Why Macs instead of AMD or Intel ? Just curious

Rails
21

I think the virus thing is one of those “I’ve got a Mac, so there”
things. Avoiding viruses is not why I use a Mac (I use Mac, Windows, and
Linux). The initial observation was that (paraphrasing) a
disproportionate number of Rails developers are using Macs when compared
with Mac penetration into the market. Why would that be?

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.

Craig W. wrote:

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.

22

Tom M. wrote:

On Jan 27, 2006, at 11:12 PM, Steve R. wrote:

Hey, and in case nobody else noticed, 37s is predominently a Mac shop.

And, would rather hire Macintosh users than Windows users.

http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000433.html
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/msg/12318b8d5e7ad8af
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/msg/475d868d9f86302c

–
– Tom M.

I don’t follow this statement:

“On the other hand, if you want to work with open source technologies
like the Rails stack of Apache/lighttpd, MySQL/PostgreSQL, Ruby/Rails,
etc, I find a strong disconnect with doing so from Windows. It’s just
not a natural fit neither from a technological, cultural, or political
perspective. Actively pursuing or celebrating this unnatural fit raises
a red flag for me.”

Come on, Macs, OSX, and its programs (like TextMate) are CLOSED source.
What connection is there to open source, besides OSX’s FreeBSD heritage?

Joe

23

On Jan 28, 2006, at 12:12 AM, Joe wrote:

“On the other hand, if you want to work with open source technologies
like the Rails stack of Apache/lighttpd, MySQL/PostgreSQL, Ruby/Rails,
etc, I find a strong disconnect with doing so from Windows. It’s just
not a natural fit neither from a technological, cultural, or political
perspective. Actively pursuing or celebrating this unnatural fit
raises
a red flag for me.”

Come on, Macs, OSX, and its programs (like TextMate) are CLOSED
source.

I think he means that those technologies emanated from Unix systems, are
developed first and foremost on and for Unix systems, and that Mac OS
X is
first and foremost a Unix system.

What connection is there to open source, besides OSX’s FreeBSD
heritage?

  1. Macintosh OS X ships with Apache/Ruby preinstalled (and MySQL on
    Server)
  2. That’s a lot of heritage. :slight_smile:

Your point is well taken, but seriously, Mac OS X ships with a lot
more
open software and tools than Windows does…

–
– Tom M.

24

Come on, Macs, OSX, and its programs (like TextMate) are CLOSED source. What connection is there to open source, besides OSX’s FreeBSD heritage?

There’s quite a few OSS projects developed by Apple… here’s a complete
list:
developer.apple.com/darwin/projects

25

Bingo. That’s all I was asking. Just curious. I already knew some
reasons for those to choose Macs and in this thread learned some other
reasons as well as some things about the RoR community (good and bad).

Greg

26

Your answer counts but Macintosh is known to perform terribly as a db
server.

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p=6

there are many other similar comparisons/discussions on the net.

don’t use a Macintosh OSX server if performance counts.

Craig

27

Tom M. wrote:

What connection is there to open source, besides OSX’s FreeBSD
heritage?

  1. Macintosh OS X ships with Apache/Ruby preinstalled (and MySQL on
    Server)
  2. That’s a lot of heritage. :slight_smile:

Your point is well taken, but seriously, Mac OS X ships with a lot
more
open software and tools than Windows does…

–
– Tom M.

That certainly seems to be true, and it seems to have all the latest and
greatest, all ready to go, with a highly-polished window environment on
top. Windows straight out of the box is next to useless. And Linux can
take a great deal of configuring; drivers and supported hardware still
seem to be quite a problem; its dearth of commercial apps; and its
desktop is a far cry from OSX (and even Windows IMO).

What’s a good used Mac notebook to buy for those of us who have other
things to spend $2000-$2500 (for the latest and greatest) on? Something
with at least 13-14 inches of screen.

Joe

28

On Jan 27, 2006, at 11:59 PM, Joe wrote:

Why not use Linux and cut to the chase? I prefer to use GUI
bother anymore. Setting up PostgreSQL pre 8.x under cygwin on Windows
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. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

BTW, does anybody use Macs as actual production servers? I don’t
recall
ever hearing of anybody.

Joe

Joe-

My biggest rails project to date runs on a dual g5 apple xserve with

Tiger server. It runs great and serves 70,000+ dynamic page views/day
without breaking a sweat. http://yakimaherald.com. I also run
numerous debian servers with rails apps on them and it is a great
platform for rails as well. Just the fact that OSX has unix at its
heart but has the commercial apps I need like photoshop, flash et all
is a good reason to use macs. The bang for the buck of raw power
might not be there compared to normal whitebox x86 hardware but the
productivity I get on my osx dev and production machines is very
nice. It really isn’t that different running a rails app under lighty
on OSX or debian , I do most of the stuff from the cli anyways. But I
do all my dev on OSX not because of viruses or anything like that,
just because it is a very nice gui environment with textmate and
other nice commercial apps and it has unix at its core. I spend a ton
of my time in the cli and have many linux boxes around as well but
the mac is a great combination of things for me that adds up to a
great experience where I can be more productive then with any other
environment I have tried. And I have tried them all.

Windows has gotten much better but it is undeniably bloated and

doesn’t offer me any advantages over linux or osx so I dont use it at
all except to test my apps in windows browsers.

YMMV

Cheers-

-Ezra Z.
WebMaster
Yakima Herald-Republic Newspaper
[email protected]
509-577-7732

29

  1. That article speaks to MySQL performance, and I don’t use MySQL.

  2. The issue has to do with how OS X syncs data to disk, and there
    has been quite a bit of discussion, mostly fruitless and over
    heated, about who does it “right” and such. That article, in
    particular, took quite a lot of heat for misidentifying the cause
    of the performance problem was being slow thread creation. Notice
    that I have not suggested that OS X is a leading performer.

  3. Choosing a platform based solely on performance could easily be
    considered a premature optimization. When the site threatens to
    go under due to DB performance, it will be very easy to move it
    to another system, or upgrade the Macintosh.

  4. As I mentioned, the site contains elements written in Objective-C.
    Performance comparisons are pointless when your software must be
    served from a particular OS for non-performance reasons.

  5. As Ezra pointed out specifically, the performance “issue” is a
    purely relative issue, and few sites will ever reach traffic
    levels that will saturate a modern Macintosh running OS X. See
    point #3 above.

  6. A site that is remotely rooted on any platform performs far
    below OS X during the time it takes to reconstitute the site
    in a secure fashion. I don’t care if it’s obscurity, technical
    majesty, or an act of God, but OS X has never been remotely
    rooted (unless perhaps through a security issue in the
    application it’s serving, but that wouldn’t count, would it?).

P.S. I absolutely adore FreeBSD (and friends) and Linux and on
Intel boxes.

–
– Tom M.

30

I use macs for production servers running rails apps. Why not? Not
that I am famous or anything, does my answer still count?

bruce

31

There really isn’t much purpose to an extended platform debate on this
list and I hate to prolong it. This wasn’t my testing and I only linked
it to point out that their are some respected opinions that have
performed tests and made conclusions that are worthy of consideration.

The issue of MySQL was that for testing. If you read through the entire
article, they point out that the problem is endemic to OSX because of
their problems with threading which if true, performance issues would
extend to PostgreSQL etc.

for example…Workstation, yes; Server, no. - No more mysteries: Apple's G5 versus x86, Mac OS X versus Linux

“The server performance of the Apple platform is, however,
catastrophic.”

You can’t sugar coat their conclusion…

I am not technically capable of repeating their testing or evaluating
their methodology or conclusions but it does track with reports that I
have seen from others who have moved off Mac OSX servers that faltered
under load.

Of course Macintosh OSX Server works and is usable and is a viable
option, but considering Anandtech’s evaluations that under load from 5
simultaneous clients, it will perform much slower than other servers,
it’s probably advisable to use another platform.

Craig

32

I read somewhere that all of the core Rails team uses TextMate on OS
X. Not 100% sure if that’s true or not but if so I think it makes
sense. I like Rails because it’s very powerful and elegant and doesn’t
get in my way. I like OS X for exactly the same reasons. I wonder if
the Rails team makes the same comparison?

Here’s an interesting snippet from the Rails blog: First some guy
weighs in on news that a new user manual was released for TextMate.
Look who responded to him.

Louis said 1 day later:
Iâ??m planning on reading this over the holidays to convince me to buy a
Mac â?? just for TextMate. Of course, my life would be so much simpler if
youâ??d just release a Windows version â?? or work with another programmer
to do it, or something. Iâ??m going crazy here without it. _Sigh_s with
longing.

David Heinemeier H. said 1 day later:
Louis, consider TextMate the tip of the iceberg. Once youâ??ve switch
over, itâ??s just one of the many wonderful aspects of OS X. Youâ??ll thank
Allan not so much for TextMate as for making you do the switch :wink:

33

On 28/01/2006, at 11:42 AM, Greg wrote:

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).

Since this thread seems to be on the verge of degenerating in to a
flame war I’ll inject my opinions :wink:

Because.
I have to use the machine for 8-12 hours each day, otherwise I won’t
get paid. I want a machine that fits me, something that conforms to
what I want, something that Just Works. I’ve never found this with
Windows, I found it with OS X, and that was that.

I deploy to Linux, but that’s because I can get cheap deals. I’d
deploy to OS X just because I like the platform.

–
Phillip H.
[email protected]
http://www.sitharus.com/

34

Reasons I use a Mac for RoR development:

  1. Security. ie: no virus’s.
  2. Less evil than that Redmond company
  3. Textmate
  4. BSD core
  5. Macs are cool, PC are boring little boxes.
35

On 29 Jan 2006, at 04:51, Guest wrote:

For the same reason no one buys a Gucci bag to store old newspapers
in.
With a Mac, you’re spending a lot of money on the culture and “hip”-
ness
of owning a Mac. If all you really want to do is run a server that no
one will see, there’s no reason to spend 2x for the same hardware.

I infamously (within the FreeBSD community at least) wrote this:

http://tinyurl.com/8mklk

just two months before ordering my iBook which I am writing this on.
If you can’t beat them, join them. Bizzarely, because I was working
at UK University at the time, the reason I went with the iBook was
because it was the cheapest 12" laptop I could get with integrate
WiFi, Bluetooth and a decent chunk of RAM and HDD space - with
educational discount it was £400 cheaper than the nearest similar
specification intel based machine.

As laptops go, I miss my ultralight Thinkpad (it was an old 240, one
of the best little laptops I ever owned), but I like the fact that I
have Unix under the hood without Cygwin (uugggghhh!) or being forced
into spending hours configuring X and struggling to work with KDE
instead. OS X has seemed to hit a sweet spot, and I expect once
they’ve worked out how to get Windows and FreeBSD booting on the
intel Apple kit, all my hardware will move over 100% to Apple
hardware on the desktop side. I’ll stick with HP and Dell for servers
though. I probably spend 80% of my time on OS X now.

As for the apps and development environment, I’m finding apps now
that I can only use here that are genuinely useful. I do miss some
Windows apps, but not enough to make me want to switch back - it
would be nice to have them available however. In general, I’m pretty
happy with where I am now.

That said, my install is rather customised and I’ve had to turn a lot
of stuff off (the dock, bouncing icons, improve the keyboard
shortcuts, etc.) and it is rather slow on my 1.2Ghz G4 which is
annoying. Later today I think I might attempt a reinstall to try and
get some performance back.

Anyway, if you ever want to flame an Apple user, I hope my above
example provides ample inspiration or even a template for how it is
done…

If I were advising somebody thinking about moving to the kit now, I’d
say “Wait for 6 months, pick up what comes next”. Hope that helps.

–
Paul R._______________________________________________
Rails mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

36

Joe wrote:

BTW, does anybody use Macs as actual production servers? I don’t recall
ever hearing of anybody.

Joe

For the same reason no one buys a Gucci bag to store old newspapers in.
With a Mac, you’re spending a lot of money on the culture and “hip”-ness
of owning a Mac. If all you really want to do is run a server that no
one will see, there’s no reason to spend 2x for the same hardware.

Jake

37

As laptops go, I miss my ultralight Thinkpad (it was an old 240,
one of the best little laptops I ever owned), but I like the fact
that I have Unix under the hood without Cygwin (uugggghhh!) or
being forced into spending hours configuring X and struggling to
work with KDE instead. OS X has seemed to hit a sweet spot, and I
expect once they’ve worked out how to get Windows and FreeBSD
booting on the intel Apple kit, all my hardware will move over 100%
to Apple hardware on the desktop side. I’ll stick with HP and Dell
for servers though. I probably spend 80% of my time on OS X now.

Yeah, well, if you’re a whizkid and can get OS X running on a MacTel,
you’ll get it for free (and can even buy you another two MacBooks),
the contest is at $8000 for the moment.

http://winxponmac.com/The%20Contest.html

Best regards

Peter De Berdt

38

Paul R. wrote:

Anyway, if you ever want to flame an Apple user, I hope my above
example provides ample inspiration or even a template for how it is
done…

If I were advising somebody thinking about moving to the kit now, I’d
say “Wait for 6 months, pick up what comes next”. Hope that helps.

I think you misunderstood my remark. I was answering why Apple hardware
isn’t so often used as servers. Servers generally don’t need fancy
GUIs. Servers aren’t seen in coffee shops. Servers don’t need fancy
graphics or have to power 30" displays. Servers need to do their job,
only their job, and do it well.

I understand why people own Mac hardware (I have a mini). It’s really
nice stuff and I like the OS (except for the fact that the fonts are bad
and need 50% more real estate than my Windows box to be usable).

While the OS is solid enough to run as a server (it’s BSD, afterall),
there’s just no reason to pay for the OS or pay for the fancy brushed
aluminum cases and glowing Apple logo – when it is going into a server.

Jake

39

Louis, consider TextMate the tip of the iceberg. Once you’ve switch
over, it’s just one of the many wonderful aspects of OS X. You’ll thank
Allan not so much for TextMate as for making you do the switch :wink:

Soooooo… Apple is eventually going to buy Ruby and Rails, close it’s
source, and require it’s run on OSX.
I know this would never happen… but c’mon people… do you not see the
eminent world domination of Apple !?

Keep it freeeeeeeeeee !

40

On Jan 28, 2006, at 12:05 PM, Joe wrote:

What’s a good used Mac notebook to buy for those of us who have other
things to spend $2000-$2500 (for the latest and greatest) on?
Something
with at least 13-14 inches of screen.

iBook G4

–
– Tom M.