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I know the OTA dismissed Windows, but when I switched from OSX to Windows a couple of years ago, I found Scott Hanselman's "Ultimate Developer and Power Users T

I know the OTA dismissed Windows, but when I switched from OSX to Windows a couple of years ago, I found Scott Hanselman's "Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows" [1] to be indispensable. I've been doing Rails work on Windows since switching, but ymmv depending on what your workflow and toolchain are. I also found that there were a lot of workarounds/alternatives to software/tools that I thought I would miss on Mac. I've managed to find pretty much everything I needed and/or realized I could easily live without the stuff I couldn't find alternatives for. Having said all of that, if you have a dependency on something like XCode because you're maintaining an iOS app, you're kinda stuck with a Mac. My experience with Hackintoshes is that even if you buy the right hardware off the latest Hackintosh compatibility list, it's still a bit of a time suck. Alternatively, you could also run OSX in VMWare Workstation/Player, but you don't get graphics acceleration and some OSX software won't run properly in a VM. [1] http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ScottHanselmans2014UltimateDeveloperAndPowerUsersToolListForWindows.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ScottHanselmans2014UltimateDev...

quantisan 10y ago
Is there a similar developer tools list for Windows 10?
- slantyyz 10y ago
  Most, if not all of the tools on that list work with Windows 10.
Klathmon 10y ago
I gotta say I've tried to do the VM thing. I REALLY tried. But it just isn't something that will work for any significant amount of time. It would break with any updates, half the time xcode just wouldn't work, and it would sometimes be so slow that you'd need to wait minutes for some fancy animation to run. And this wasn't even to get around buying a MacBook, we had one, I just wanted to compile and sign a hybrid app for iOS easier than using another physical machine. Then we also found later that you can't sign an app on OSX while SSH'd into the machine... It just fails with a generic signing error. So now I have a MacBook with remote-desktop software that's just permanently on in the corner of the room so I can open the GUI once a month or so and re compile and sign the latest version of our app...
- pyre 10y ago
  > Then we also found later that you can't sign an app on OSX while SSH'd into the machine... It just fails with a generic signing error. My guess is that it's missing something that being logged into a desktop session would have (e.g. Keychain access).
  - Klathmon 10y ago
    It's been a bit, so I might be wrong on some of the details here, but... I did have keychain access, and was able to fully unlock the keychain and use it in other areas. However after chasing down several issues (including the keychain expiring after 300 seconds by default, moving the keys around between different keychains, various "jump up and down and spin around 3 times"-esque solutions of using multiple commands on the same line, or different lines, or in different orders, or others). I finally eventually figured out that I could unlock the keychain on the system manually, ssh in, then i'd have till it timed out to sign, only to have it be rejected on the upload... Once I moved to just using a remote-desktop software and doing it through the GUI, it just worked. However now it's a 2 step process where our build system does literally everything but the signing then i need to manually remote in and click a button to sign and upload.
- ahawkins 10y ago
  Have you considered CircleCI? They have iOS/OSX toolchain support.
  - Klathmon 10y ago
    Ya know we use CircleCI for another project for running integration tests and deployment, but I never looked into it any more than that. The system is working right now, so I kind of don't want to mess with it until we get some time, but I'll definitely take a look at that.
- hiram112 10y ago
  I've also tried to use a Linux VM on Widnows due to issues with Node, paths in various Scala libs, and a dozen other problems. Cygwin works for 50%, but not for everything. I've tried Win 10 with Subsystem for Linux (Ubuntu Bash) and unfortunately it is not even close to production ready. Besides, I'm terribly disappointed with Win 10 after having been really happy with Windows 7 since its release. Running a few Java and Javascript projects in IntelliJ on a VM is an exercise in frustration, even on a very powerful Dell Precision with an I7, SSD, and 32 GB of ram. It works somewhat, but I'm very happy with my work provided 2015 MB Pro with only 16GB of ram. With Brew, Docker, etc. everything works great. If work hadn't paid for the Mac, I don't think I'd buy a new model due to the price and lack of upgradability, no escape key, ports, etc. That being said, I've just installed Fedora 25 on a second m2 drive I put into my one Win 10 laptop. So far it is pretty good for dev work. It's not perfect, but it's approaching usability with a small Win VM for Office.

quantisan 10y ago

Is there a similar developer tools list for Windows 10?

slantyyz 10y ago
Most, if not all of the tools on that list work with Windows 10.

Klathmon 10y ago

I gotta say I've tried to do the VM thing. I REALLY tried. But it just isn't something that will work for any significant amount of time. It would break with any updates, half the time xcode just wouldn't work, and it would sometimes be so slow that you'd need to wait minutes for some fancy animation to run. And this wasn't even to get around buying a MacBook, we had one, I just wanted to compile and sign a hybrid app for iOS easier than using another physical machine. Then we also found later that you can't sign an app on OSX while SSH'd into the machine... It just fails with a generic signing error. So now I have a MacBook with remote-desktop software that's just permanently on in the corner of the room so I can open the GUI once a month or so and re compile and sign the latest version of our app...

pyre 10y ago
> Then we also found later that you can't sign an app on OSX while SSH'd into the machine... It just fails with a generic signing error. My guess is that it's missing something that being logged into a desktop session would have (e.g. Keychain access).
- Klathmon 10y ago
  It's been a bit, so I might be wrong on some of the details here, but... I did have keychain access, and was able to fully unlock the keychain and use it in other areas. However after chasing down several issues (including the keychain expiring after 300 seconds by default, moving the keys around between different keychains, various "jump up and down and spin around 3 times"-esque solutions of using multiple commands on the same line, or different lines, or in different orders, or others). I finally eventually figured out that I could unlock the keychain on the system manually, ssh in, then i'd have till it timed out to sign, only to have it be rejected on the upload... Once I moved to just using a remote-desktop software and doing it through the GUI, it just worked. However now it's a 2 step process where our build system does literally everything but the signing then i need to manually remote in and click a button to sign and upload.
ahawkins 10y ago
Have you considered CircleCI? They have iOS/OSX toolchain support.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  Ya know we use CircleCI for another project for running integration tests and deployment, but I never looked into it any more than that. The system is working right now, so I kind of don't want to mess with it until we get some time, but I'll definitely take a look at that.
hiram112 10y ago
I've also tried to use a Linux VM on Widnows due to issues with Node, paths in various Scala libs, and a dozen other problems. Cygwin works for 50%, but not for everything. I've tried Win 10 with Subsystem for Linux (Ubuntu Bash) and unfortunately it is not even close to production ready. Besides, I'm terribly disappointed with Win 10 after having been really happy with Windows 7 since its release. Running a few Java and Javascript projects in IntelliJ on a VM is an exercise in frustration, even on a very powerful Dell Precision with an I7, SSD, and 32 GB of ram. It works somewhat, but I'm very happy with my work provided 2015 MB Pro with only 16GB of ram. With Brew, Docker, etc. everything works great. If work hadn't paid for the Mac, I don't think I'd buy a new model due to the price and lack of upgradability, no escape key, ports, etc. That being said, I've just installed Fedora 25 on a second m2 drive I put into my one Win 10 laptop. So far it is pretty good for dev work. It's not perfect, but it's approaching usability with a small Win VM for Office.