Macs and development

T

Talentloos

Expert Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2011
Messages
2,597
Reaction score
1
Location
flying my kite
Hey guys.

I have this urge in me to buy a new laptop for work and the new Mac Airs has me all tingly inside when i think about the battery life.

Does anyone here use a mac for Web Development? I know this is probably a stupid question, but are there decent editors for OS X like notepad++ that wont break the bank? Do you get the same inspect element views on mac versions of the popular browsers?

Does anyone here develop on mac and if so, will i be able to do my thing the same or should i just look for a windows laptop?
 
I don't have a mac but I do know that Sublime Text works on a Mac. I use that instead of Notepad++ on Windows in any case.

http://www.sublimetext.com/

And as for browsers, well surely something like Firebug in Firefox will still work. Eh but I may be wrong. There are a ton of web developers on Macs out there though so there must be some good tools.
 
You can also use bootcamps or virtual machines if necessary.
 
Definitely get the Mac. Sublime works well, OS is more stable than Windows, and IMO feels alot better to work with.
 
Joker said:
You can also use bootcamps or virtual machines if necessary.
Click to expand...

But then you loose the battery life advantage. Thing is, the battery life is good mostly because of the OS, not the batteries themselves.
 
I was thinking about getting the Air but then gippoing ubuntu on there. but from what i see that is an intense mission. hSo now im only stuck between getting the Air or the MBP with retina.
 
OomD said:
But then you loose the battery life advantage. Thing is, the battery life is good mostly because of the OS, not the batteries themselves.
Click to expand...

Ok that is something i did not know. i thought it was just down to the new haswell architecture.
 
Talentloos said:
Hey guys.

I have this urge in me to buy a new laptop for work and the new Mac Airs has me all tingly inside when i think about the battery life.

Does anyone here use a mac for Web Development? I know this is probably a stupid question, but are there decent editors for OS X like notepad++ that wont break the bank? Do you get the same inspect element views on mac versions of the popular browsers?

Does anyone here develop on mac and if so, will i be able to do my thing the same or should i just look for a windows laptop?
Click to expand...

I am currently using a macbook air for web development. Before mac I used windows and notepad++ along with other applications. When I got the mac I was worried finding an alternative to notepad++ until I stumbled upon TextWrangler which works perfectly and is free. It is now my main programme I use for all .css, html ect.

More info: TextWrangler

You could also use xCode which I use to use before I found TextWranger, but as mentioned use TextWrangler daily now.

And yes, you get all the same "Inspect Element" options in chrome and firefox ect so don't worry about that.
 
What's your language of choice? Mac is great for Java, not so great for .net (for obvious reasons) :)
 
Talentloos said:
Hey guys.

I have this urge in me to buy a new laptop for work and the new Mac Airs has me all tingly inside when i think about the battery life.

Does anyone here use a mac for Web Development? I know this is probably a stupid question, but are there decent editors for OS X like notepad++ that wont break the bank? Do you get the same inspect element views on mac versions of the popular browsers?

Does anyone here develop on mac and if so, will i be able to do my thing the same or should i just look for a windows laptop?
Click to expand...

Around Sillicon Valley, and even the greater SF region, the vast majority dev machines you see are Macs :)

TextWrangler is a great free text editor (There are far better ones such as Textmate, but they are not free)
Firebug works on a Mac, and each browser has their own attempt.

I develop on a Mac both professionally and in my spare time.

Go for it, you wont regret it
 
phiber said:
What's your language of choice? Mac is great for Java, not so great for .net (for obvious reasons) :)
Click to expand...

Mostly use languages that arent really languages. i mostly work with html, css, javascript, jquery and some SQL every now and then. and on your air, any problems with only 4gig ram?
 
JStrike said:
Around Sillicon Valley, and even the greater SF region, the vast majority dev machines you see are Macs :)

TextWrangler is a great free text editor (There are far better ones such as Textmate, but they are not free)
Firebug works on a Mac, and each browser has their own attempt.

I develop on a Mac both professionally and in my spare time.

Go for it, you wont regret it
Click to expand...

sorry replied to the wrong reply. any problem with the 4gig ram?
 
Talentloos said:
sorry replied to the wrong reply. any problem with the 4gig ram?
Click to expand...

I haven't had any problems with 4gigs so far. The only time I see low memory is when I run a virtual machine but those days are almost over now (there was a programme that I didn't want to give up which is windows based) but other than that no problems at all with 3 browser windows open (chrome, safari and firefox) and each with +-9 tabs each open, textwrangler running, textedit and a few other programmes and iTunes playing in the background.

But saying that, if you have the budget, there is no harm in upgrading Ram as you won't be able to do it at a later stage.
 
Text Wrangler is a good option and I think is Free or close to free.

Another option is Tenda.
 
weelzSA said:
I haven't had any problems with 4gigs so far. The only time I see low memory is when I run a virtual machine but those days are almost over now (there was a programme that I didn't want to give up which is windows based) but other than that no problems at all with 3 browser windows open (chrome, safari and firefox) and each with +-9 tabs each open, textwrangler running, textedit and a few other programmes and iTunes playing in the background.

But saying that, if you have the budget, there is no harm in upgrading Ram as you won't be able to do it at a later stage.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback.
 
Glingfram said:
Definitely get the Mac. Sublime works well, OS is more stable than Windows, and IMO feels alot better to work with.
Click to expand...

That is such an old antiquated reason to move to an OS. Windows 7/8 is very stable i've crashed it only once in the last 5 months.Where as when i had my macbook pro that god forsaken OS would lock up so frequently or i'd get the spinning pie wheel of death. (Fyi. I prefer OSX before you call me a fanboy)
 
semaphore said:
That is such an old antiquated reason to move to an OS. Windows 7/8 is very stable i've crashed it only once in the last 5 months.Where as when i had my macbook pro that god forsaken OS would lock up so frequently or i'd get the spinning pie wheel of death. (Fyi. I prefer OSX before you call me a fanboy)
Click to expand...
That doesn't sound right!;
I personally have not experienced frequent spinning wheels on any production versions (beta OS versions, faulty Apps, Disk issues for sure, as one would expect!) and this covers my iMac, Macbook Pro, and 2 Mac Minis.

Did you btw ever investigate the underlying cause, a specific app, peripheral, ...?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X