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I think the second you start auto-favouring one particular tool you're in trouble. Why iTerm2? Why not Alacritty? iTerm2 is more popular now, but 5 years down t

I think the second you start auto-favouring one particular tool you're in trouble. Why iTerm2? Why not Alacritty? iTerm2 is more popular now, but 5 years down the line when someone else has come up with a iTerm2 replacement how is Apple meant to decide to switch? Where does Apple draw the line on which tools to add and which to leave out? It sounds like what you're really asking for is something like Ninite for mac, which I think frankly is safer to stay as a 3rd party thing, rather than Apple getting super-involved in choices that are going to be very user taste specific.

saagarjha 7y ago
> I think the second you start auto-favouring one particular tool you're in trouble. Why iTerm2? Why not Alacritty? Because iTerm2 is an excellent Mac app? I don't understand your aversion to favoring one tool over another: macOS itself is a tool that I prefer to use over Linux because it's nicer, just as iTerm2 is nicer than Alacritty.
skohan 7y ago
Yeah I don't see the need for any of this to be provided by Apple. I want the platform I'm working on to be minimal and agnostic, and let me worry about what tools I'm using and how. If there's really demand for some kind of base developer toolkit, why not leave it up for a 3rd party to put together some kind of installer to set it all up for you?
- TimTheTinker 7y ago
  > why not leave it up for a 3rd party to put together some kind of installer to set it all up for you? Because a potentially interested 4th grader likely won't ever know such a thing exists. And even if she did, the teacher likely won't let her download and install it from the internet. But if she asks for permission to run a "Install Command Line Tools" app in /Applications/Utilities/ and check the "Install homebrew" option (or "Install MacPorts" - I really don't care either way... perhaps provide options for both), that's far more likely to get a "yes".
  - skohan 7y ago
    In my experience kids are very tech-savy. I don't think the 4th grader who can't discover homebrew without a system setting for it is going to be able to do much with it once they've got the terminal open.
    - TimTheTinker 7y ago
      Kids can only get savvy with exposure. Those lacking certain privileges (like having a computer at home) likely haven’t had any of that exposure. I was only able to learn BASIC and the DOS command prompt because I was in a multi grade classroom, and an older boy (5th grader) whose mother paid for him to have programming lessons taught me on the classroom computer. The teacher had no clue about any of that... she only knew I started spending “too much time” on the computer.
konart 7y ago
iTerm is a great choice and Alacritty does not have tabs. And tmux is not always an alternative. PS: also a quake-like mode.
TimTheTinker 7y ago
My point wasn't so much a plug for iTerm2 or anything else in particular. The purpose of a dev setup app would be to (a - primarily) provide a great default dev environment for curious kids, and (b) pave the way for some of the most popular dev configurations. I know homebrew and iTerm are pretty popular, and that there are other popular options as well. Why not list the top n in each category, in randomized order, with short descriptions and "learn more" links? Every time I start work on a different Mac, it usually takes me at least 30 minutes to set it up. It would be nice to have a quick button to set up command line tools, iTerm2, homebrew, zsh, and git. Making such setup available from an app would not only speed up the process, it would also gives the dev environment visibility to newcomers and "first class" status from an IT perspective.
Aissen 7y ago
They already favored ruby, python and perl over other (less popular) interpreted languages. Ditto for favoring bash, then zsh, etc.

saagarjha 7y ago

> I think the second you start auto-favouring one particular tool you're in trouble. Why iTerm2? Why not Alacritty? Because iTerm2 is an excellent Mac app? I don't understand your aversion to favoring one tool over another: macOS itself is a tool that I prefer to use over Linux because it's nicer, just as iTerm2 is nicer than Alacritty.

skohan 7y ago

Yeah I don't see the need for any of this to be provided by Apple. I want the platform I'm working on to be minimal and agnostic, and let me worry about what tools I'm using and how. If there's really demand for some kind of base developer toolkit, why not leave it up for a 3rd party to put together some kind of installer to set it all up for you?

TimTheTinker 7y ago
> why not leave it up for a 3rd party to put together some kind of installer to set it all up for you? Because a potentially interested 4th grader likely won't ever know such a thing exists. And even if she did, the teacher likely won't let her download and install it from the internet. But if she asks for permission to run a "Install Command Line Tools" app in /Applications/Utilities/ and check the "Install homebrew" option (or "Install MacPorts" - I really don't care either way... perhaps provide options for both), that's far more likely to get a "yes".
- skohan 7y ago
  In my experience kids are very tech-savy. I don't think the 4th grader who can't discover homebrew without a system setting for it is going to be able to do much with it once they've got the terminal open.
  - TimTheTinker 7y ago
    Kids can only get savvy with exposure. Those lacking certain privileges (like having a computer at home) likely haven’t had any of that exposure. I was only able to learn BASIC and the DOS command prompt because I was in a multi grade classroom, and an older boy (5th grader) whose mother paid for him to have programming lessons taught me on the classroom computer. The teacher had no clue about any of that... she only knew I started spending “too much time” on the computer.

konart 7y ago

iTerm is a great choice and Alacritty does not have tabs. And tmux is not always an alternative. PS: also a quake-like mode.

TimTheTinker 7y ago

My point wasn't so much a plug for iTerm2 or anything else in particular. The purpose of a dev setup app would be to (a - primarily) provide a great default dev environment for curious kids, and (b) pave the way for some of the most popular dev configurations. I know homebrew and iTerm are pretty popular, and that there are other popular options as well. Why not list the top n in each category, in randomized order, with short descriptions and "learn more" links? Every time I start work on a different Mac, it usually takes me at least 30 minutes to set it up. It would be nice to have a quick button to set up command line tools, iTerm2, homebrew, zsh, and git. Making such setup available from an app would not only speed up the process, it would also gives the dev environment visibility to newcomers and "first class" status from an IT perspective.

Aissen 7y ago

They already favored ruby, python and perl over other (less popular) interpreted languages. Ditto for favoring bash, then zsh, etc.