At my last workplace I stated that I wouldn’t mind developing on a Mac to which I was greeted with “are you mad!†and “but you’re a developer. Only designers and trendy types use macsâ€. Indeed they do so why on god given earth did I give it a go.
First of all I left that job and felt the need to start a new, so new job, new laptop(s). The Macbook seemed to fit what I wanted not just for working though but for playtime.
Playtime
When the bell rings and the teacher lets us out (teacher/boss, same thing) I run out with with laptop as I can imagine countless others do. At home I play on my Mac (two hands!). Not games though, as lets be honest if you want to playing anything other than World of Warcarft you are screwed but what it lacks in gaming power it makes up for in other areas.
The lack of gaming power is not an issue for me, however, at home I love to play movies and music (mm m&ms). Now the Mac comes with iTunes, which more than meets my needs musically and podcastly but also has iDvd and Quicktime. To get the benefit though you might have to hunt around for codecs like you had to for Windows.
Once all that work is done, hook up some decent speakers or headphones grab your apple remote and its wonderful. Front row is a credit to Apple for its simplicity and design, I would however liked to have seen DVR functionality or at least the ability for other companies to plugin to front row to allow for such functionality.
Now although most of this fun stuff works out of the box there are a few tricks that might help. First of all create a symbolic link in your front row directory to your DVD or CD drive. So then you can just chuck in a DVDR with your .. ahem.. home videos that you didn’t download illegally and use front row to navigate to the files. Also a few fun things to note are Coverflow and the BBC radio widget.
Oi you back to work!
Ok boss I’ll stop farting around now. Working on a Mac is very different than that of Windows and Linux (well I say Linux, I mean I have really only worked on Fedora, Red Hat and Ubuntu systems). Getting used to using the Command (apple) key is for a windows veteran, difficult.[1] Copy is now Command and C.. how odd.
No right click. For gods sake Apple will you please give us right click, that is really annoying, but you can get over it.
As for actual coding it much nicer having a real command line at your control knowing that I can use fun Unix commands. Also if your are developing locally, for example a website, its much easier to use a Mac with apache installed if you are going to be eventually deploying to a Linux or Unix webserver.
Now for developing I need a wicked ass text editor. On windows I used the simply wonderful Notepad++ and on Ubuntu just used the standard gedit that came with Gnome. On a Mac however what on earth can we use, well after a search and viewing a few screencasts and knowing that in the next few months I would be using Ruby on Rails I jumped into the 30 day trail of TextMate.
As I just purchased TextMate I seem to be happy with it. The most convincing feature is the directory display draw next to the code. For anybody who is developing for any of those new fangled web frameworks out there you will see how useful such a feature can be. It also has to be said that TextMate supports Ruby on Rails wonderfully with all the short cuts and what have you ready from the off. I’m still working my way around all of the features but I have to be honest and say this is probably the best text editor I have ever used.
For those looking at database work, I used to use Navicat for a windows machine, but to be honest CocaMySQL does the job in a similar fashion. Although it has to be said that it really needs foreign key support and for it to be a universal application.
As somebody who avoids the mouse (like most programmers) I found Finder in Mac OS X a pain in the arse to use at starting applications. That start key from my old windows machine really did spoil me for simplicity. There is spotlight but it seemed slow and to be honest wasn’t what I wanted when for example I just wanted to start an application. Fear not though, Quicksilver really does change the way you use your Mac. It is a way of starting up (and interacting) with programs using just Key combos. I mapped it to alt and space bar (similar to command and space for spotlight) then just type in a few letters and bang the application you want faster than anybody could use the start menu.
For the web developer we can actually use these new Intel Macs party trick, the ability to boot into windows. As we have to test on the god awful IE6 (possibily 5.5) and IE7 beta this is essential for those who fear having more than one computer switched on at a time, or for those with just one machine. I chose to use Parallels rather than Apple’s boot camp software. As why would I want to leave my new home of Mac OS to test some CSS in IE?
With 512mb of ram it was impossible to run parallels (believe me I tried :) ) but after spending about £120 at scan for 2gigs of memory my macbook now runs Windows XP at really speedy rate (and in total I use about 1.27 gigs of ram at a go , with 512mb devoted to Windows). However I should note I really did have to apply a fair bit of pressure to get the modules in, my fingers still hurt after 4 days. A tip is to put them in at a slight angle then push the rest in afterwards.
Sort of conclusion
There are draw backs and benefits to getting a mac, here is my little pros and cons list.
Cons
- Ouch! Yeah it is a little hot, but to be honest its as hot as my dell laptop with the same Core Duo chip inside.
- The screen is glossy, great for films but can be annoying in high light situations
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You stand out in meetings, the glowing Apple logo and blackness does sort of set you apart from the dell brigade. (I suppose this is a kinda pro too).
- Lack of windows applications able to run inside Mac OS X.
- Still not 100% convinced on the whole none full screen button (ie fill to maximum).
- Apple seem to be on a worrying slide down the DRM route which was really annoying when I transferred all my iTunes purchases of my old machine to this one.
- Lack of an optical out or expansion slot. Then I suppose they want us to go ‘Pro’.
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iChat not supporting MSN messenger, although Adium does a fine job getting chatting to those MSN people.
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.Mac spam within the OS. Useful to those that have it and a fucking annoyance for those that want to use open protocols and develop a more open and competitive market place.
- Applications are usually one step behind the windows world, for example Skype and webcam support and Skybroaband which doesn’t support mac at all!
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No right click
- Lack of a Coca OpenOffice for Intel. Although its on its way
Pros
- No viruses, no worms, no virus checkers, no spyware, no anti spyware. I’m very happy with that.
- Its pretty
- Front row is amazing
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The feeling that I can control the operating system, force quit actually works!
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The thing shuts down, unlike my windows machine that asks me about every crashing program
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Fast, very fast.
- Real command line
- Build in DVD player that doesn’t look like its been attacked by the people from pimp my ride.
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Doesn’t crash that often. It does crash, I have killed it twice in a month, but then I was really pushing it.
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Quicksilver
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Widgets are useful for things like a radio player. Think of the saved real estate pixels!
- TextMate is a wonderful tool and helped me be more productive.
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The built in webcam is actually really useful, but then I’m helping develop a system that uses it.
So all in all, although there are issues, they are tiny in comparison to the benefits you get from running a Mac over a Windows system. I am not a fan boy and I would never tell anybody to buy a Mac just because I like them but In the UK especially it would be nice to see Apple raise its profile a little and attempting to show the country why Mac OS X is superior to Windows XP (I think there is little doubt about that one). Hopefully they might work out the little issues that bug me (RIGHT CLICK!) but to be honest for the first time Mac buyer I’m sold on the quailty of the hardware but most of all by the OS.
1 I personally believe that anybody who has used windows over the past few years is a veteran who has constantly had to protect there system from viruses, spyware and shitware.
