Simon is a hands-on software architect who works within 
[Twitter] simonbrown: Eating cream cakes in the sun at jersey zoo ... chillin'
[Coding the Architecture] Just a short note to plug a handful of sessions that Kevin and I are presenting at the upcoming Software Architect 2008 conference, 3rd-5th June, London. 1. Coding the Architecture : From Developer to Architect The first is a re-run of our ...
Intel iMac - the best Java development box in the world
The city needs iMacs
Cancelling my MacBook Pro order worked out really well for me. Firstly, I'm getting a new company laptop (a big grey Dull), and the prospect of carrying two laptops around just scares me. Second, with the money I saved I was able to buy a Mac mini and a 20" iMac, both Intel Core Duos. I am going to miss carrying around an Apple laptop, but I'm really glad I've had the opportunity to buy an iMac.
For my money, it's the best Java development box in the world. Here are my reasons.
- The 20" widescreen is fantastic. It's clear, it's bright and it's big. This all makes development work (lots of terminal windows, logs, an IDE, etc) a real pleasure.
- The Intel Macs are blazingly fast. I'm running a 2GHz Core Duo with only 1GB RAM. IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse and NetBeans all start up quick. Java desktop applications respond like native applications. Web and application servers take seconds instead of minutes to fire up. Ant builds also take seconds. Java is fast - fullstop.
- Mac OS X is UNIX based, so you get all the goodness of running a *NIX based OS and the shells that come with it. VNC, ssh, ftp - they're all built in.
- Macs are easy to use and don't require much maintenance. They certainly don't require rebooting, although even that's quick!
- Then there's all the other stuff - easy video conferencing with the built-in iSight, lots of connectivity, built-in wireless/Bluetooth, etc, etc. Just think of the collaboration opportunities that you're missing by not having this type of technology on your desktop. Why shouldn't everybody have access to a webcam?
I really do think that the new Intel based Macs are unbeatable. If I were running a company that specialized in Java development, I'd have very few(*) reservations in kitting everybody out with a 20" iMac. If the rest of the city felt this way, we'd have a lot of happy Java developers. ;-)
* my only reservations would be if you had to run stuff like WebSphere and other Java apps that don't work on OS X. Of course, with Bootcamp and/or virtualization this might not be an issue in the future.
Re: Intel iMac - the best Java development box in the world
Re: Intel iMac - the best Java development box in the world
Anyhow, back to the thread at hand...I know there are plugins for RAD that are OS dependent. The Portal Development framework would be an example, as would the SAP connectors. All call .dlls on the OS that wouldn't be available in a *nix environment.