7

We have a few tags for operating systems: (but no tag…). Each of these has only two questions, and I wonder: are operating system tags worth it?

On the one hand, there are some OS-specific questions that arise from time to time. So, having OS tags allow one to sift through them conveniently. On the other hand, Mathematica is designed to be cross-platform, and such issues appear very rarely (mostly, I think, about window decorations and keyboard shortcuts). Also, Mathematica users often try to write portable, and most questions involving OS-depend details actually give details for all three supported platforms.

  • So, should we have OS tags?
  • Should we close them as synonyms of a more general or or tag? (I don't like any of these three names, but you get the idea)
  • Should we simply remove these tags, as the questions would do fine without them?
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12

I think, these tags are useful, for at least two reasons:

  • Things like installation, administration, short-cuts, and also some Mathematica functionality are OS-specific. And people will appreciate separate tags, so that they can search directly, say for MacOSX, etc
  • Even if the major part of Mathematica itself is cross-platform, many other things to which it can connect, and with which it can inter-operate, either are not, or have platform-specific features.
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  • True, and some functionality is not available on all platforms (e.g., sound recording on Macs), which might require workarounds using jlink/netlink etc. – rm -rf♦ Apr 20 '12 at 23:29
  • Enabling Antialiasing is a good example of a very platform-specific quest. – David Apr 22 '12 at 20:29

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