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Why Mac OS X Is Unsuitable For Web Development
Hugh Pickens writes "Ted Dziuba has an interesting and amusing post on how he made a big mistake when he was offered a choice for his company laptop. His options were a Lenovo Thinkpad or a MacBook Pro, and he picked the Mac, thinking it would be closer to what he was used to. So what's wrong with using the Mac as a development machine for Milo, a Python application backed by PostgreSQL and Redis? 'I've only poked around a little, but so far I've found three separate package managers for OS X: Fink, MacPorts & Homebrew,' writes Dziuba, adding that when you are older, you will understand the value of automated version dependency satisfaction. Next is that your development platform should be as close as possible to your production platform, but 'OS X and Linux have different kernels, which means different I/O & process schedulers, different file systems, and a whole host of other implementation details that you'll write off as having been abstracted away until you have your first serious encounter with "It Works On My Machine.'" Finally, he says, Textmate sucks. 'Sooner or later, you have to face facts. Man up and learn Emacs.'"
That's like saying man up and go see the new production of Glitter Boys on Broadway and then go get a pedicure.
I think he must have meant "man up and go learn vi".
...unless you expect it to let you do Linux development.
Of course, you can dual-boot Linux on it or run it in VMWare. But you knew that, right?
After looking at his website, I really don't think he should be offering advice on what tools to use for designing websites.
Just saying.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
You just initiated a PC vs. Mac and an Emacs vs. Vi flamewar in one article? Are you MAD??? Don't you understand the potenia#%#$^#$^ NO CARRIER.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
That is exactly his problem. He has a deployment environment that's different from this development environment, and he expects them to be the same when they're clearly not. This is quite possibly the stupidest drivel I have ever read, and obviously he's an amateur programmer. If your deployment environment is Linux, then get a Linux box to develop your code. His argument is just as stupid as saying "Windows is unsuitable for developing Linux software". This clown should be catapulted into the sun.
Furthermore, if this guy is a Web developer, then why is he concerned about underlying architectures? Stick with HTML and CSS and leave the heavy coding for the adults.
I have no idea why this troll of an article ever hit /.
With compelling arguments like "textmate sucks, man up and use emacs" (yes that really is the whole argument for what's wrong with text editing on OS X) I'd expect better from an IRC troll, let alone a slashdot troll. And hell, that's completely ignoring the fact that if you really want to, emacs runs just fine on OS X.
Personally, I consider a Mac to be pretty much the ultimate web dev platform, because it gives you easy access to all browsers on all major platforms, and gives you some of the best tools (yes, better than emacs, and even better than vi) to develop with. There are many imperfections, but it's better than all the other options.