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OS X Isn't for Developers

zachholman.com

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Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#201

Post by benatkin »

nupark wrote: post #182
technomancy wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. We've got a mixed team of Ubuntu/Macosecks people, and _nobody_ does actual development work on OS X any more. It's a lot more convenient if your development environment matches your deployment environment. Working otherwise is swimming upstream.

Requiring an exact match between deployment and development is swimming upstream, as you'll quickly introduce unintentional dependencies on specific facets of your host OS. Plus, having to use VMs for development is even worse, why slow yourself down with non-native tooling?

The way you phrase this makes it a pain to debate, to I'll try saying it a different way first. You give two reasons for not developing inside VMs:

* It forces you to deal with different configurations, which results in being able to move between systems more easily. * It's slow.

The problem with your argument about dependencies is it invites distraction. The cross-environment difficulties don't happen when you control; they happen on their own schedule. The proper way to make sure things are portable is to have a process for it.

As for the performance thing, that may or may not be an issue. It's not wise to just assume it's going to be an issue. Usually a VM is fast enough for development.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#202

Post by ThomPete »

actf wrote: post #198
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…

Say that for Visual Studio or Eclipse which aren't as polished in some aspects, crash frequently, or run on platforms that crash frequently. (I'm not saying that VS or Eclipse share all 3 of those properties, and the crashing bit refers to Windows). I've never used Xcode, but I do use Visual Studio everyday, on Windows 7. In the 5+ years I've been using Visual Studio I've been very happy with it as an IDE. Prior to 2…

You've used Windows 7 for 5+ years.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#203

Post by Que »

ThomPete wrote: post #202
actf wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say that for Visual Studio or Eclipse which aren't as polished in some aspects, crash frequently, or run on platforms that crash frequently. (I'm not saying that VS or Eclipse share all 3 of those properties, and the crashing bit refers to Windows). I've never used Xcode, but I do use Visual Studio everyday, on Windows 7. In the 5+ years I've been using Visual Studio I've been very happy with it as an IDE. Prior to 2…

You've used Windows 7 for 5+ years.

He said he's been using Visual Studio for 5+ years, not Windows 7.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#204

Post by Groxx »

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…

Too-late-to-edit: here's LLVM too: http://llvm.org/releases/download.html#2.8

Courtesy of rayiner at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2311657

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#205

Post by otterley »

zenocon wrote: post #174
otterley wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Check the fine print (http://www.microsoft.com/web/websitespark/support.aspx?tab=P...): It's only free for 3 developers per company. Arguably enough for personal use, but won't cover many organizations.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#207

Post by jaybuff »

holman wrote: post #9
darkhelmetlive wrote: post #2

The few of points I've made about this are: 1. The Xcode 4 download compared to Xcode 3 is basically just a different IDE. The gcc version is, for all intents and purposes, identical. There's nothing stopping anybody from just installing that if all they need is the toolchain. 2. The other big 2 OS's (Windows and Ubuntu) don't have any build tools installed by default either. Granted they are just an apt-get away on…

I'm so down with an apt-get (or in this case, brew install) for build tools. That's really what I'm getting at. It'd be great if it were installed by default, but if it were just accessibile by any means it'd be a massive step up. Most people don't need all of Xcode.

If there was a package manager for os x that shipped binaries we wouldn't be in this predicament either. brew building from source is just as much to blame as os x not shipping gcc with default install.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#208

Post by dgreensp »

holman wrote: post #60
sabat wrote: 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.

I'll pay $100 for Xcode and not use it and not even care. We're not the point. It's the casual users that want to get into a library that I'm concerned about. That want to use a C library on their machine. That want to use ImageMagick in their PHP site. Those are the ones that an unavailable gcc hurt the most.

Apple's gcc is freely available and open source. If you have a specific reason for non-programmers to need a C compiler on their machine, you can even make an installer for it.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#209

Post by MobyTurbo »

diamondhead wrote: post #131

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…

Hey, Mr. Power User who relies on delicious, you'd better export your delicious bookmarks and take them elsewhere, Yahoo has decided they need to cut corners and is shutting it down.

Re: OS X Isn't for Developers

#210

Post by chalst »

rayiner wrote: post #120
nl wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its been demonstrated many times that Apple charges these $5 fees for previously free tools and applications because of SOX compliance laws... Its rather obvious its about SOX. No, it's not at all. The only "evidence" for that is a bunch of uninformed developers speculating about things they know nothing about. OTOH, there is quite a bit of evidence that this isn't the case: 1) Why didn't they charge before? They've…

Just a law student, but I can buy the SOX thing. Companies have very different approaches to compliance, get advice from different counsel, account for things in different ways, etc. I feel like there is a Occam's Razor argument in here. What purpose besides SOX could Apple have in not giving away XCode 4? Could be pure greed as others are saying, but when Apple wants to make money they're incredibly good at it. How…

The SOX rules are about products. Developer tools are a service that repays OS sellers in their being used, because without tailoring the tools developers use, they lose influence on the direction that

Lawyers are good at scaring people, but the SOX thing sounds too much of a stretch for something that is not a revenue item. Charging for it will complicate the accounting. I guess they want to simplify the way they run the ADC.

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