"IT professional" does typically lean more towards that yes, but it also encompasses software developers.

If they work professionally in IT, then they're by definition "IT Professionals".

Absolutelly, the definition of "IT Professional" starts at lower (or maybe the correct term would be "more generic, maintenance-oriented and less specialized") levels of domain expertise than "Software Developer" and most people out there's contact with an "IT Professional" won't include a software developer (even in the average business, which is unlikely to directly use Programmers but will almost certainly use the services of System Administrators and Network Engineers), but saying they're not IT Professionals would be a bit like saying that the people who design cars aren't Auto Industry Professionals, only Car Mechanics are.

Mind you, I don't disagree that Programming is closer to Engineering: my point is that Engineering IT Systems is still a profession in IT, just like car design (in the technical sense) is both an Engineering practice and a profession in the Auto Industry.

I work in devops.....

did apple pay you to write this

IMHO,

Windows has completelly stopped its trend of becoming less shit over time and has actually started going backwards.

Modern Macs (having used both, I would say they aren't really direct descendants of the original Macs but rather they're major redesigns) already started at a point when usuability could be done better, kept improving for longer and, even though they stopped improving in terms of usability, unlike Windows they haven't gone back.

Linux is the only one that still keeps on improving (though usuability-wise it started ever further back than Windows), though slower than the others and often in a two-steps-forward-and-one-back fashion, so it's about to go past Windows (one might stay that it has already done so in usability and is only the large number of Windows-only applications that keeps Windows ahead) and hopefully will eventually pass Macs too.

Whilst what I expect for Linux has a big dollop of hopefulness, for the rest I think it's pretty obvious that Windows has never surpassed Macs in terms of usability and will never do.

the point I’m going for is that Mac is also for nerds,

Don't you find them extremely restrictive and hard to repair? I know they want the walled garden, and absolutely don't want anyone opening up a Mac/iphone and changing hardware other than a Apple tech. That removes all the fun from tinkering with and customizing your stuff.

I too been in IT for over 20 years and most people I've seen using Macs were Graphics Designers and Marketing types.

I've seen but a handfull of IT Professionals using them and I've seen significantly more IT Professionals using Linux for work than Macs.

My experience covers a couple of countries and various industries since I've worked as a contractor (a kind of Freelancer) for most of the time so moved around a lot more than people working as permanent employees would.

Maybe one or two people I've seen using Macs cared about it being Unix under the hood and I think all of those were the above mentioned IT Professionals who used Macs.

People doing Graphics Design and other such digital media work (which is how Marketing types commonly ended up using it) really loved them because they were easy to use, had proper color calibration together with really great quality high resolution screens (the first properly supported 4K computer screens were Mac), plus the whole Adobe Suite as well as pretty much all other top professional design and media work software has full native Mac versions. These people were, however, not computer experts in the IT Professional sense of the word (even the Graphics Designers working on Tech Startups were tech users, not tech experts) and did not at all value the "Unix under the hood" characteristic of Macs.

Which group do programmer socks put me in?

I say... where is your top hat, Sir! This is not stone story of a layabouts IT group! Have you no decency, Sir!