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OS X Isn't for Developers

zachholman.com

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Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#171

Post by neild »

uxp wrote: post #169
Groxx wrote: 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 talki…

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?

Take the developer DVD that came with your Mac, put it in the drive, and double-click the install icon?

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#172

Post by scott_s »

rm445 wrote: post #96
geuis wrote: post #62

I disagree with all of the OP's points, except for one. Yes, Macs are incredibly popular with developers. 1) The reason I have always liked Macs since I was a kid is they basically come with what they need, and its easy to install extra stuff if you need it. Just because many developers like Macs doesn't mean that most Mac owners are developers. Most are just normal people who would wonder what is eating up extra spa…

All your points go off at a tangent to the original article. 1). Author doesn't claim that most Mac owners are developers. He attributes "a large part" of Apple's success to recommendations that began with developer mindshare. 2). It's not a burden to use the dev tools if you plan to use the dev tools, but it's a burden to install something on the scale of Xcode if some other tool you want to run just depends on the…

But they are bundled with the OS. They're just not installed by default.

Personally, I have a Mac, and I installed XCode for gcc. I've never used XCode itself. I did not consider it a burden; I did it once, over two years ago, as a part of setting up my MacBook. I have not thought about it since. Optimizing something that I do once everytime I get a new computer is of marginal value.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#173

Post by scott_s »

holman wrote: post #48
tvon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't involve credit cards as xcode 3 is still freely available. If Apple does not include the developer tools on the Lion DVD, and if they remove all free versions of xcode for download, then I don't doubt someone will package up the "build essentials" for OSX and make them available. To date there has been no reason to do this, but if there is a reason, there is nothing preventing it that I am aware of. edit:…

Xcode 3 doesn't solve the issue of it being a real pain in the butt to install. gcc by itself is much, much smaller and much less of an issue for a casual user to install.

I have installed new versions of gcc on Linux systems. Installing XCode is much, much easier.

But, your point was about developers. When did casual users come into the discussion?

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#174

Post by zenocon »

otterley wrote: post #158
dizm wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because Windows comes with gcc?

Last I checked, Visual Studio was WAY more expensive than $5.

VS 2010 is free if you sign up for their webspark program http://microsoft.com/web/websitespark/ -- so is MS Windows Server 2008, SQL Server, etc. Look, I'm no MS proponent. I'm an independent developer and I use all platforms, all tools, all languages. If you fellas watch the news, this URL is kinda like the Fox News of Apple fan-boi-ism. Fair & Balanced...it is not...tiresome...bah, let the downvotes begin.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#175

Post by bobwaycott »

To the crux of the article, from an experienced dynamic/static language developer on Mac, Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD:

The OP argues OS X isn't for casual, inexperienced, and green developers who run across some random gem/pkg/app/lib/etc online they think is cool and want to play around with, but are inconvenienced and sidetracked by needing to install gcc or other non-included toolchain packages.

I'd say by the time such a "casual user" hits this point, she begins crossing the line over casual & has sufficiently whet her appetite for more meaty endeavors. S/he might actually look at this "inconvenience" as fun, exciting, or something equally positive that increases his or her personal confidence upon completion (yes, even when it's just an installer on OS X). Now they have cool new tools available to them. They'd probably have an even greater boost in net positive feelings if Apple provided an Ubuntu-like console window during XCode installation that gave a nice terminal output of all the install's goings-on--s/he might feel a buildup of positive feelings for this systems-level, programmerish, "geeky" insider's view.

I'm afraid the OP is guilty of looking at the casual new developer from the perspective of the rushed and impatient developer who, like myself, just wants shit to work and work now.

When I pause for a moment to look at it from the not-so-casual-anymore user's perspective, however, I remember a good couple of years when I thought I was a badass cos I ran nothing but Gentoo Linux and chrooted, bootstrapped, and compiled every last package on my system from source for days. I'd watch compilations fill the screen and would have bet money I'd just grown an inch. I'd let that stick around a few weeks and then do it all over again for the excitement of it and to see if I could do it from memory. After a few tries, I actually could install Gentoo on a bare system without touching the manual, entirely from memory. This was almost 10 years ago, and I thought I was really something. But it was fun.

There's a lot of excitement when one starts crossing the line from casual to more meatier development & systems use. I'm doubtful there's as many negative feelings experienced by the audience championed by the OP as he'd like us to believe. Especially on OS X.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#176

Post by scott_s »

scott_s wrote: post #106
tvon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm pretty sure gcc can bootstrap and self-compile, but I don't know if macports is setup for that. edit: apparently it's not self-compiling, at least not in the way I was thinking.

You need an initial compiler for the boostrapping process. Obvious question: how did the first C compiler exist, then? Answer: it was implemented in assembly. And the first assembler was written in machine code.

It's been long enough that I can't edit what I wrote, but I forgot my history. The first C compiler was grown by modifying a B compiler that was implemented in B. That B compiler, however, was originally implemented in assembly: http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#177

Post by holman »

scott_s wrote: post #173
holman wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xcode 3 doesn't solve the issue of it being a real pain in the butt to install. gcc by itself is much, much smaller and much less of an issue for a casual user to install.

I have installed new versions of gcc on Linux systems. Installing XCode is much, much easier. But, your point was about developers. When did casual users come into the discussion?

There's a scale of developers: from people who regularly do this sort of thing, to people who are more casual about it. That's the type of audience that I like to write for sometimes: they'll use my library (which may use compiled code), but they haven't been exposed to this area of software development before. Designers are the best stereotype for this. Having a massive Xcode install is what I'm saying is detrimental to these sorts of casual users (a lot of the time it wouldn't be appropriate to call them "progammers", really).

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#178

Post by marshray »

otterley wrote: post #158
dizm wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because Windows comes with gcc?

Last I checked, Visual Studio was WAY more expensive than $5.

You can download application and device driver SDKs which come with command line C++ compilers at no charge. Pretty much the same compilers MS uses to build the OS itself and its own products.

There's also a no charge "express edition" of the IDE, but it was heavily crippled last time I checked.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#179

Post by nupark »

adsr wrote: post #104
telemachos wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GCC is freely available in source form. But of course, source code is useless to you if your computer has no compiler . I was pretty sure that at least part of Holman's argument was that Apple could easily do all of us a favor and just ship with gcc pre-built. ("All of us" meaning the devs who do all this for a living as well as the casual coders who might want to install a Ruby library with C extensions.) How woul…

Then compile it with llvm (if you absolutely must have GCC specifically), llvm is the new default compiler in Xcode. The link above has binaries both for clang and the GCC front end. Xcode 4 is still a pre-release, normally Xcode comes with the default OS X install disk. To make it available to non paying developers, it's been put on App store just one day ago. This is not a present problem, only a hypothetical futur…

Then compile it with llvm (if you absolutely must have GCC specifically), llvm is the new default compiler in Xcode. The link above has binaries both for clang and the GCC front end.

GCC is still the default compiler; Clang is still immature.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#180

Post by mitko »

eddieplan9 wrote: post #36
petercooper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I wasn't a dev, I'd be pissed to find out some compiler toolchain IDE gongshow eating up 5-15GB of my disk space Yeah, but the essentials that most command line builds require wouldn't even take up 10% of that. Apple already wastes gigabytes on printer drivers and extra languages you don't need.

Your house is not for developers! It did not come with a free computer when you bought it! Even though a computer would only cost as little as 0.2% of the cost of the house, and the previous owner already wasted tons of money on the useless peach trees in the yard.

hm, how come gcc comes for free on lunux, and install is as easy as: >> sudo apt-get install gcc
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