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PowerBook Performance for Java Development?
brasten wants to get to the core of this issue: "I'm in the market for a new development notebook. I would like to jump into the Apple world and pick up a PowerBook. However, compiling very large Java applications of course takes some time, and so raw processing speed is a factor. I have been unable to find solid data on how fast a 1.33GHz PowerBook runs against the modern x86-based notebooks. Does anybody have any information that could help me compare?"
Once you Mac, you'll never go back.
Neither my PowerBook G4 17", nor 12" offer break-neck speeds. My tests from mid last year concluded it can't out perform a generic PC laptop at the same price point. However it's a platform developed by smart developers for smart developers. Coming from either UN*X or Windoze, after a play, you're gonna oh-so-want one.
PS... You'll want all the RAM you can afford.
We developed a fairly large (~80,000 lines of executable code) WebObjects application. Our dev machines are all 15" PowerBooks in the 800 to 1GHz range.
Compile performance is fine, but more importantly, it's always improving. It's 50% faster that it was a year ago on the same machine. Xcode's predictive compiling only works with GCC for now, but if there's a way to stick it on javac or jikes, Apple will do it.
Apple likes Java. They have a vested interest in it via WebObjects - which is the back end for iTunes and the whole Apple online store. 100% Java. They're also getting into JBoss and other Java related open source projects.
The development tools are really nice, and you *will* get hooked on the PowerBook. We've got two 2.8 GHz Windows boxen available. Nobody uses 'em... except SETI.
i work for a large ISP in a team that builds a comprehensive portal that receives over 6 million unique page views in any 24 hour period. it's written in Java and runs in a Java Servlet Container (open-source)). Since Apple came out with the TiBook in 2001 and OS 10.1, my boss and i were the first ones to switch to powerbooks and OS X in the department.
Jump forward in late 2003, i now have a 1.25Ghz 15" powerbook with 1Gig of RAM and 80GB HD, and let me tell you, there is no end to what this thing can do. it will complete this mechanism that goes thru our whole JSP web application tree, converts each .jsp into .java then compiles into java byte code in about the same amount of time the fastest x86 laptops do. tho i dont have precise numbers. might be faster, might be slower.
while i understand your main focus is on raw power, i would urge you to consider productivity as a factor, based on your operating system's stability, security, and features. XP has greatly evolved in many aspects, and any good engineer can deal with just about any OS. With that said, OSX goes the extra mile to make your overall computing experience much more powerful, especially with Panther.
Expose, Fast User switching, XCode, Apple's own implementation of X11 (comes on the panther CD, it's *F A S T*, GIMP loads litteraly in under 5 seconds) so u can run any open-source app you want. Terminal.app for crying out loud. forget cygwin under windows, here you have a true UNIX bash shell. or tcsh. or ksh. it's all there. all the command-line utilities from the Unix and Linux world are all there. the cmd-line can also trigger things to happen in the finder/aqua-world: "open" could open a directory in a find window, or a file in which ever application created it.
let's talk about address book, calendar and mail. You may import all your Yahoo, Mozilla, Netscape contacts into AddressBook.app. Calendar.app lets you subscribe to calendars, accept .ics invitations, publish your own calendar, define multiple coexisting calendars. Safari's bookmarks interface will show u URLs defined in your AddressBook. Mail.app will read information from AddressBook to show email addresses as clickable "People Objects" and add new email addresses to your address book directly from an email you're reading. You can drag any picture from the web or iPhoto, or your desktop to an AddressBook entry, where it lets you zoom the pic in or out, crop, position, pictures associated with contacts show-up in Mail.app when u receive email from them. They also show-up in iChat.app. All those applications are very simple yet VERY powerful and are also well-defined open APIs any software developer can interact with. For example EarthLink lets you sync your Mac OS X AddressBook with their own online address book, which greatly facilitates email whitelisting to work with their highest-level CR-based spam-blocking feature (lower-level spam-blocking is Bayesian-ish filtering based on email content). Mail.app comes with its own adaptive Bayesian spam filtering that becomes smarter and smarter overtime as you "train it". Mine has become *extremely* effective at blocking spam, and i can tell you this is a definite productivity enhancer. Then there is iSync. A true marvel. iSync is also an open API to sync multiple devices over just about any port or conduit. Most PDA-ish devices and Phone manufacturers have made their devices compatible with iSync, and more are coming on the market every day. Your Calendars, Contacts, Bookmarks can all be sync'ed via iSync to any number of devices WITHOUT installing a single piece of software that may have shipped with such devices. this is HUGE. Currently i'm using iSync to sync an iPod (bookmarks, address book, calendar, over FireWire), a Sony Ericsson t610 (over bluetooth, built-in all the Aluminum powerbooks, including mine), my .MAC account (calendar, address book, bookmarks, over HTTP/webdav i think). I could buy a Palm Pilot and just sy
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