My first computer was a Mac (SE30) but it was also my last so I am not
without appreciation of Apples wonderful aptitude for design. Without
starting a flame-fest why do so many ruby and rails developers use a Mac
?
It seems to be a commonality within the ruby and RoR community.
Especially
laptops. The first ruby users group meeting I attended was about 50%
Macs
(or so it seemed to me - I didn’t do a formal poll or anything).
Well, first of all you can have the best of both worlds now - mac and
intel. For me, the main selling point is OS X. It’s BSD with a
beautiful interface. That’s just the most kick ass OS I could think
of, to be honest.
Considering that *nix is just a very common, excellent
development/deployment platform, it makes a lot of sense to code on a
*nix box. I’ve noticed that developers tend to prefer laptops, and
there certainly is no better *nix laptop than an Apple.
My first computer was a Mac (SE30) but it was also my last so I am not
without appreciation of Apples wonderful aptitude for design. Without
starting a flame-fest why do so many ruby and rails developers use a Mac ?
It seems to be a commonality within the ruby and RoR community. Especially
laptops. The first ruby users group meeting I attended was about 50% Macs
(or so it seemed to me - I didn’t do a formal poll or anything).
The short answer is that OS X makes it possible, and Apple makes a
solid product.
I’ve owned several Macs over the years, although not for a while now.
I’m currently using a Thinkpad with Fedora Linux for my Rails
development.
Well, my work pc is an HP 3.6 GHz with 2 GB of memory and they are
starting
at less than a Mac laptop with more hardware stuff. While I know that
clock
speed isn’t everything, it does matter in many things and can beat a
well
developed and integrated machine (think Sun) and my work laptop is
sometimes
faster than my dual Opteron (2.0 GHz w/ 1 GB ram per processor). Yeah,
don’t think that doesn’t stick in my craw … I don’t know about
TextMate
other than what I read on this list but I am kinda fond of the Eclipse
IDE
with RadRails and RDT and the kitchen sink thrown in. Gotta love those
little green testing bars ! SVN support and the ability to work on any
DB
is a must for, me at any rate, in an IDE. And while all this is on
Windows,
I don’t feel any less a developer than a TextMate using Mac developer.
I
guess all the command line / vi stuff on servers has tempered me to
using
what I want when I want how I want. To each their own …
I think it’s really ironic that the guy asking why so many folks prefer
Mac has this as his (auto-appended?) sig:
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.14.21/236 - Release Date:
1/20/2006
The main reason I use a Mac for development is because when I want to
work, my computer is ready to go about 99.999% of the time. I can count
the number of crashes (kernel panics) I’ve encountered on one hand. I
rarely shut down my machine, just use instant on/off sleep. And the
insane virus, adware, spyware treadmill that plagues the PC world is
just someone else’s problem
To date, Windows has had tens of thousands of viruses, many of them
extremely severe resulting in tons of downtime and data loss for many
developers. On Mac OS X, there have been exactly zero viruses found
in the wild. Zero, nada, none. Not even one. People can debate why
that is, or how long it can stay that way, and so on. But one thing is
almost a certainty: Using a Mac for development almost guarantees that
you’ll spend less time monkeying with your machine which leaves more
time for developing Rails apps
I think the reason some people get so fanatical about Macs is because
it’s just frustrating to see all the suffering people put themselves
through unnecessarily. It’s like watching your friend swim in a muddy
pond complaining about all the algae and litter. And you’re like –
Dude, would you just listen to me?! I’m telling you there’s this
crystal clear swimming hole just over there with water that’s always 70
degrees! But the guy just keeps saying – naw, I’m all right. I just
gotta clear some of this litter and algae and then I should be okay for
a while. And you’re like – dude, are you insane?! It’s crystal clear
over there – it’d take you like five minutes to walk over there! For
the love of god – why do you guys all insist on swimming in this filthy
pond when you don’t have to?! (a mac zealot is born)
I hate Apple. They basically make you buy their products
I’m on a Thinkpad, running OpenBSD. My friend is on a Powerbook…
running
OpenBSD.
I’m planning on buying a MacBook as well… JUST for graphics programs,
presentation software… etc.
the love of god – why do you guys all insist on swimming in this filthy
pond when you don’t have to?! (a mac zealot is born)
Plus there’s TextMate
I love this description. I’ve probably spent about 5 minutes on a Mac
in my entire life. But lately I’m really starting to be tempted to
jump on into the clear water. I don’t quite have $2000 laying around,
but the fact that I’m even thinking about it leads me to believe I’m
not the only Windows person thinking of jumping ship.
gotta clear some of this litter and algae and then I should be
I love this description. I’ve probably spent about 5 minutes on a Mac
in my entire life. But lately I’m really starting to be tempted to
jump on into the clear water. I don’t quite have $2000 laying around,
but the fact that I’m even thinking about it leads me to believe I’m
not the only Windows person thinking of jumping ship.
Everyone thinking about switching, don’t forget about resale values.
Getting in is a bit expensive, but there has always been a vibrant
used market for old Macs that doesn’t exist for PCs.
So, the first switch is expensive, but the first upgrade you make
you whole again…
yah, one of my av’s is out of date by 7 days (since I only re-boot once
a
month). It’s an AMD (old one) running Windows 2000 Pro. I use OpenBSD
for
all of my servers, except my RoR server (easier getting RoR on Debian
then
OpenBSD). I guess I have been lucky + smart as I don’t have all of
those
windows problems - despite installing a million programs and abusing my
pc.
I also run 2 av’s, never use i.e. (except for security updates), ripped
out
scripting, and use SpamBayes on top of my Outlook. As for crash
worthiness
I have crashed Macs, OpenBSD, and just about anything else but I guess
OpenBSD is about the most stable here in my house. As I need machines I
can
stuff a lot of hard drives into I bought a dual Opteron instead of the
dual
Macs a while ago. The Opteron was cheaper also. But I am a big fan of
Mac
(and Sun) boxes. Of course with Apple’s
Don’t know what’s so ironic about it the (is auto-appended) sig - if
more
folks used AV’s there would be less of the nasty stuff about. Of course
a
good beating of miscreants would help too.
OK, I can understand the “hate Windows cause it’s so unstable for me”
argument. My day job is a MS shop … why I like my OpenBSD / Suse /
Debian
/ “my” Windows environment at home.
Oh there are tons of us on the edge Only bump in the road for me is
coming up with the $2500 for the new Intel Dual Core MacBook Pro (which
is
apparently 4-5x faster than its predecessor, the G4 powerbook).
The tail end of the keynote by Steve at MacWorld is pretty sweet.
Actually
the whole thing is. One thing I didn’t like so much was it felt like he
was
showing off a bit with his numbers, then kinda cut off people from
enjoying
them as well (weird I know).
I have tried setting up apache/MySQL/ruby/rails on my Centrino, and
well,
its slow. Really slow.
Watching all the screencasts I have how a Mac simply outperforms the
Intel
is reason enough. But fact is, they were demo’ing on the old G4 machines
(as
the new Intel’s ship in February).
If you haven’t already checked them out, take a peek at:
Pretty sweet features. Especially the new magnetic power cord
plug/connector.
I think it’s really ironic that the guy asking why so many folks prefer
Mac has this as his (auto-appended?) sig:
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.14.21/236 - Release Date:
1/20/2006
The main reason I use a Mac for development is because when I want to
work, my computer is ready to go about 99.999% of the time. I can count
the number of crashes (kernel panics) I’ve encountered on one hand. I
rarely shut down my machine, just use instant on/off sleep. And the
insane virus, adware, spyware treadmill that plagues the PC world is
just someone else’s problem
To date, Windows has had tens of thousands of viruses, many of them
extremely severe resulting in tons of downtime and data loss for many
developers. On Mac OS X, there have been exactly zero viruses found
in the wild. Zero, nada, none. Not even one. People can debate why
that is, or how long it can stay that way, and so on. But one thing is
almost a certainty: Using a Mac for development almost guarantees that
you’ll spend less time monkeying with your machine which leaves more
time for developing Rails apps
Jeez, that’s just ridiculous. I’ve used Windows computers since 3.1,
leave them hooked up to the Internet all the time, and have never gotten
a virus. And since 2000 and XP, crashes are quite rare. In my
experience, the key to not getting viruses is DON’T OPEN EXECUTABLE
EMAIL ATTACHMENTS! Oh, and maybe let Windows update itself once in a
while. And don’t use IE on sites you don’t trust.
the number of crashes (kernel panics) I’ve encountered on one hand. I
you’ll spend less time monkeying with your machine which leaves more
time for developing Rails apps
Jeez, that’s just ridiculous. I’ve used Windows computers since 3.1,
leave them hooked up to the Internet all the time, and have never gotten
a virus. And since 2000 and XP, crashes are quite rare. In my
experience, the key to not getting viruses is DON’T OPEN EXECUTABLE
EMAIL ATTACHMENTS! Oh, and maybe let Windows update itself once in a
while. And don’t use IE on sites you don’t trust.
the whole discussion is absurd. Viruses aren’t a problem if you keep AV
software on your machine and don’t run as administrator. Macintosh users
futz with their machines as much as Windows users do. They both have
their strengths and weaknesses. There’s no doubt that anyone could use
either.
I use both (rarely) - I mostly use Linux. Who cares? Isn’t there enough
traffic on this list already that a discussion about OS’s that never
leads anywhere and just adds to the noise?
I would consider it if they bring over the 17" Powerbook model into the
MacBook Pro.
Can’t see spending that type of money to downgrade from my 17"
widescreen
Dell, which I’ll point out has never crashed on me. That argument is not
as
valid nowadays as a few years ago. The argument that is valid, is that
it’s
easier to install a bunch of crap software on a PC that makes it
unstable.
I love this description. I’ve probably spent about 5 minutes on a Mac
in my entire life. But lately I’m really starting to be tempted to
jump on into the clear water. I don’t quite have $2000 laying around,
but the fact that I’m even thinking about it leads me to believe I’m
not the only Windows person thinking of jumping ship.
I jumped ship for $600 on a Mac Mini + 1GB RAM (which you can now get
refurbished for much less). It won’t convince you that macs are
faster by any stretch… but it did convince me the a happier
computing experience is possible. YMMV
the number of crashes (kernel panics) I’ve encountered on one hand. I
you’ll spend less time monkeying with your machine which leaves more
time for developing Rails apps
Jeez, that’s just ridiculous. I’ve used Windows computers since 3.1,
leave them hooked up to the Internet all the time, and have never gotten
a virus. And since 2000 and XP, crashes are quite rare. In my
experience, the key to not getting viruses is DON’T OPEN EXECUTABLE
EMAIL ATTACHMENTS! Oh, and maybe let Windows update itself once in a
while. And don’t use IE on sites you don’t trust.
the whole discussion is absurd. Viruses aren’t a problem if you keep AV
software on your machine and don’t run as administrator. Macintosh users
futz with their machines as much as Windows users do. They both have
their strengths and weaknesses. There’s no doubt that anyone could use
either.
I use both (rarely) - I mostly use Linux. Who cares? Isn’t there enough
traffic on this list already that a discussion about OS’s that never
leads anywhere and just adds to the noise?
Craig
Not for me - I don’t use AV and do run as Admin. Haven’t had any virus
problems. As for Linux, I KNOW I’ve spent far far more time futzing with
it.
My reason for getting a Mac in the first place is that I need it for
Photoshop. Well, times have changed, Photoshop has changed, and Windows
have changed. But I still like the Mac. Why I use a Mac for development
is that Windows and *nix are so dissimilar that I always ran into
configuration nightmares when deploying sites. Now most of those are
ironed out on the dev machine.
Why not use Linux and cut to the chase? I prefer to use GUI editors and
have relatively standard document processing tools available.
Hey, and in case nobody else noticed, 37s is predominently a Mac shop.
I do dev on Windows and serve on Linux. Haven’t had any significant
problems transferring between the two. Sometimes there’s the CRLF/LF
thing. I used to set up a web server and database on Windows, but don’t
bother anymore. Setting up PostgreSQL pre 8.x under cygwin on Windows
was much more involved. Now I just remote FTP/SVN edit files on the
server, and use a duplicate dev database if desired.
I’m not evangelizing Windows and Linux here, nor looking down on Macs.
What I’ve heard time and again about Macs is “It Just Works.”, while
with Windows and Linux it can take significant time installing and
configuring to get them to where you want. Packages like
gunwin/unixutils make Windows vastly more useful. I may eventually get a
Mac, but at this point I just don’t think the bang for the buck is
there, compared to my current setups. I sort of think that good coders
can still be fairly productive and produce good code on dumb terminals
using vi.
BTW, does anybody use Macs as actual production servers? I don’t recall
ever hearing of anybody.
