I was just wondering if from a linux software development perspective & software development perspective in general, if a Macbook is worth it. I know that the Look and feel is very good and all that. But I wanted to know more about how easy it is to coding on it (tools, IDE etc.). Mostly of the people whom I know that own a mac are not Software developers. They just bought it because they wanted the cool factor. So, I am not really able to judge it's need.
Thanks, Ajay G.
I know a lot of Software Developers who chose Mac OS because of its Unix Roots and decent GUI, not just "the cool factor".
You can get all linux development tools through MacPorts, plus you get Apple's own IDE for C/C++, Python and Java: XCode. XCode IMHO, is not as mature as MS Visual Studio, but it is definitely a good tool.
Of course you will also get all Java based Software Development Tools, including Eclipse with native SWT.
As a Linux fanboy, I held out against purchasing a new Mac for quite a while. I finally bit the bullet, however, and picked up the new Macbook after pouring several cups of coffee into my previous laptop (which was running CrunchBang and Linux Mint). It was one of the best purchases I've made in a long time.
I'm using the Macbook for coding in Java and Python, and plan on installing the next version of Flex Builder when Adobe releases it (I've been doing Flex development on my Linux PC for the past 8 months). I'm also learning the Cocao framework and the XCode IDE for developing Mac apps (just for fun). The tools I use to develop (Eclipse, Emacs, Vim, to name a few) were either included or easy to install, and I haven't had any problems with day-to-day coding. I'm also running CruchBang Linux in VirtualBox on the laptop, so I have a Linux distro immediately at hand.
I would highly recommend making the switch, if you are ready for a new system.
It's not a few big things that distinguish the Mac from Windows or Linux, it's the sum of a lot of small things, the attention to detail, that makes the switch to the Mac worth it. I consider myself a Windows programmer, but my main computer these days is a MBP. Here are some of the reasons:
Stuff just works. Installing or uninstalling software is a non-event. No big setup programs, no configurations that one has to take care of, no registry that gets polluted, programs are simply copied to the Application folder (or some other place) for installation, and get deleted for deinstallation. There's a lot of magic programmed into the OS so that it automatically detects these copy and remove operations, figures out which file types suddenly get recognized, etc. that end-users don't have to care about
OS X boots up really fast. At work, starting up my Windows machine, logging in, and opening up Outlook takes about ten minutes on a current dual core, 2.6 GHz, 2GB RAM machine, just because of Active Directory, pushed policies, anti-virus scanners, and all this other nonsense. My MBP is up and running, doing e-mails within a minute or two. Is this Windows fault? I don't know. But that's what a PC user has to deal with in an international corporation
Apple uses good hardware parts. When I play some music on my MBP, the sound quality is really excellent, and sound is good stereo. When it gets dark, the keyboard automatically gets lit from the back. The power connector sticks to the computer because of magnetic attraction, and not because of some mechanical lock. This means that when somebody traps over the cord, or you move the MBP too far away from the transformer, it simply disconnects and nothing breaks. And you don't even get any annoying messages on the screen that distract you from work.
No Worms or Viruses. Neither via the browser nor through e-mail. I can just focus on my work
Built-in application are actually useful. In Windows, built-in stuff like address book, outlook express, etc. are pretty much useless. In OS X, they are great, usefull programs. Built-in ISync, for example, synchronizes the Address Books's data and iCals calender data with the data on my cell phone. I didn't have to buy anything extra, or install anything, it just worked out of the box.
Time Machine. Apple deserves the Nobel prize for this. Time Machine is Apple's built-in backup solution. It works as follows: The first time you plug in an external harddrive, it asks you if it should use it for backup. When you say yes, it will create a full backup of your whole computer on that harddrive. From then on, every hour, it will copy all the changes that occured to your computer to that harddrive. It keeps these hourly backups for the past 24 hours. For the past 30 days, it keeps one daily backup. And one per month for as much space as you have. So what you have is, you have access to all of your computers' file as they were an hour ago, a day ago, a week ago, whatever you need. And this all happens automatically. Time machine also continues to work if you don't have that HD connected, bcause you're on the road for a presentation or such. When your computer craps out on you, and you get a replacement computer, you can use your time-machine backup to restore exactly what you had on your machine before it got killed. A collegue of mine sent in his main MBP for repair, got a loned one for a week and installed the last Time Machine backup onit, and then when his fixed MBP came back, again he installed the Time Machine backup on it. The whole time he was able to do his work, he didn't have to go through the whole installation and configuration processes, etc. He was able to just focus on his work. And all this thanks to a tool -- Time Machine -- that came for free as part of the operating system. Try doing this with a PC or a Linux box.
Just one version of the operating system: You install OS X on a box, and from then on, you have everyhthing you need. There's no need to put in the OS installation media, if you want Chinese character support on a US operating system, for example, or if you want to install a new device driver or such.
And for us programmers: Once you figure out, that the console is hidden under Applications/Tools, you have a command line interface to a BSD Unix. All the nice tools like gcc, ssh, svn, sqlite, netcat/nc, they're all there. And for the IDE fans we have X-Code for free. It's a few years behind MSVS, but hey, so what.
So, as you can see, it's not one or two big items that make the switch worth it, but the sum of all the little improvements.
actually i'm using a macbook and it's worth it. the only problem is the size of the screen.. if you're used to 2x 19" displays it's really hard to get comfortable with this 13,3" screen.
as for ide's there are quite a lot such as xcode, eclipse, netbeans so there shouldn't be a big problem i'd also recommen textmate as the editor to use. it has a lot of bundles for different syntax highlighting and compiling languages and so on.