Mac vs. PC for programming
ardichoke
Icrontian
I've been avoiding this thread until now... but seriously Annes? A Mac if you're going to do programming? I mean... yeah, if you're developing for OSX then a Mac is a good choice, but if you're getting into Windows development why waste the money on a Mac that you're just going to have to install Windows on anyway? Save the money and get a PC. Of course, me being me and having gone to the school I went to, I'm a firm believer that *nix (more specifically in my case, Linux) is the best development environment. Perhaps that's just because my CS department was all Linux, all the time... from what I've seen the array of coding and debugging tools is far beyond that of OSX or Windows. Even the people I knew that had Macs in my department only used them to remote into the CS department terminal server when it came to development.
0
Comments
Interesting argument, Macs / OS X are a poor choice for Windows programming, but *nix is the best dev environment?
If you like *nix environments, then it should interest you that OS X is 100% POSIX compliant, whereas most Linux distributions are not - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX#POSIX-oriented_operating_systems.
Yeah... that occurred to me while driving to work. If you ask me, what platform you use for development is generally dictated by what platform you are developing for and I was thinking in terms of myself being more interested in developing things for the web hosting industry which would likely be run on Linux.
I guess upon balanced reconsideration, the point I should make is that I wouldn't say that any one platform is inherently better for development than another since it would generally be easier to develop for Windows on Windows, for OSX on OSX or for Linux on Linux. As for things like java development, development of cell phone apps, etc., can you honestly say that one platform is always better than another for development? I highly doubt it. It's going to come down to what environment the developer is comfortable in.
Not saying it's right or wrong, just explaining why many people will never accept that OSX and Linux are equivalent, deep down.
I'm splitting it
@Snark - UNIX does not mean open source.
@ardichoke:
Agreed. To say any one platform is always better would be presumptuous, being comfortable with your environment goes a long way.
That being said - I write 99% of my code (for all 3 major OS's) without ever leaving OS X. Like Annes - I definitely prefer the environment and tools available, and most of the platform specific code I need can generally be tested in VirtualBox. Anything that can't be virtualized, is tested with Bootcamp.
This is partially true, yes there may be inconsistencies in functionality, but that's actually because Linux falls short, rather than OS X. While Apple may use proprietary code, compliance to the SUS (specifically UNIX 03) means, that any code written in OS X will function identically on any other system that is compliant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification
OS X isn't perfect by any means, but it does comply to the universally accepted standard, and thus there are no "inherent incompatibilities", when programming to spec.
Conversely, when developing for Linux, on Linux, there is no guarantee that the software will function as written
Far too few
I heard Linux is only free if you download it on Kazaa Lite.
I think that's the way it used to be. The licensing was free distribution but you needed to get it from someone who had a copy and could burn it for you. Now you can find licensed distribution places on the internet where you can download the CD image file.
The latest version of Ubuntu can be found and downloaded at www.ubuntu.com. I think it comes with everything you need for a dual boot system.
hear let me halp u http://www.linex.com/