6 ms·

Argument kinda falls flat. For starters, Xcode 3 is still free, at least for now. No need for Xcode 4. Also, I'm certain that someone will package gcc for mac

by wmoxam 16y ago

Argument kinda falls flat. For starters, Xcode 3 is still free, at least for now. No need for Xcode 4. Also, I'm certain that someone will package gcc for mac sooner or later now that there's an incentive to do so. There has not been much incentive to do so before now since it was included with Xcode.

holman 16y ago
I wasn't arguing that Xcode is expensive. I'm arguing that the barriers to entry are pretty offensive if you need the capabilities of only gcc. An hour-long process involving credit cards isn't very nifty.
- tvon 16y ago
  It doesn't involve credit cards as xcode 3 is still freely available. If Apple does not include the developer tools on the Lion DVD, and if they remove all free versions of xcode for download, then I don't doubt someone will package up the "build essentials" for OSX and make them available. To date there has been no reason to do this, but if there is a reason, there is nothing preventing it that I am aware of. edit: though I agree a smaller "build essentials" tool chain would be nice, but that was the case before you had to pay for xcode and nobody has bothered to create one. I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't be possible, only that it's probably not worth the hassle of setting it up and maintaining it (though Apple doing it would be excellent).
  - holman 16y ago
    Xcode 3 doesn't solve the issue of it being a real pain in the butt to install. gcc by itself is much, much smaller and much less of an issue for a casual user to install.
    - dunham 16y ago
      Isn't it on the DVD that came with the computer? Double-click to install..
    - tvon 16y ago
      (edited my comment before I saw your reply) I agree that a smaller (and free) tool chain would be great, but so far as I know there is nothing preventing anyone from making one. Related, I realize it is now the case, but when did casual users start needing gcc? Time was, in my pre-OSX days, compiling things yourself if you weren't a dev was seen as somewhat pointless, you just get thousands of users all building the same binary instead of building one binary to be downloaded by thousands of users...
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - scott_s 16y ago
      I have installed new versions of gcc on Linux systems. Installing XCode is much, much easier. But, your point was about developers. When did casual users come into the discussion?
      - holman 16y ago
        There's a scale of developers: from people who regularly do this sort of thing, to people who are more casual about it. That's the type of audience that I like to write for sometimes: they'll use my library (which may use compiled code), but they haven't been exposed to this area of software development before. Designers are the best stereotype for this. Having a massive Xcode install is what I'm saying is detrimental to these sorts of casual users (a lot of the time it wouldn't be appropriate to call them "progammers", really).
        scott_s 16y ago
        It's friction, but, really. It came with their computer. You click a bunch of buttons and it's installed. The size of the install is irrelevant. But I still have difficulty believing these casual-developers-but-not-programmers exist in great numbers. Have people told you "I was going to try your thing, but it asked for this weird gcc thing"?
        holman 16y ago
        Absolutely. I run into that frequently with my own projects. It's such a bummer to have to tell someone to go through this whole process for such a small `gem install` command.
    - bobwaycott 16y ago
      Anyone who hits the need for gcc is no longer a casual user by any average use of that term. A casual user rarely moves past opening a .dmg or .zip with an installer pkg. A casual developer might be a different class of user ... but anyone who hits the point of writing code & installing libraries instead of applications has adequately stepped outside the role of user. And even granting that, it is still not a firm enough basis on which to argue such an inflammatory statement as "OS X is not for developers"--when the casual developer is far better served by OS X's included toolchain than s/he is going to find in a default installation of Windows/Linux counterparts. OS X is not "for" developers when it begins removing the tools that create the lowest barrier to entry for casual development I've seen in a default OS installation in the last 10 years (except maybe Gentoo Linux, one of the most "for developers" systems I've had the pleasure of using).
      - holman 16y ago
        I define it as a casual user of my libraries. Designers are the best example: they're usually hooked into the development world and would be interested in a clever command line tool, but they normally don't have an entire build chain under their belt.
        bobwaycott 16y ago
        In my neck of the woods, a designer's tool chain rarely extends to anything outside Adobe tools. That's what developers are for ;)
        simolinic 16y ago
        I'm a designer, and a "user" of software, and I use several terminal commands on a regular basis. I don't consider myself anything approaching a "developer," but I code a little in Ruby, Javascript, etc. It's semantics, sure, but when you draw hard lines around what people are and what they "need," you potentially limit a lot of blurrier, less-stereotypical scenarios. And how is a designer (or a child, or a business-person, or a manager, or whoever) supposed to cross that mystical threshold into beginner developer if the tools are behind a financial or obfuscatory barrier? I think that's the main argument. Getting started with command-line tools and developer-type stuff should be as easy as possible, so that people can try new things and break stereotypes and do more than they thought they could do.
    - ahlatimer 16y ago
      That totally outside the scope of this issue, though. If you feel that having to install Xcode to get a gcc install on a Mac, that's fine, but that's the way it's been for a while now. Apple charging for Xcode 4 didn't change that.
- otterley 16y ago
  What part of "XCode 3 is still free" do you not understand?
  - holman 16y ago
    I was more reacting to the common argument that "$5 is not expensive". My apologies if that's not what they were addressing in this comment. That said, Xcode 3 doesn't satisfy the requirement of being easy or quick to install for a casual user.
    - dekz 16y ago
      What isn't easy about installing from the disc given when you bought the mac? Don't have a your mac discs anymore? Download it or borrow someone elses. If you don't want the extra crud of iOS firmwares, disable it. To be honest it's quite "easy" to install for any user. Quick on the other hand, how many 4.5gb installations are quick?
      - cytzol 16y ago
        FWIW, it doesn't come with the new Air models.
      - jfelchner 16y ago
        I think the point wasn't that a 4.5gb installation should be quick. It was that it shouldn't require a 4.5gb installation if all you want is gcc. More like a 50MB installation.
    - matt2224 16y ago
      What's this rubbish about Xcode 3 being hard to install? It's on your OS X CD. From there on, it's just a one-click install process. Even if you downloaded it, the process is the same. If a developer can't be bothered to do that, then they probably dont give a damn in the first place. Casual users =/= developers
    - bradleyland 16y ago
      What it comes down to is a question of principle. The argument that development tools should be free and readily available is a principle of software freedom. I don't want to paint this as black & white, because things rarely are, but on the continuum of free (as in freedom) vs non-free, you'd have to live in a cave on the moon to still cling to the idea that Apple is anywhere near the free side of the scale. You, as a developer, have to make a decision about how you will support your principles. Apple has certainly made theirs. They view their entire platform as theirs to do with as they wish. That is the anti-thesis of freedom. Do not expect this to change.
- rayiner 16y ago
  If you just need gcc: http://llvm.org/releases/download.html#2.8 http://llvm.org/releases/download.html#2.8 Also, how many Apple developers don't already have an iTunes account?
- Terretta 16y ago
  I'm baffled by the premise of this "casual" gem user who is worried about "barriers to entry" yet wants to use... gcc.
  - uxp 16y ago
    Go take a look at the source code for ruby-rmagick, ruby-pg, nokogiri, or mongrel. https://github.com/rmagick/rmagick https://github.com/rmagick/rmagick https://github.com/ged/ruby-pg https://github.com/ged/ruby-pg https://github.com/tenderlove/nokogiri https://github.com/tenderlove/nokogiri
aphyr 16y ago
Do you think Xcode 4 will become free at some point? What happens when Xcode 3 is no longer supported or sufficient?
- younata 16y ago
  Yes. When Lion is released.
  - keen 16y ago
    Free with Lion, or free by itself?
    - younata 16y ago
      That's a moot point, because once it's free with lion, then it might as well be free by itself. Apple does nothing to prevent piracy of its dev tools.
      - keen 16y ago
        Sure, anything's free if you choose to pirate. I was just wondering if they'd make it free for people who don't upgrade to Lion straight away.
        yardie 16y ago
        Every version of XCode I've used has required the OS it is installed to be the latest one. 3.2 required Snow Leopard, 3.1 required Leopard, and so on and so forth. 4 might not require Lion but you can guarantee that 4.1 definitely will.

by wmoxam 16y ago

holman 16y ago

I wasn't arguing that Xcode is expensive. I'm arguing that the barriers to entry are pretty offensive if you need the capabilities of only gcc. An hour-long process involving credit cards isn't very nifty.

tvon 16y ago
It doesn't involve credit cards as xcode 3 is still freely available. If Apple does not include the developer tools on the Lion DVD, and if they remove all free versions of xcode for download, then I don't doubt someone will package up the "build essentials" for OSX and make them available. To date there has been no reason to do this, but if there is a reason, there is nothing preventing it that I am aware of. edit: though I agree a smaller "build essentials" tool chain would be nice, but that was the case before you had to pay for xcode and nobody has bothered to create one. I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't be possible, only that it's probably not worth the hassle of setting it up and maintaining it (though Apple doing it would be excellent).
- holman 16y ago
  Xcode 3 doesn't solve the issue of it being a real pain in the butt to install. gcc by itself is much, much smaller and much less of an issue for a casual user to install.
  - dunham 16y ago
    Isn't it on the DVD that came with the computer? Double-click to install..
  - tvon 16y ago
    (edited my comment before I saw your reply) I agree that a smaller (and free) tool chain would be great, but so far as I know there is nothing preventing anyone from making one. Related, I realize it is now the case, but when did casual users start needing gcc? Time was, in my pre-OSX days, compiling things yourself if you weren't a dev was seen as somewhat pointless, you just get thousands of users all building the same binary instead of building one binary to be downloaded by thousands of users...
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - scott_s 16y ago
    I have installed new versions of gcc on Linux systems. Installing XCode is much, much easier. But, your point was about developers. When did casual users come into the discussion?
    - holman 16y ago
      There's a scale of developers: from people who regularly do this sort of thing, to people who are more casual about it. That's the type of audience that I like to write for sometimes: they'll use my library (which may use compiled code), but they haven't been exposed to this area of software development before. Designers are the best stereotype for this. Having a massive Xcode install is what I'm saying is detrimental to these sorts of casual users (a lot of the time it wouldn't be appropriate to call them "progammers", really).
      - scott_s 16y ago
        It's friction, but, really. It came with their computer. You click a bunch of buttons and it's installed. The size of the install is irrelevant. But I still have difficulty believing these casual-developers-but-not-programmers exist in great numbers. Have people told you "I was going to try your thing, but it asked for this weird gcc thing"?
        holman 16y ago
        Absolutely. I run into that frequently with my own projects. It's such a bummer to have to tell someone to go through this whole process for such a small `gem install` command.
  - bobwaycott 16y ago
    Anyone who hits the need for gcc is no longer a casual user by any average use of that term. A casual user rarely moves past opening a .dmg or .zip with an installer pkg. A casual developer might be a different class of user ... but anyone who hits the point of writing code & installing libraries instead of applications has adequately stepped outside the role of user. And even granting that, it is still not a firm enough basis on which to argue such an inflammatory statement as "OS X is not for developers"--when the casual developer is far better served by OS X's included toolchain than s/he is going to find in a default installation of Windows/Linux counterparts. OS X is not "for" developers when it begins removing the tools that create the lowest barrier to entry for casual development I've seen in a default OS installation in the last 10 years (except maybe Gentoo Linux, one of the most "for developers" systems I've had the pleasure of using).
    - holman 16y ago
      I define it as a casual user of my libraries. Designers are the best example: they're usually hooked into the development world and would be interested in a clever command line tool, but they normally don't have an entire build chain under their belt.
      - bobwaycott 16y ago
        In my neck of the woods, a designer's tool chain rarely extends to anything outside Adobe tools. That's what developers are for ;)
        simolinic 16y ago
        I'm a designer, and a "user" of software, and I use several terminal commands on a regular basis. I don't consider myself anything approaching a "developer," but I code a little in Ruby, Javascript, etc. It's semantics, sure, but when you draw hard lines around what people are and what they "need," you potentially limit a lot of blurrier, less-stereotypical scenarios. And how is a designer (or a child, or a business-person, or a manager, or whoever) supposed to cross that mystical threshold into beginner developer if the tools are behind a financial or obfuscatory barrier? I think that's the main argument. Getting started with command-line tools and developer-type stuff should be as easy as possible, so that people can try new things and break stereotypes and do more than they thought they could do.
  - ahlatimer 16y ago
    That totally outside the scope of this issue, though. If you feel that having to install Xcode to get a gcc install on a Mac, that's fine, but that's the way it's been for a while now. Apple charging for Xcode 4 didn't change that.
otterley 16y ago
What part of "XCode 3 is still free" do you not understand?
- holman 16y ago
  I was more reacting to the common argument that "$5 is not expensive". My apologies if that's not what they were addressing in this comment. That said, Xcode 3 doesn't satisfy the requirement of being easy or quick to install for a casual user.
  - dekz 16y ago
    What isn't easy about installing from the disc given when you bought the mac? Don't have a your mac discs anymore? Download it or borrow someone elses. If you don't want the extra crud of iOS firmwares, disable it. To be honest it's quite "easy" to install for any user. Quick on the other hand, how many 4.5gb installations are quick?
    - cytzol 16y ago
      FWIW, it doesn't come with the new Air models.
    - jfelchner 16y ago
      I think the point wasn't that a 4.5gb installation should be quick. It was that it shouldn't require a 4.5gb installation if all you want is gcc. More like a 50MB installation.
  - matt2224 16y ago
    What's this rubbish about Xcode 3 being hard to install? It's on your OS X CD. From there on, it's just a one-click install process. Even if you downloaded it, the process is the same. If a developer can't be bothered to do that, then they probably dont give a damn in the first place. Casual users =/= developers
  - bradleyland 16y ago
    What it comes down to is a question of principle. The argument that development tools should be free and readily available is a principle of software freedom. I don't want to paint this as black & white, because things rarely are, but on the continuum of free (as in freedom) vs non-free, you'd have to live in a cave on the moon to still cling to the idea that Apple is anywhere near the free side of the scale. You, as a developer, have to make a decision about how you will support your principles. Apple has certainly made theirs. They view their entire platform as theirs to do with as they wish. That is the anti-thesis of freedom. Do not expect this to change.
rayiner 16y ago
If you just need gcc: http://llvm.org/releases/download.html#2.8 http://llvm.org/releases/download.html#2.8 Also, how many Apple developers don't already have an iTunes account?
Terretta 16y ago
I'm baffled by the premise of this "casual" gem user who is worried about "barriers to entry" yet wants to use... gcc.
- uxp 16y ago
  Go take a look at the source code for ruby-rmagick, ruby-pg, nokogiri, or mongrel. https://github.com/rmagick/rmagick https://github.com/rmagick/rmagick https://github.com/ged/ruby-pg https://github.com/ged/ruby-pg https://github.com/tenderlove/nokogiri https://github.com/tenderlove/nokogiri

aphyr 16y ago

Do you think Xcode 4 will become free at some point? What happens when Xcode 3 is no longer supported or sufficient?

younata 16y ago
Yes. When Lion is released.
- keen 16y ago
  Free with Lion, or free by itself?
  - younata 16y ago
    That's a moot point, because once it's free with lion, then it might as well be free by itself. Apple does nothing to prevent piracy of its dev tools.
    - keen 16y ago
      Sure, anything's free if you choose to pirate. I was just wondering if they'd make it free for people who don't upgrade to Lion straight away.
      - yardie 16y ago
        Every version of XCode I've used has required the OS it is installed to be the latest one. 3.2 required Snow Leopard, 3.1 required Leopard, and so on and so forth. 4 might not require Lion but you can guarantee that 4.1 definitely will.