4 ms·

This is a disingenuous argument, you have to buy a PC to develop Windows. And you have to pay $100-300 for windows, AND you have to play $600-$2500 _per year_

This is a disingenuous argument, you have to buy a PC to develop Windows. And you have to pay $100-300 for windows, AND you have to play $600-$2500 _per year_ for Visual Studio

detaro 8y ago
You can develop for Windows without Visual Studio, and Visual Studio has a free tier that includes some commercial usage. If you own pretty much any desktop computer or laptop, it can run Windows (including Macs). I think you can even get Windows licenses for testing purposes for free, if you prefer to work on macOS or Linux and just test on Windows (EDIT: on reviewing this part, the terms on those test images aren't as clear as one would like, even though they clearly are provided for developers, so count cost for 1 license if you want to be sure).
learc83 8y ago
Visual Studio Community (which is everything you'd need if you aren't a large team) is free. You can use it for up to 5 users for commercial work.
- bena 8y ago
  I use Community professionally.
dalore 8y ago
No it's not. You can buy a PC from many different vendors, HP, Lenevo, Dell etc. They compete and the price goes down, and customers get a choice. You can also run linux for free and use VSCode for free which also runs on Linux. With Apple I have to buy the PC from Apple at it's marked up price since no competition. So it is a fair point.
- simonh 8y ago
  What do you mean no competition? Why on earth would you want to develop Mac software without buying a Mac? This argument really does make no sense at all. It’s like complaining that if you want to drive Porsche, you have to buy a Porsche from Porsche. Er, yeah. That’s how that works. Please quibble about renting and dealerships or something. Please. I dare you. I double dare you! I swear I won’t stop laughing for a week.
  - dalore 8y ago
    Dare accepted. You know that is a false analogy. If you want X you need to get X. It would be more like a mechanic being required to buy his tools from Porsche to be able to work on a Porsche. And it's good you bring this up, this too is a problem in the auto industry world. Car manufacturers are pulling these stunts and creating locks for their cars so only approved tools can be used with it. To continue the analogy, it would be like buying an Epson printer and being force to use Epson ink. Or buying a house and being forced to buy your DIY suppliers from the real estate agent. We can keep going with analogies all day.
coryfklein 8y ago
Your personal accusation of disingenuousness distracts from what would otherwise have been a good point. Let's see what a barebones setup costs for developing with a solid IDE on each platform: macOS: $800 Mac Mini (Apple's most affordable offering that runs macOS) $90 Acer SB220Q Monitor $FREE Xcode Total: $890 Windows: $200 Dell Inspiron 11 3000 (Most affordable Dell PC I could find being sold new) $1200 One time payment for Visual Studio (but you don't get updates) Total: $1400 So if have to both buy a computer and need a full featured IDE then Visual Studio's license wipes out any savings you get from avoiding the "Apple tax". It gets even worse if you want perpetual updates to Visual Studio which cost $800/year but come free with XCode. This is counter to what I had expected beforehand myself, I expected the "Apple tax" to make the bar of entry much higher than PC development. If, on the other hand, you can get by with a less advanced IDE or are developing in a non-proprietary language like Java, Python, or Scala the cost goes way down: Cheapskate Option: $200 Windows/Linux laptop $FREE Eclipse/JetBrains CE IDE/Visual Studio Code Total: $200 This is certainly more affordable than the $800 macOS alternative. Although one could debate whether the above mentioned IDEs are on equal footing with XCode/Visual Studio.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- AlotOfReading 8y ago
  Visual Studio Community is free. It doesn't have the fancy cloud/devops enterprise-y stuff, but it's not like Xcode does either.
  - coryfklein 8y ago
    Ah! I didn't know Visual Studio Community was even a thing. Figures though, since I've never used either.

This is a disingenuous argument, you have to buy a PC to develop Windows. And you have to pay $100-300 for windows, AND you have to play $600-$2500 _per year_ for Visual Studio

detaro 8y ago

You can develop for Windows without Visual Studio, and Visual Studio has a free tier that includes some commercial usage. If you own pretty much any desktop computer or laptop, it can run Windows (including Macs). I think you can even get Windows licenses for testing purposes for free, if you prefer to work on macOS or Linux and just test on Windows (EDIT: on reviewing this part, the terms on those test images aren't as clear as one would like, even though they clearly are provided for developers, so count cost for 1 license if you want to be sure).

learc83 8y ago

Visual Studio Community (which is everything you'd need if you aren't a large team) is free. You can use it for up to 5 users for commercial work.

bena 8y ago
I use Community professionally.

dalore 8y ago

No it's not. You can buy a PC from many different vendors, HP, Lenevo, Dell etc. They compete and the price goes down, and customers get a choice. You can also run linux for free and use VSCode for free which also runs on Linux. With Apple I have to buy the PC from Apple at it's marked up price since no competition. So it is a fair point.

simonh 8y ago
What do you mean no competition? Why on earth would you want to develop Mac software without buying a Mac? This argument really does make no sense at all. It’s like complaining that if you want to drive Porsche, you have to buy a Porsche from Porsche. Er, yeah. That’s how that works. Please quibble about renting and dealerships or something. Please. I dare you. I double dare you! I swear I won’t stop laughing for a week.
- dalore 8y ago
  Dare accepted. You know that is a false analogy. If you want X you need to get X. It would be more like a mechanic being required to buy his tools from Porsche to be able to work on a Porsche. And it's good you bring this up, this too is a problem in the auto industry world. Car manufacturers are pulling these stunts and creating locks for their cars so only approved tools can be used with it. To continue the analogy, it would be like buying an Epson printer and being force to use Epson ink. Or buying a house and being forced to buy your DIY suppliers from the real estate agent. We can keep going with analogies all day.

coryfklein 8y ago

Your personal accusation of disingenuousness distracts from what would otherwise have been a good point. Let's see what a barebones setup costs for developing with a solid IDE on each platform: macOS: $800 Mac Mini (Apple's most affordable offering that runs macOS) $90 Acer SB220Q Monitor $FREE Xcode Total: $890 Windows: $200 Dell Inspiron 11 3000 (Most affordable Dell PC I could find being sold new) $1200 One time payment for Visual Studio (but you don't get updates) Total: $1400 So if have to both buy a computer and need a full featured IDE then Visual Studio's license wipes out any savings you get from avoiding the "Apple tax". It gets even worse if you want perpetual updates to Visual Studio which cost $800/year but come free with XCode. This is counter to what I had expected beforehand myself, I expected the "Apple tax" to make the bar of entry much higher than PC development. If, on the other hand, you can get by with a less advanced IDE or are developing in a non-proprietary language like Java, Python, or Scala the cost goes way down: Cheapskate Option: $200 Windows/Linux laptop $FREE Eclipse/JetBrains CE IDE/Visual Studio Code Total: $200 This is certainly more affordable than the $800 macOS alternative. Although one could debate whether the above mentioned IDEs are on equal footing with XCode/Visual Studio.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
AlotOfReading 8y ago
Visual Studio Community is free. It doesn't have the fancy cloud/devops enterprise-y stuff, but it's not like Xcode does either.
- coryfklein 8y ago
  Ah! I didn't know Visual Studio Community was even a thing. Figures though, since I've never used either.