the benefit from that purchase. To rationally justify the replacement cost (which is not just the cost of the hardware itself, but the opportunity cost of learning the new platform, purchasing new software, etc.), the benefits of switching have to be greater.
It's those benefits--not necessarily of the platform itself, but of switching--that aren't clear to me.
My reading of the author was that he (Owen Williams) switched when he needed to upgrade. He had a Macbook which suited him for a few years, and now needed to decide to go with the late 2016 models or buy into PCland (which gave him much more bang-for-buck).
Gaming, VR, upcoming 3D and Cortana are a few reasons I can think of why someone might pick Windows over MacOS.
I think you're discounting the performance aspect as well - if workload X is too slow on the fastest mac, it may well still run on a windows machine since they can be specced higher. Cost isn't a factor for everyone - sometimes you literally just need the fastest possible machine, in which case Windows can be it.
Am I missing something or does this seem like one thing? Or is there use case for VR that isn't gaming? And what is 'upcoming 3D' exactly?
>if workload X is too slow on the fastest mac, it may well still run on a windows machine
Can't argue with that, but what are such workloads if you are not game developer? Wouldn't cluster of Linux servers always be a better choice? Unless of course you are die hard Windows fan.
I was thinking media editing/consumption (e.g. Video production, music making etc.). Presumably the Machine Learning GPU crowd get some use out of Windows machines too
After that, it depends on what you are doing. I develop using a PC, macbook (for iOS builds usually) and a Linux machine (running mint).
Linux is best for Node/JS heavy development, IMO, largely because of the long filenames in Nodeland and the general linux-first documentation and help. Recently I have found its also pretty good for Dotnet Core development. The OS is nice as well as in that sort of bare-metal coding, it kind of gets out of the way.
Windows, either with VS or VS Code, is for things that require a lot of power or are huge (usually related): Docker stuff is easier, solutions with hundreds of projects, etc. When I want to throw code against a tiny god, the PC is my go to.