
The Mac Is a Great Dev Box - robconery
http://wekeroad.com/2011/09/14/fanboy-mac-post#comment-313419273
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bryanlarsen
Sure, if you're coming form a Windows box. Compared to a Linux box, it's a
wash (at least for LAMP development). There are some nice tools available on
OS X, but there are also advantages to developing in the same environment
you'll be deploying to.

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pavel_lishin
> there are also advantages to developing in the same environment you'll be
> deploying to.

Like what?

And is this still true if you're developing on a VM that's the same
environment that you'll be deploying to?

(Mac user running LAMP stack Ubuntu in Virtualbox here.)

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jabwork
I had a hard time connecting "development on VMs is a good idea because ..."
to "Mac is the ideal VM host OS"

AFAIK everyone agrees that Mac hardware can be gotten cheaper by not buying it
inside a Mac. Why not assemble a PC, install a VM, and then run windows-in-
windows?

This is all coming from someone who exclusively programs on linux boxes, so
maybe I'm missing something?

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jinushaun
A lot of people buy Macs specifically for the hardware design and build
quality. I've gone the hackintosh route before, but at the end of the day, I'd
still rather have Apple hardware. There's nothing comparable from the PC guys.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I'd rather have Apple software. Best of both worlds - a pretty UI, with a *nix
backend. I literally couldn't go back to working on a Windows laptop now.

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misterbwong
For those of you developing on a VM Windows instance: how do you keep your
snapshots relatively clean and up to date without having to spend XX hours re-
customizing it after reloading? I've wanted to force all my .NET coding onto a
VM but the maintenance factor is unappealing.

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amjith
I recently switched to Mac for my primary dev from Linux. It's not the most
conducive for Python development.

The GUI toolkits (wxPython and PyQt) are only 32-bit compatible. Some
dependency with Carbon. So I have to tweak my environment when I write GUIs.

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rickette
What I find most appealing about OSX is that it offers Unix with a great GUI
out-of-the-box. You have the power of bash at your fingertips while still
benefiting from a friendly interface.

~~~
otaku888
What's unfriendly about gnome and KDE? I've been running Linux Mint now for a
couple of years as my primary dev machine in a windows network and the gui is
top notch. Personally I find the OSX gui conventions a little screwy and
awkward.

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pavel_lishin
A friend convinced me to buy a Macbook, and I haven't looked back since. I
develop web apps in Virtualbox running a LAMP stack on Ubuntu, and it's pretty
amazing.

I used to work on a Dell, running Windows. I will never, ever go back to that.

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rickette
I've been doing Java/OSS development on Mac for a couple of years. I agree
about the Mac being a great dev box, but I don't buy the "Your Dev Box Should
Be Virtual" story. Sounds like a real productivity killer.

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sp332
This link is to a comment, should be <http://wekeroad.com/2011/09/14/fanboy-
mac-post>

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clistctrl
I recently bought a mac book air with Lion after my 3rd problem with the
screen on my work provided Lenovo (T410s).

I've been using VMWare Fusion to develop. For the most part, I've been really
loving it. The performance is pretty good, and it's nice to have osx for my
non .net stuff. However there are a few areas I ran into problems. First I
found I had to disable hardware acceleration in order to get WPF controls
work. This has impacted rendering performance more than i'd wish. Second, and
more painful, I've had issues with USB devices working (again a problem with
the VM). For the most part I can work around these issues, but the work
arounds have impacted me in undesired ways (for instance the application i'm
working on requires a dongle for security, i've been working around it by
leaving a hack in the code... but once I accidentally checked it in..).
Finally, and probably my most petty (but most frustrating issue) is there is
no home/end key (though i did find fn left and fn right work)

