81–90 of 252 posts
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Because requiring yet another third party tool is just an extra barrier. And not everyone uses MacPorts anyway, personally I don't want to see MacPorts anywhere near my computer...
Not to mention you need GCC to build GCC
Wow, that's a long complaint-blog for $5! The cheapest new mac is $699 and the install DVD comes with XCode 3. Pretty sure new macs will come with XCode 4 preinstalled. I don't see how this is a problem. Even if you are building a Hackintosh, you're pirating OSX anyhow so pirating XCode too doesn't seem so far fetched. I have to use iPhoto'08 since that's what my Mac came with. But they just released iPhoto '11! Shou…
The price is just another barrier to entry to add to the list before you're up and running.
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…
> Its rather obvious its about SOX. To you, but obviously not to a lot of us. Please explain.
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Because then you'd need to ship binaries for every conceivable platform that your gem could be used on and you'd need to make some pretty fundamental changes to the whole Ruby gem distribution system (this probably applies to other languages and their libraries too).
Because then you'd need to ship binaries for every conceivable platform that your gem could be used on You don't. You ship binaries for the top 2-3 platforms and provide source for the rest. That's how open source projects have been doing things for ages . and you'd need to make some pretty fundamental changes to the whole Ruby gem distribution system Meh, it isn't insurmountable.
I wish it were that simple, but then you also have to worry about library versions (unless you really want to bundle all your dependencies too, bloating your little library from 10KiB to tens of megabytes, or more).
Also see this reply: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2311455
Meh, it isn't insurmountable.
Yeah, because forcing a huge infrastructure change is what we want to do for the sake of having poor GCC distribution on OS X.
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I don't understand. What does an accounting compliance law have to do with charging for previously free tools? And how were they able to release free tools in the years after 2002? What makes 2011 so special that they are compelled by law to start charging $5?
Previous major upgrades to XCode released with new versions of OSX and required that newer version to install/run. OSX 10.7 (Lion) has not released yet, so upgrading from 3.6 to 4.0 (Major upgrade) is not considered a maintenance release by Apple's accounting department. Paying members of the Apple Developer network subscribe ($99 per year) and one of the benefits is access to Beta releases of OS and tools. XCode 4.0…
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…
> Its rather obvious its about SOX. To you, but obviously not to a lot of us. Please explain.
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…
> Its rather obvious its about SOX. To you, but obviously not to a lot of us. Please explain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand. What does an accounting compliance law have to do with charging for previously free tools? And how were they able to release free tools in the years after 2002? What makes 2011 so special that they are compelled by law to start charging $5?
OS X ships with XCode. Apple has never released a major XCode upgrade in-between OS releases until now.
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…
I don't understand. What does an accounting compliance law have to do with charging for previously free tools? And how were they able to release free tools in the years after 2002? What makes 2011 so special that they are compelled by law to start charging $5?
Why don't they give it away for free, say with Software Update? Because of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (which was passed in the wake of the Enron scandal). iLounge quotes an Apple representative: "It's about accounting. Because of the Act, the company believes that if it sells a product, then later adds a feature to that product, it can be held liable for improper accounting if it recognizes revenue from the product at the time of sale, given that it hasn't finished delivering the product at that point."
For many types of development, there's this: http://vagrantup.com/ It makes VMs free and easier. It uses VirtualBox, an open source VM environment.
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.