4 ms·

Is it? You buy a 500$ computer and off you go, no extra costs. Same if you get a computer for Windows or Linux. Same if you target a different device, you still

Is it? You buy a 500$ computer and off you go, no extra costs. Same if you get a computer for Windows or Linux. Same if you target a different device, you still need to get that development system, regardless of the vendor.

tootie 6y ago
$500 for what? The current Mac Mini with an i3 and 8GB is $800 and it isn't really powerful enough as a dev machine. Equivalent Windows computers are much cheaper. If you're an organization, you're buying dozens or hundreds. And just buying workstations isn't the only thing you'll need.
- oneplane 6y ago
  Why do you need to buy a current Mac Mini? A Mac Mini from 2014 does the same job. And how is a i3 not enough? Unless your time costs a lot of money it doesn't really matter if your code compiles 20% faster or not, does it? And when your time is very valuable and you make money with your software, an expense to make that happen seems rather trivial, right? Also, if you are an organisation you're not going to cheap out on your tools (at least not where I'm from). So your multi-thousand workstation that delivers multiples of that in revenue is really not that big of a deal. There is one, and only one case where it's a problem: if you don't make money, but do want the latest and greatest and access to a commercial platform. And in that case it sucks that your values and wishes are not aligned with the commercial interests, but that's life.
  - originalvichy 6y ago
    You can’t legitimately make excuses for Apple’s terrible CICD support. If I was an Apple engineer I’d be ashamed of how bad it is. I thought Windows was a pain in the ass but they’ve stepped up and they’re almost done with containerized Windows. Is it gonna take 10 more years until we have viable test environments for Apple? 15? At this point I’d say it’s more likely they’ll never bother. There can’t be any other reason to be this late.
    - oneplane 6y ago
      I'm neither 'excusing' for anyone nor talking about CI and CD. But if you want to talk about it; how about you talk about MSBuild. Or the lack of sources in Windows. The point is that someone makes an invalid statement about availability and/or cost. Just because you wish something doesn't mean every company in the world is bad for not supplying exactly that. (they are of course bad, but for other reasons) Not everything can be the same happy build systems we're used to. That's not a bad thing in itself as a mono-culture has plenty of problems all by itself.
      - heavyset_go 6y ago
        > Or the lack of sources in Windows. What's released as Darwin and XNU often is several years behind what Apple is currently shipping if they choose to release parts of the source at all. The stuff that actually matters on macOS isn't open source.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    > Why do you need to buy a current Mac Mini? A Mac Mini from 2014 does the same job. Because in a year or two, macOS will deprecate support for the machine[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS#Hardware_compatibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS#Hardware_compatibility
    - oneplane 6y ago
      Well, then get a 2018 model, also available second hand cheaply. It's not the point. You can also get a laptop or iMac or whatever. The point is that you can make it as difficult or as easy on yourself as you want. Yes, proprietary systems and commercial vendors are going to add to the difficulty to some degree when compared to open source community systems, but that's a known fact and has very little to do with any specific vendor.
      - heavyset_go 6y ago
        > but that's a known fact and has very little to do with any specific vendor. Yet I can still run Windows 10 on a computer that I've had in my closet for the last 15 years.

tootie 6y ago

$500 for what? The current Mac Mini with an i3 and 8GB is $800 and it isn't really powerful enough as a dev machine. Equivalent Windows computers are much cheaper. If you're an organization, you're buying dozens or hundreds. And just buying workstations isn't the only thing you'll need.

oneplane 6y ago
Why do you need to buy a current Mac Mini? A Mac Mini from 2014 does the same job. And how is a i3 not enough? Unless your time costs a lot of money it doesn't really matter if your code compiles 20% faster or not, does it? And when your time is very valuable and you make money with your software, an expense to make that happen seems rather trivial, right? Also, if you are an organisation you're not going to cheap out on your tools (at least not where I'm from). So your multi-thousand workstation that delivers multiples of that in revenue is really not that big of a deal. There is one, and only one case where it's a problem: if you don't make money, but do want the latest and greatest and access to a commercial platform. And in that case it sucks that your values and wishes are not aligned with the commercial interests, but that's life.
- originalvichy 6y ago
  You can’t legitimately make excuses for Apple’s terrible CICD support. If I was an Apple engineer I’d be ashamed of how bad it is. I thought Windows was a pain in the ass but they’ve stepped up and they’re almost done with containerized Windows. Is it gonna take 10 more years until we have viable test environments for Apple? 15? At this point I’d say it’s more likely they’ll never bother. There can’t be any other reason to be this late.
  - oneplane 6y ago
    I'm neither 'excusing' for anyone nor talking about CI and CD. But if you want to talk about it; how about you talk about MSBuild. Or the lack of sources in Windows. The point is that someone makes an invalid statement about availability and/or cost. Just because you wish something doesn't mean every company in the world is bad for not supplying exactly that. (they are of course bad, but for other reasons) Not everything can be the same happy build systems we're used to. That's not a bad thing in itself as a mono-culture has plenty of problems all by itself.
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      > Or the lack of sources in Windows. What's released as Darwin and XNU often is several years behind what Apple is currently shipping if they choose to release parts of the source at all. The stuff that actually matters on macOS isn't open source.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > Why do you need to buy a current Mac Mini? A Mac Mini from 2014 does the same job. Because in a year or two, macOS will deprecate support for the machine[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS#Hardware_compatibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS#Hardware_compatibility
  - oneplane 6y ago
    Well, then get a 2018 model, also available second hand cheaply. It's not the point. You can also get a laptop or iMac or whatever. The point is that you can make it as difficult or as easy on yourself as you want. Yes, proprietary systems and commercial vendors are going to add to the difficulty to some degree when compared to open source community systems, but that's a known fact and has very little to do with any specific vendor.
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      > but that's a known fact and has very little to do with any specific vendor. Yet I can still run Windows 10 on a computer that I've had in my closet for the last 15 years.