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The Best Mac OS X Software Tools

Posted by kdawson on from the steroids dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mac advocate John C. Welch weighs in with his list of the top 20 Mac OS X products (except Welch manages to list 22). The collection of software tools ranges from the obvious, such as Boot Camp, to the obscure but perhaps more useful — little-known apps like Peter Borg's Lingon, for creating launchd configuration files. What's on your personal list of indispensable Mac productivity aids and programming tools? Also, do you think Welch gives too much air time to built-in OS X tools at the expense of third-party products such as NetworkLocation?"

4 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Slownewsday by wumpus188 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    My guess was these lists belong to digg... must be a really slow news day today.

  2. MOD PARENT UP by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Textmate:BBEdit::OSX:OS9

    BBEdit was it back in the day. Bees knees. But they're still stuck in a world of floating palettes and out of date syntax coloring.

    Textmate.... is just amazing. I think I've only scraped the surface of 10% of what it can actually do. The best thing is, if I don't like a keystroke or a syntax coloring, I can change it. I wanted to start writing Matlab. Sure enough, someone has written a bundle for it. There's even a Bundle called 'GetBundle' that will automatically download and update my bundles.

    Leaving Textmate off is more than a gross oversight. It invalidates the list :)

  3. Re:The bit i like by 1729 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I should start using this in interviews to weed out people like you. You are talking about dynamic typing, not weak typing.


    Actually, I was referring to both, though I should have made that more clear. Dynamic typing is dangerous in the same way that static, implicit typing (see old Fortran) is dangerous. Explicit, static typing prevents one from unintentionally creating two distinct variables that are supposed to be the same, due to a typo.

    As far as your "I should [use this] to weed out people like you": I don't want a job writing crappy Ruby code. I've already got a job (as a compiler writer). Thanks, though.
  4. And yet Apple still sucks for many users by Builder · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Ok, so I'm trying the old tried and tested 'Blah sucks!' to try and get support trick :)

    I cannot find a single way of talking to an IR device (http://www.alti-2.com/sport/neptune/Neptune2.htm) from OS X. It worked in 10.1, but doesn't work in 10.4 anymore.

    Apple can't help, their support in India is among the worst in the world that I have ever used, and even raising an ADC support request didn't help.

    So for my needs, apple sucks ;)