Why Developers Are Switching To Macs

snydeq writes "Programmers are finding themselves increasingly drawn to the Mac as a development platform, in large part due to Apple's decision to move to Intel chips and to embrace virtualization of other OSes, which has turned Mac OS X into a flexible tool for development, InfoWorld reports. The explosion of interest in smartphone development is helping the trend, with iPhone development lock-in to the Mac environment the chief motivating factor for Apple as a platform of choice for mobile development. Yet for many, the Mac remains sluggish and poorly tuned for development, with developers citing its virtual memory system's poor performance in paging data in and out of memory and likening use of the default-network file system, AFS, to engaging oneself with 'some kind of passive-aggressive torture.' What remains unclear is whether Apple will lend an ear to this new wave of Mac-based development or continue to develop products that lock out uses programmers expect."

Comments

Re:It is a good middle ground.

[je ne sais quoi]

Nice troll there, but hey your account name does say PC fanboy so I suppose it's to be expected. Have you even used a Mac outside of the apple store?

I use OS X and Windows at work on a day to day basis, and I use Linux at home or if I don't need a gui (e.g. on a computing cluster). I can run every program I run in linux on my mac, including kde or e17, using the X11 server app. I can also natively run MS office and other desktop applications natively. I've used cygwin in windows, it's cool and all but you're relegated to a subdirectory for all your work there. I've also run MS office under wine in linux, but wine in general is a hit or miss proposition, maybe the app will work, maybe not. I can honestly say that OS X is a good middle ground between windows and linux. It's not perfect by any stretch, but neither is linux and windows.

Re:No they aren't

[Dahan]

I'm not a MAC owner

I'm surprised you don't own any Media Access Controllers--anyone with a broadband internet connection is bound to have an Ethernet card, and I suspect most Slashdotters have broadband.