what is the Best OS for Ruby on rails and Java Development?

Question

HI

I am studying computer applications (software development) and will graduate in a year, i will be taking a year off to get my coding skills up to scratch as i have recently come to love code and development. i tried getting rails working on my windows 7 machine but that was painful.

My question is, is it worth it to go out and buy a Macbook if i'm going to be doing a lot of code in rails and java? over the next few years? does it make life easier?

Answer 1

UNIX variants, of course. Actually, Mac OS is very nice, because of TextMate and some similar tools.

Answer 2

There's no need to go out and pay top dollar for Mac hardware. You can get a stacked and rock-solid Toshiba laptop, put the latest Ubuntu on it, and you'll have a great Rails devleopment system.

Answer 3

Mac would probably ideal for Ruby, but for Java I'm not too sure. For Java, the safest bet would be either Linux or Windows. But Ruby on Windows (with regards to tools and utilities) is pretty dismal.. so for the best of both worlds I would go with Linux. The OS is free and there's no need for specific hardware, or to run a virtual machine.

Answer 4

Ubuntu is the way to go man. You'll love the ease of use and installation, too.

Answer 5

I have always worked on Windows systems, mostly working on C++ and later C#. I started working with Ruby on Rails more than a year ago. I did that on windows, and actually that worked out pretty well for me (just make sure to use a ruby version from rubyinstaller.org).

Although lately i have switched employer, and i am developing on ubuntu 10.04, and i even switched my home-system. I would recommend Ubuntu 10.04, but there are some very valid reasons to keep using Windows as well (some commercial software totally not being available on Ubuntu).

Answer 6

I started using Ubuntu for Rails development a few weeks ago and have noticed a big improvement over Windows (although I still dual boot) due to the following:

• Terminal in linux is alot more robust than command prompt
• Rails commands seem to run faster in Ubuntu
• vim is a nice lightweight editor

If your going to use an IDE, I would suggest NetBeans for Rails and Java.

Answer 7

I have worked with ruby on rails in ubuntu, mac OS X and windows. Windows only was the worse but I prefer it with a virtual machine loaded with a ubuntu server 10.04 (it helps you in deployment also, as the most servers have linux), I have samba - access to the ubuntu files through windows explorer and it is working like a charm. You also have snapshots to revert if you do something wrong (through virtual machine), so you can destroy and recover it very easily and keep backup without any problem. Also you can transfer it everywhere with just copy paste.

Mac OS X is also a good choice, but it isn't as good as ubuntu for me, I am used to windows graphical environment and the commands in the command line sometimes is a little different (mac OSX is unix, it isn't linux and it doesn't use X windows), so it is a little tricky to feel comfortable, you have to learn a lot more to get the productivity you already have with windows. Also textmate needs time to get used to it, so better invest in a better solution like vim or emacs.

Answer 8

I've had great results running Java under Ubuntu. The UNIX environment is great IMO for scripting, running web application servers etc. In your position it is probably also a useful skill set to acquire.

In the past I've also run quite a few of my Java applications on Macs. They ran perfectly well, but I wasn't totally satisfied with performance of the JVM. That may have well have improved in recent versions of course.

Answer 9

Lets hope this does not turn into a Linux vs Mac flamewar.

At work and on my private machines, I use Ubuntu/Linux for RubyOnRails and Java development. Sure, under OS X you have many nice tools available (like TextMate), but there are many others in Ubuntu/Linux available too. For free. GEdit can replace TextMate quite well when using the right plugins, and for big projects I would always prefer NetBeans (for Rails and Java). Also Ubuntu's package management and package feeds make it very easy to set up a working development environment.

And finally:

• Apple is really expensive, you will pay many bucks just for the logo on your device.
• Ubuntu is absolutely free on the other hand and can run nicely on almost any hardware (200$ Netbooks for example).

My suggestion:

try out Ubuntu on your current device - if you don't like it you can still go for the white fruit. And don't even think about using Windows for Rails Development.