Re: 10 Reasons .NET developers should consider the switch to Mac OS

On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:02:32 -0700, JDeats <Jeremy.Deats@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Please answer these two questions honestly: 1. Is your Mac an Intel
Core 2 Duo based Mac? and 2. Is it running Leopard or Tiger?

1. Yes. 2. Tiger. So what? Leopard has only been out six months and Apple's already on the fifth iteration. That's not the sort of maintenance rate that instills confidence (especially with the latest full-privilege elevation security flaw that's been found).

There isn't much to love about Objective-C. Java programming on the
Mac I've found to be nearly as "lovely" as C#.

Even you admit it's only "nearly".

Having turned away from
Java years ago because of it's performance on Windows and now seeing
how it can truely be a jewel in rough under the right circumstances

All of the JITted, frameworked, garbage-collected platforms have benefited from advances in hardware performance. Java on Windows is just as much a "jewel" as it is on the Mac. Which is to say, it actually runs pretty well. Oh, except that on Windows you get the latest Java and fewer bugs (lately I'm especially annoyed at the Mac implementation of JFileChooser, which changes your selected filename if you navigate into a directory...duh).

(i.e. when Sun and the OS vendor actually get along), I begin to
question why I remain programming in C#. A quick job market search on
monster and computerjobs.com shows that, if anything Java is gaining
ground over C# again.

Java has a number of strengths, and especially the fact that it's cross-platform. How that means that a _Mac_ is a superior computer, I fail to see. Especially when the Mac Java support is decidedly inferior.

I agree about Objective-C, why on earth it was chosen over C++ to be
their choice for native app development beyond me. Having said that,
the XCode tools are 100% free.

So is Visual Studio Express.

Frankly, if Apple were charging for Xcode, I'd be offended. It's only because it's free that it can get away with being as clumsy as it is.

I would suspect that's because of your familiarity with the software
you have selected to run on Windows and the way you work to keep your
OS tidy.

You can suspect whatever you want. You'd be wrong.

On this budget end $399 Pystar system I was dealing with
fresh installs of Windows and Mac OS, so let's be clear there was
nothing interfering and the overall responsiveness/performance of the
applications I tested Anyone can perform this test to verify the
results:

1. Partion or install two hard drives, Install fresh copies of Mac OS
10.5 Leopard and Windows on a Pystar
2. Install current version of QuickTime for both OSes and the Quake 4
demo on both. Begin opening 720p HD quicktime movie trailer windows
and run Quake 4 in the background.

So this isn't a measured bench-test. It's a real world, practical test
of how well these operating systems handle multi-tasking,

Really? How many times do you find yourself playing Quake 4 and running a Quicktime movie in the background?

The fact is, your test is anything but "real world" and "practical". Quicktime isn't the video player of choice on a Windows computer, people don't show videos and play video games on the same PC at the same time, and even if they did, that's not a scenario that demonstrates _anything_ about how the OS works in "day to day" use (your words).

[...]
I really wish Tom's Hardware or some other hardware oriented site
would do proper bench test against these two OS, it would be
interesting to say the least.

Well, a "proper bench test" would certainty be an improvement on what you've done.

I use Google Mail for all personal mail so I wouldn't know about
that.... Have you tried Safari 3? Firefox runs about the same on
Windows on Mac and remains my primary browser. Even given it's
ocassional crash and overall stability issues, it's feature set make
it much more appealing the IE.

So you say. Suffice to say, not everyone agrees. My priorities are stability and rendering, both areas where IE kicks Firefox's ass. Safari's not so hot in stability, but at least it has picture-perfect rendering. Bells and whistles are nice, but they don't do me any good when they're attached to a rickety junk heap.

What kind of Mac do you have? If you have a Mac Mini or plan Mac Book
(not Mac Book Pro) for example, you're dealing with a Intel GMA 950
integrated graphics adapter which is not advertised to play games
well. I have a friend who uses Bootcamp entirely for gaming on his
iMac and claims to have no problems whatsoever.

I wrote in my previous post that I have a MacBook Pro. My issues have nothing to do with performance. They have to do with buggy drivers.

There are similar products for Windows, but they are all from
different vendors and they are not bundled free with the OS as iLife
currently is (let's not get technically on that, iLife 08 comes with
every new Mac available today).

Apple's applications aren't integrated well enough for that to be a consideration. Cost is an issue for me, so I stick with Pinnacle Studio when I need features, and Windows Movie Maker when I need something that's easy and works. If and when Adobe gets around to putting real menu authoring features into Premiere Elements, I'll probably switch to that because otherwise I actually like that program the best.

[...] As with Windows, there are alternatives
out there. But I completely disagree, since Microsoft does not have
counterparts to these applications and since Apple does not publish
these applications on Windows there are no equals in the Windows world

Have you used Vista? Even on XP, Windows Movie Maker provides pretty much the same feature set as iMovie (with minor differences in favor of one or the other in basically equal amounts). I've barely used Vista, but it includes a suite of tools very similar to iLife.

Bottom line: the Apple products aren't nearly as useful as you claim they are. I've used them, and they can get the job done, but they don't come close to what a standalone retail product would provide.

You left out an end-paren. In any case, the above is just plain silly.
.NET has fantastic integration with the native API and is very
performant. A Windows application in .NET looks like a Windows
application, and inasmuch as Windows supports video capture through
DirectShow, you can very easily "in a few hours coding" accomplish the
same in a .NET application through p/invoke.

Java 6 has been available for Mac X Leopard 10.5 since the end of
April 2008.
http://developer.apple.com/java/

First, that has nothing to do with the part of my post you question. Second...

April 2008. A scant two months ago. Well, good for them. They have finally gotten it out the door. Suffice to say, I'm not impressed, especially considering that Leopard is far from ubiquitous. And Apple's decision to tie the Java version to the OS version is just more of their lame product-tying crap. "Want the latest Java? No problem! Just pay us another $100+ for our newest OS!".

Just scanning some articles it seems part of the blame for the delays
for Java releases on Mac is because of Apple's involvement and
commitment to Java (I suppose they want to subject it to testing and
update their wrapper libraries, etc... that's a guess)

Oh, give me a break. That's just marketing B.S. It is just plain ridiculous for Apple to be practically a full version behind the rest of the world with Java.

There is no real P/Invoke counterpart in Java to call native APIs on
Mac OS. I'll agree with that, but then again calling native Win32
API's through C# can be a living nightmare and a lot of this
functionality should have native wrappers. Want to play a sound file
in .NET you have to call a native API or go through DirectX, it's
insane. But now we're getting off topic.

Not really. A statement like that goes to demonstrate your credibility. Or, rather...lack thereof. There are easy, managed ways to play sound files in .NET.

Apple has quite elegantly put togeather and documented Java libraries
for a lot of their API functionality.

"A lot" is not the same as full support.

> 7. iPhone development tools are free

Um, iPhone SDK is still under NDA. You're not supposed to talk about it.
Apple's very touchy about their NDAs, no matter how stupid those NDAs
might be.


Well, now it's clear. You're trying to be confrontational or maybe you
mean this in a light hearted way, who knows. Regardless I didn't sign
a NDA and one doesn't have to in order to discover the SDK is free.

I'm being confrontational because you are. You posted a really stupid "go buy a Mac" post to a C# newsgroup and you're basing your argument on dopey things like "iPhone development tools are free". Why shouldn't I pick apart every little detail if I like?

Yup. Likewise you have to have iTunes to talk to your iPod. Remind me,
why is it that Apple's DRM-based technology locking is a _good_ thing?

They have DRM locking because the record labels demanded it

More marketing B.S. They tie their products so that you have to use iTunes with your iPod. Otherwise, when the labels had agreed to remove DRM, iTunes would have led the way. That's not what happened.

which
iTunes store pioneered the way, but DRM in general is slowly fading
away. You can already buy some DRM free music through iTunes, this
problem is not specific to Apple and not relevant to someone wanting
to take advantage of a booming market for application development.
iTunes marshalls sync operations with the iPhone/iPod Touch because, I
suspect because these devices were designed as digital music players
and the other features are turning them into PDA like devices.

That last sentence is just gobbledygook. And anyway, Apple could easily provide plug-ins to allow the iPod to work with other media players, like Windows Media Player.

The fact that Apple won't license their DRM is a clear demonstration that they don't want people to be able to use non-Apple hardware with iTunes (so people who want to use iTunes are forced to buy an iPod) and they don't want people to be able to use non-Apple music stores with iPods (so people who want to buy music for their iPod are forced to use iTunes).

Granted, the latter lock-up is harder to enforce and with DRM-free MP3 music being purchasable now, it's practically gone. But Apple's been dragged into the future kicking and screaming. They'd much rather have complete control over that market, and they made specific technical and business decisions to further that goal.

You can try to defend Apple as much as you want on that point, you just come across as an apologist for them. Or a troll. Or both (that's what my money is on).

> 8. A true next generation operating system capable of running 64-bit
> and 32-bit code side by side
> Another little marketing spill that lives up to it's hype. You can use
> the for mentioned FREE development tools to output 64-bit or 32-bit
> binaries and test, run, debug them side by side on the current version
> of Mac OS

This is different from 64-bit Windows how? And tell us again, when did
the respective 64-bit versions of the operating systems come out?

Oh it's much different. 64-bit Windows is a joke and a real pain in
the ass,

Uh, right. That's why all sorts of people are using it.

32-bit applications take a noticable performance hit on 64-
bit Windows if they run at all. I'm sure Leopard isn't without its
bugs but the fact is Apple unified Leopard as a single product 64-bit/
32-bit OS.

Actually, Apple's "unification" is part of a strategy to kill off the Carbon API.

64-bit Windows is far from a mainstream product.

That's because it doesn't need to be. Apple is foisting 64-bit off on consumers so that _everyone_ has an OS that runs the 64-bit stuff that can't be accessed via Carbon. Being so far behind the curve relative to Microsoft, they have learned from Microsoft's "mistake", and realized that consumers won't buy a 64-bit OS unless it's forced on them.

IMO this
is one of Microsoft biggest failures with Vista. Absolutely
unforgivable given how long AMD has had reasonable priced 64-bit
processors on the market.

Most people have no need for a 64-bit OS. But the fact remains, Microsoft's had a 64-bit story since long before Apple did.

When I have this discussion with a Microsoft zelot (I mean someone who
tends to be negative towards anything non-Microsoft)

As opposed to someone who tends to be negative towards anything non-Apple?

and this subject
comes up generally the importance of 64-bit gets downplayed and that's
so sad to me. The importance of us moving to 64-bit development can
not be overstated.

Actually, it can be. And you are.

[...]
Just curious, what are some other commerical desktop/server OS's
available that are not Unix or Linux based?

Not that you originally limited your statement to "desktop/server OS's" anyway, but I'm sure if you're really curious, Google can scratch that itch for you.

Unix is certainly popular, but it's not the only game in town. Besides, if popularity were really a judge of the quality of the OS, you'd have to accept that Windows is the pinnacle of technical superiority. Somehow, I don't see you headed in that direction.

Actually, one thing anyone considering getting a Mac should understand:
Mac OS X isn't actually Mac OS. It's NeXT with a Mac wrapper.

In its day, NeXT was like a super computer a head of its time and is
essentially a shell on top of BSD (Unix). the few that did get sold
went to work on number crunching research at labs sucha s CERT. The
system didn't get the respect it deserved.

No doubt. And surely that's at least part of why Jobs resurrected it as the "new Mac". He and his NeXT cronies really wanted to see it get some respect, even if they had to force it down everyone's throats. But something that "in its day was like a super computer" doesn't look so modern 20 years later.

Pete
.

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