OK. You keep asking, here’s my two cents. I’m a longtime emacs guy, who’s spent a lot of time on Macs as well as *nix. By choice, I use textmate for ruby and rails coding. I use emacs for lisp and some shell stuff and general word-processing. I do not believe that there is anything that either can do that the other can’t. I do believe that there are things that are easier to do on one than the other because other people have taken the time to do them well. Textmate is just much nicer and easier for Rails and Web stuff. I could probably get a similar environment in emacs, but it would involve installing a lot of elisp and configuring it and life is short.
As for vi and vim, I’ve just never liked them and avoid them if possible. Too modal; harder to extend/customise.
Well... I just honestly thought some of your other comments were plain
wrong. I reccomend to you that next time if you don't want to start a
discussion about mac vs. Linux, then don't start it. Remember that you
started by making claims that MacOs was years behind Linux and that
Apple was overpriced and a few more comments. You say that only few
sentences after claiming that you DON'T want the discussion to revolve
around those things.
If you don't want a holy war. Don't bomb the church.
Ya, Jake, you crapped on my Mac-heart and then told us you didn't want
to get into that topic!
When debating an editor know this... TextMate, Vi/Vim, Emacs are all
extremely powerful. All three have features the others don't. It's
not really a matter of having the best editor but a matter of you
knowing which ever editor you choose intimately.
Too often we are quick to jump from one editor to another. All three
of the above, if truly learned, are fantastic editors. If all you
know is how to move around, insert, delete lines then all three of
them suck big time. It's all about your knowledge of the editor.
Stick with one and learn it inside and out. That's the best thing you
can ever do if your a programmer. Devote a serious amount of time
learning your editor. I'd never claim to be a carpenter if I've only
ever used a jig saw to cut a straight line. The editor is the/a tool
of the trade. Learn it well and don't jump ship easily.
.... Now, mac os x as training wheels? I don't think you spent any
time with it if that's how you feel. I do advanced things in Mac OS X
that Linux can only dream of, but that's another topic... don't care
to start an OS war, but before giving opinions, please try to know
what your talking about first. Yes, I have used Linux for almost 10
years now and do so on a continuous basis but would never trade my OS
X box for a Linux box. Oh, also, I have one kick butt os x laptop for
$1,299 ... best deal around in regards to laptops, nothing expensive
about it, quality for quality.
Wow, what $100+ upgrades are they having to fork out for? My mac has had a 1GB ram upgrade (£35 off ebay) and that’s been it. I don’t foresee any further upgrades for this machine.
That said, I’m not sure posts like yours (or mine) are constructive for a Rails list. So a Mac isn’t suitable for your requirements, it’s perfectly suitable for my requirements and many others. I would be completely unproductive on a Linux based machine. It’s horses for courses, I don’t think this thread needs to continue.
Jón Borgþórsson wrote:
> Is $599 overpriced??? You can do EVERYTHING in MacOs you can do in
> Linux.
I have a couple of friends who have Macs, and I marvel at the frequency
with which they are raped for $100+ upgrades. Apple sells you a base
system and then keeps leeching more money, but I suppose that's not
difficult to orchestrate when the majority of your user base is
technicaly illiterate and thus very afraid of disobeying the Holy
Upgrade Commandments emanating from Cupertino.
The Mac is okay -- nice looking apps and a proper Unix shell, but there
is no way I'd pay through the nose and downgrade from Debian or FreeBSD.
downgrade? does your kFreeBuntu box have Quartz Extreme II+? can your debugger 'rewind' to an earlier point in app execution? how about that FCP - did you finally get Cinelerra and JahShaka talking to mencoder via a clever bash command? let me get this straight. all i ahve to do is turn it on, and im making podcasts, hit movies, and ironic TV Commercials? sign me up!
