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OS X Isn't for Developers

zachholman.com

161–170 of 252 posts

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#161
post #31

It's a ridiculous argument, first of all that $5 would deter anyone, secondly the clang/llvm binaries are available freely, which is the default compiler in Xcode. http://llvm.org/releases/download.html#2.8 GCC is freely available in source form.

Just a correction.

As far as I observed in my coworker Macbook gcc still is the default compiler in Xcode 4. Just compiled some software with it today, and it pops a lot of gcc's in ps aux.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#162
post #30

Compared to what other platform? Windows? Developer support out-of-the-box on Windows? Linux, sure, but Linux is since its inception a developer's OS. Mac OS lies somewhere in between. There are many happy developers running OS X, and paying $5 for XCode doesn't make me mad enough to rant. Dude, it's $5. You paid nearly that for Angry Birds.

It will make me mad IF Apple does not release Xcode outside the fucking App Store. I do not care paying for an IDE, that I do not use, but I still want a compiler, some assemblers (nasm and gas), and a working linker.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#163
>Apple releases their gcc package, installs it in Lion by default, or otherwise makes it available. This would be excellent. The holy grail would be if Homebrew could use this and we could just run brew install gcc. It would be a huge, huge impact to our community.

Or, you could JFGI[1]: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=apple+open+sourc...

Do people just not know about http://www.opensource.apple.com/ ? Apple's GCC source: http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/gcc/gcc-5646/ go ahead, compile it. Add it to Brew. It's still under GPL. They even include instructions on how to compile it, flags, everything. There's a lot in those readmes / changelogs.

It seems that every time someone laments that Apple is oh-so-closed and has-no-source and etc, they merely don't know about opensource.apple.com. I've seen "how could they not release it, it's GPL!" complaints all over the internet, and they sometimes go for months without someone doing a search anywhere for "apple open source". Or in this case, "apple gcc source", where the first link gives the location to download the source right in the very first sentence: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Develo...

[1]: http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#164
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of "XCode 3 is still free" do you not understand?

I was more reacting to the common argument that "$5 is not expensive". My apologies if that's not what they were addressing in this comment. That said, Xcode 3 doesn't satisfy the requirement of being easy or quick to install for a casual user.

What it comes down to is a question of principle. The argument that development tools should be free and readily available is a principle of software freedom.

I don't want to paint this as black & white, because things rarely are, but on the continuum of free (as in freedom) vs non-free, you'd have to live in a cave on the moon to still cling to the idea that Apple is anywhere near the free side of the scale.

You, as a developer, have to make a decision about how you will support your principles. Apple has certainly made theirs. They view their entire platform as theirs to do with as they wish. That is the anti-thesis of freedom. Do not expect this to change.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#165
post #132
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They why $5? Why not 1c, or 99c, or make it $99 and include a year's membership? I said it elsewhere, but I'll say it again here: can you really imagine Steve Jobs agreeing to charge for something he didn't want to charge for because of accounting practices ?

can you really imagine Steve Jobs agreeing to charge for something he didn't want to charge for because of accounting practices? They might have been lying, but Apple has publicly claimed this before: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/07/01/16/2127204/Apple-Ch...

This macworld article has the actual quote:

http://www.macworld.com/article/54948/2007/01/80211nfee.html

“The nominal distribution fee for the 802.11n software is required in order for Apple to comply with generally accepted accounting principles for revenue recognition, which generally require that we charge for significant feature enhancements, such as 802.11n, when added to previously purchased products,” said Teresa Brewer, Apple’s Mac hardware public relations manager.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#166

I agree with the title, but am not interested at the OSX / XCode stuff because I'm a very happy, satisfied Linux & Lenovo user. My old company tried to force me to use a Macbook Pro, saying "developer community uses it", and I refused, saying "I give no piece of .... to a software with stupid and pretty looking icons, windows etc." because that stuff requires us to use mouse/touchpad stuff, which are useless, time wa…

Friend of mine who loves VIM recently switched from Ubuntu on PC clone to OS X on MacBook Pro. He doesn't use a mouse for anything, ever. Just because the icons are there doesn't mean you have to click them. Sounds like you just need someone to show you how Mac keyboard customisation works.

VIM is an editor. I'm talking about the whole desktop environment, especially the windows, also tried to set some keyboard shortcuts while I was using the Macbook Pro my company gave me.

I know what I am missing (a useless, pretty looking hipster GUI) but have never seen an Apple user who knows what he misses.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#167

I agree with the title, but am not interested at the OSX / XCode stuff because I'm a very happy, satisfied Linux & Lenovo user. My old company tried to force me to use a Macbook Pro, saying "developer community uses it", and I refused, saying "I give no piece of .... to a software with stupid and pretty looking icons, windows etc." because that stuff requires us to use mouse/touchpad stuff, which are useless, time wa…

Hmm ... not saying xmonad and the like aren't awesome ... but as a full-time Mac dev who codes in Python, JS, and Obj-C, I can attest to the certainty that TextMate/Emacs + Alfred (or the like) + DTerm = nearly 0 use for a mouse all day long. And by "all day" I mean all night while coding, too.

The only thing I haven't yet figured out is a key combo for clicking a YouTube video to play (Flash is disabled except when clicked across all my browsers).

I'd downvote this if I could, cos it really does read as trolling and is definitely not on-topic.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#169
post #163

> Apple releases their gcc package, installs it in Lion by default, or otherwise makes it available. This would be excellent. The holy grail would be if Homebrew could use this and we could just run brew install gcc. It would be a huge, huge impact to our community. Or, you could JFGI[1]: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=apple+open+sourc... Do people just not know about http://www.opensource.apple.com/ ? Apple…

Assuming a just-bought vanilla Mac computer, how is someone supposed to install a tarball of GCC or LLVM/Clang sourcecode without a C compiler?

Keep in mind that OS X does not come with "make", "ld", "as", "nasm", "yasm", "gcc", "g++", "cc", "c++", or any others I may have missed.

I understand someone else could provide a pre-compiled package of GCC or Clang for the community, but that is not what the author is talking about in that point. He is specifically talking about end-users and developers of other languages besides C and Objective-C that may require installing packages that need to have native C extensions compiled. ruby-mysql comes to mind, as well as RVM, the Ruby Version Manager, becoming effectively useless without those Ruby developers being forced to buy Xcode, not for Xcode, but for GCC.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#170
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't arguing that Xcode is expensive. I'm arguing that the barriers to entry are pretty offensive if you need the capabilities of only gcc. An hour-long process involving credit cards isn't very nifty.

I'm baffled by the premise of this "casual" gem user who is worried about "barriers to entry" yet wants to use... gcc.

Go take a look at the source code for ruby-rmagick, ruby-pg, nokogiri, or mongrel.

https://github.com/rmagick/rmagick

https://github.com/ged/ruby-pg

https://github.com/tenderlove/nokogiri

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