Why do so many Ruby/Rails developers use Macs?

[Jim Knowlton]

I am a QA engineer who works in Ruby quite a bit, and I've never been
able to figure out...why is there a disproportionately large
contingent of Mac users among Ruby developers? Macs are probably 10
percent of the computer market, but every time I go to a Ruby
conference, probably 80 percent of the laptops there are Macs.

Any thoughts?

[Ron Brinson]

Then why is it so hard for me to find just one of you guys for a Delaware spot?  I need a ROR Mac Developer for a project with Bank of America in Delaware.. 

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
To post to this group, send email to rubyonra...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-ta...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.

--


Ron at 704-975-2810

ron.b...@gmail.com
twitter =  rbrinson2810

[Frederick Cheung]

Well a least one reason is that ruby on windows has historically been
not such a great proposition due to slower speed and hassle installing
gems with native extensions.

Fred
> Any thoughts?

[eric...@gmail.com]

the short answer is because they're smart :-).

You have to remember that OS X is Unix with the best GUI. The Unix platform is far more mature than the Window core therefore more stable. Also, Unix was originate by programmers for programmers

Hope that help. Also, if you'd ever spend some quality time use OS X you'd never go back to Windows & I used Windows since 3.0 until about 6 months ago. I'll never run another Windows PC

------Original Message------
From: Jim Knowlton
To: Ruby on Rails: Talk
ReplyTo: rubyonra...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Rails] Why do so many Ruby/Rails developers use Macs?
Sent: Dec 4, 2009 11:33 AM

I am a QA engineer who works in Ruby quite a bit, and I've never been
able to figure out...why is there a disproportionately large
contingent of Mac users among Ruby developers? Macs are probably 10
percent of the computer market, but every time I go to a Ruby
conference, probably 80 percent of the laptops there are Macs.

Any thoughts?

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
To post to this group, send email to rubyonra...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-ta...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

[Niels Meersschaert]

Another reason the Mac has continued to be so popular is that has included Ruby, Rails & SQLite out of the box for the past few years. This means you can have a working Rails environment on every new machine. You can even do native development (full GUI desktop applications) on the Mac in Ruby.

At a lower level, the typical language for Mac development, Objective-C, has many structural similarities to Ruby (you can do the equivalent of mixing in modules to any class at runtime) so there are general philosophies that are in sync.

Finally, if you look at Rails alone... it's premised on the idea of keeping everything very simple to do & convention over configuration..... which is very similar to the Mac philosophy of ease of use.

Niels

[Rob Biedenharn]

And! you'd probably find that a good portion of the non-Mac laptops at
those conferences were running an o/s other than Windows.

It's similar to the reason that Graphic Designers are more likely to
have Macs. The platform has a better environment, better tools for the
actual work that matters.

-Rob

Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com
R...@AgileConsultingLLC.com

On Dec 4, 2009, at 2:49 PM, eric...@gmail.com wrote:

[Agustin Nicolas Viñao Laseras]

So sad that Mac not in countries like Argentina, only have expensive resellers, we must pay price of 150% or more compared with the U.S..
_______________________
        Agustin Viñao
www.agustinvinao.com.ar
   agustinvinao (Skype)

[bill walton]

Hi Ron,

On Fri, 2009-12-04 at 13:44 -0500, Ron Brinson wrote:
> Then why is it so hard for me to find just one of you guys for a
> Delaware spot?

I can think of several potential reasons.

1) Your original posting did not follow the forum's convention, clearly
posted on the Google Groups home page, that job postings be prefixed on
the subject line with [JOBS]. A lack of respect for the community's
norms starts you off on the wrong foot.

2) Your posting included no information whatsoever regarding the
position. While the US economy, in general, is in very poor shape, the
Rails ecosystem is quite healthy. If you want to attract qualified
talent to your projects, you'll probably want to spend a little time
'sprucing up' your preso. That, of course, presumes that you've done
some homework wrt your audience.

> ... for a project with Bank of America ...

Ummmm... by itself, that's doing you more harm than good. If it were
me, I'd talk much more about the team. Rails developers are generally a
younger crowd. Working for a Bank, well... not nearly as much fun as
working for a startup. And Rails is about having fun while we work.

> in Delaware..

3) Not sure how many Rails developers there are in Delaware. You might
want to google 'Ruby Brigade Delaware' to get started.

HTH,
Bill

[Colin Law]

2009/12/4 Agustin Nicolas Viñao Laseras <agusti...@gmail.com>:

> So sad that Mac not in countries like Argentina, only have expensive
> resellers, we must pay price of 150% or more compared with the U.S..
> _______________________

Then you could use Ubuntu or one of the other similar distributions.
That is good for RoR and cheaper, with excellent community support.

Colin

[Conrad Taylor]

Jim, here are my reasons for selecting a Mac:

o the OS is built on very stable technologies like Unix

o the graphical user interface is great for delivering a better user experience

o open source friendly

o can use both off the shelf and open source software

o in regards to the web, a better mirror to the platform I'm deploying to

   i.e. most deployed web sites are running on Unix based systems

o most of the companies I have worked for were Unix based environments

o a very nice and free development environment in Xcode for building desktop, iPhone, and MacRuby applications

o extensibility

   e.g. I can run Windows 7 Ultimate, Linux, other OS compatible applications side by side with Mac OS applications using VMWare Fusion.  

          I tend use a very nice tool called Rational Performance Tester on Linux for simulating user load on a web site.  BTW, Rational Performance 

         Tester is only supported on the Window and Linux platforms.

o the company, Apple, cares more about winning the quality battle than the majority battle

   

In short, it's about working in an environment that you enjoy which provides the options to expand.

Just my 2 cents,

-Conrad

[Steven Elliott Jr]

Macs are by fat the easiest way to get going in rails/ruby because
it's there out of the box. A few gem commands and you're rockin' and
rollin'. Windows and Linux are easy to set up too but require a bit
more setup work.

Ubuntu is good but you have to use the stuff in the repositories by
default which is ok but not as good as issuing gem commands. Chances
are good that you'll deploy to *nix so you might as well learn to
develop on it too

Also macs are just way nicer to work on day-to-day. I see slot more
java devs using macs too these days.


--
Steven Elliott Jr

> --
>
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.

> To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-
> ta...@googlegroups.com.

[Agustin Nicolas Viñao Laseras]

I talked Mac in Argentina (reseller, not direct Mac Store) is expensive to buy the equipment. Whoever knows the benefits of using Mac hardware knows it is not the same team using a different brand with OSX.
The price of Macbook Pro 2.66 in Argentina is $ S 3300 and in U.S. u $ s 1999. And the reason is not taxes, is by middlemen.

Spanish mac reseller:

http://www.macstore.com.ar/producto.php?id=1615&idCategoria=1&idSubcategoria=2

(1 u$S = $3.82 argentine pesos)

Mac U.S. web:

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro

_______________________
        Agustin Viñao
www.agustinvinao.com.ar
   agustinvinao (Skype)

[Conrad Taylor]

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Agustin Nicolas Viñao Laseras <agusti...@gmail.com> wrote:

I talked Mac in Argentina (reseller, not direct Mac Store) is expensive to buy the equipment. Whoever knows the benefits of using Mac hardware knows it is not the same team using a different brand with OSX.
The price of Macbook Pro 2.66 in Argentina is $ S 3300 and in U.S. u $ s 1999. And the reason is not taxes, is by middlemen.

Spanish mac reseller:

http://www.macstore.com.ar/producto.php?id=1615&idCategoria=1&idSubcategoria=2

(1 u$S = $3.82 argentine pesos)

Mac U.S. web:

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro

_______________________
        Agustin Viñao
www.agustinvinao.com.ar
   agustinvinao (Skype)

Hi, you might want to pay a visit to the states if you know someone's that's traveling your

way, you might be able to make arrangements that way.  Here are a list of states that do

not have sales tax:

Alaska

Delaware

Montana

New Hampshire

Oregon

Good luck,

-Conrad

[Colin Law]

2009/12/4 Steven Elliott Jr <stevenel...@gmail.com>:

> Macs are by fat the easiest way to get going in rails/ruby because
> it's there out of the box. A few gem commands and you're rockin' and
> rollin'. Windows and Linux are easy to set up too but require a bit
> more setup work.
>
> Ubuntu is good but you have to use the stuff in the repositories by
> default which is ok but not as good as issuing gem commands.

Not true, it is easy to install so that the gem commands can be used
in the normal way. I use this script to install the lamp stack, mysql
ruby and rails (on ubuntu 9.10), it does not get much easier than
this. It assumes that there is a folder ~/downloads

# this installs the lamp stack, the ^ is important. See
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Tasksel
sudo apt-get install lamp-server^
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql phpmyadmin

# this derived from
http://www.hackido.com/2009/04/install-ruby-rails-on-ubuntu-904-jaunty.html
# bits for building stuff
cd ~
sudo apt-get install build-essential
# ruby and mysql stuff, this assumes that the lamp stack with mysql
has already been installed
sudo apt-get install ruby ri rdoc libmysql-ruby ruby1.8-dev irb1.8
libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libmysql-ruby1.8 libmysqlclient15off
libnet-daemon-perl libplrpc-perl libreadline-ruby1.8 libruby1.8
rdoc1.8 ri1.8 ruby1.8 irb libopenssl-ruby libopenssl-ruby1.8
libhtml-template-perl
wget -N -P ~/downloads
http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/60718/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
tar xvzf ~/downloads/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
cd rubygems-1.3.5
sudo ruby setup.rb
cd ..
rm -rf rubygems-1.3.5
echo "making symlinks - not sure if this will always be necessary,
must be done if gem -v does not work"
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/local/bin/gem
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/ruby1.8 /usr/local/bin/ruby
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/rdoc1.8 /usr/local/bin/rdoc
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/ri1.8 /usr/local/bin/ri
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/irb1.8 /usr/local/bin/irb
# rails latest version
sudo gem install rails

Colin

[James Sullivan]

I've only been doing Ruby on Rails and Ruby development for 4 weeks now
but from my experience so far all the tools I need either come with OSX
or a built for OSX. So it's just a lot less of a hassle to get up and
running.

James.

[seanlynch]

" Macs are probably 10 percent of the computer market"

That would be the computer user market, not the computer professional
market.

Most professionals in any field use equipment that is different than
home users. Professional drivers, professional filmmakers,
professional chefs.

Being the most popular in the consumer market does not make an item
the best for a particular task.
Think of the best hamburger you ever ate. One that just thinking about
it makes your mouth water.

Did you think about a McDonald's plain hamburger?

Why not? McDonald's hamburgers are clearly the leaders in the market
place. They sell more than any other brand of hamburger. They are
adequate nutritionally and are reasonably priced.

Mac buyers spend all that extra money an pure fresh ground beef on
artisan baked rolls with fresh trimmings.
Linux users grill their own at home.

[Amin Torres]

you lost me on hamburger! - sorry! :)
But yeah ALL people i have met use macs.
now, am going to go for some fresh ground beef.

[esavard]

Anything is better than Windows to develop Rails. Linux (Ubuntu) does
the job for me. I'm not a Mac guy mainly because the hardware cost
much more than the equivalent (bogomips for bogomips) PC.

By the way, it's a nice script Colin. I have put something similar
together but it install rails and other development tools (SCM,
Database, Java, etc.) on Ubuntu using a dialogs (GUI + bash):
http://symbiosoft.net/ubuntu_devenv

Etienne.

On 5 déc, 04:56, Colin Law <clan...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> 2009/12/4 Steven Elliott Jr <stevenelliott0...@gmail.com>:

>
> > Macs are by fat the easiest way to get going in rails/ruby because
> > it's there out of the box. A few gem commands and you're rockin' and
> > rollin'. Windows and Linux are easy to set up too but require a bit
> > more setup work.
>
> > Ubuntu is good but you have to use the stuff in the repositories by
> > default which is ok but not as good as issuing gem commands.
>
> Not true, it is easy to install so that the gem commands can be used
> in the normal way.  I use this script to install the lamp stack, mysql
> ruby and rails (on ubuntu 9.10), it does not get much easier than
> this.  It assumes that there is a folder ~/downloads
>

> # this installs the lamp stack, the ^ is important. Seehttps://help.ubuntu.com/community/Tasksel

> sudo apt-get install lamp-server^
> sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql phpmyadmin
>

> # this derived fromhttp://www.hackido.com/2009/04/install-ruby-rails-on-ubuntu-904-jaunt...

> # bits for building stuff
> cd ~
> sudo apt-get install build-essential
> # ruby and mysql stuff, this assumes that the lamp stack with mysql
> has already been installed
> sudo apt-get install ruby ri rdoc libmysql-ruby ruby1.8-dev irb1.8
> libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libmysql-ruby1.8 libmysqlclient15off
> libnet-daemon-perl libplrpc-perl libreadline-ruby1.8 libruby1.8
> rdoc1.8 ri1.8 ruby1.8 irb libopenssl-ruby libopenssl-ruby1.8
> libhtml-template-perl

> wget -N  -P ~/downloadshttp://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/60718/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz

[Yiannis]

Well this was something that I found also a bit weird when I began
learning rails. I generally don't like apple because they obligate you
to buy also the hardware for having their OS, programs and the like...

Except from all of that and most importantly, as a web developer I
need many versions of internet explorer to check how my sites are and
I don't enjoy to have a virtual machine with windows to check them. So
in one corner stands rails installation in windows which isn't that
difficult, and in the other stands a virtual machine installation with
windows and all the internet explorer versions to check the sites.
Internet explorer is the most used browser (unfortunately) so it is
necessary to check your site there and it is easy with windows to have
all the versions and generally all the popular browsers. So windows
and rails is ok I think and I personally prefer it from OS X :).

[Gintautas Šimkus]

Well I have been sceptical about Mac (Ubuntu user here), because a big part of it is just brand, but now when I think about it there are some advantages of using Mac over Ubuntu:
1) Photoshop has a version for mac, but not for Linux and as a freelancer I have to deal with graphics from time to time.
2) Textmate. Haven't used it myself, but from the podcasts I've seen it looks pretty sexy. Currently using gvim.

So when the time to buy a new laptop comes I will consider getting a mac.

Does anybody have any other arguments for using mac over ubuntu?

2009/12/5 esavard <savard....@gmail.com>

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.

To post to this group, send email to rubyonra...@googlegroups.com.

[Hassan Schroeder]

On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Gintautas Šimkus <dihi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Does anybody have any other arguments for using mac over ubuntu?

I bought a Mac laptop when I had to spend significant time on the
road, because I can test with browsers on all the major platforms:
Mac (native) and Linux/Windows VMs, all on one box.

And as you said, there are more software options.

FWIW,
--
Hassan Schroeder ------------------------ hassan.s...@gmail.com
twitter: @hassan

[Allan Wind]

On 2009-12-05T17:36:40, Hassan Schroeder wrote:
> I bought a Mac laptop when I had to spend significant time on the
> road, because I can test with browsers on all the major platforms:
> Mac (native) and Linux/Windows VMs, all on one box.

I guess "major" is subjective and depends on your user base. At
work it breaks down along these lines (we do not test browsers
across different OSes): 82% IE, 13% Firefox, 3% Safari, and 1%
Chrome.

Apples makes Safari available for Windows. Both Chrome and
Safari use WebKit as their engine. There is also Lunascape which
support all the engines on Windows.

ies4linux with the help of wine gets you IE 6, 5.5, 5 on Linux.
Chrome is in beta for Linux, if you do not want to use that you
Chromium might be a suitable alternative.


/Allan
--
Allan Wind
Life Integrity, LLC
<http://lifeintegrity.com>

[Hassan Schroeder]

On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 6:57 PM, Allan Wind <allan...@lifeintegrity.com> wrote:

> Apples makes Safari available for Windows.

True now, but that wasn't the case when I got my first Mac. And I
have no idea if they are truly equivalent.

> Both Chrome and Safari use WebKit as their engine.

And exhibit very different behavior; I certainly wouldn't consider them
equivalent for testing purposes.

> ies4linux with the help of wine gets you IE 6, 5.5, 5 on Linux.

I've never tried it, but I've seen reports of major behavior discrepancies
between those and the "real thing". And at this point IE below 6.0 is
pretty much a non-factor; you need to test in IE 8, 7, and possibly 6
depending on target audience.

With easy (and cheap/free) virtualization available, there doesn't seem
to me to be a good reason not to use it to check your work on browsers
in their "native" environments.

YMMV,

[Niels Meersschaert]

You probably should test across OSs. I've found some things that work fine in Firefox for Windows, but fail on Firefox for Mac & vice-versa. There is close parity across OSs for the browsers, but there are definitely differences at times.

[Conrad Taylor]

On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 1:06 PM, Yiannis <istos...@gmail.com> wrote:

Well this was something that I found also a bit weird when I began
learning rails. I generally don't like apple because they obligate you
to buy also the hardware for having their OS, programs and the like...

I have heard this argument so many times.  Apple has been operating

like this from the beginning and I bet there's a lot less code bloat in their

OS because they do not have to work with so many different configurations.  

Next, I can say the same thing about a cars like Ferrari, Porche, or Lamborghini in

that many people want one but they want it at half the price.  In short, you

buy what you can afford and move on.

 

Except from all of that and most importantly, as a web developer I
need many versions of internet explorer to check how my sites are and
I don't enjoy to have a virtual machine with windows to check them.

Yes, I tend to do the same with VMWare Fusion but I'm not concerned with working

with every browser but a subset of browsers that support the functionality that I need

for my application.  For example, you'll see on many sites something like this:

This website is best supported by using Firefox 3.x, Safari 4.x, ...

Just my 2 cents,

-Conrad

 

So

in one corner stands rails installation in windows which isn't that
difficult, and in the other stands a virtual machine installation with
windows and all the internet explorer versions to check the sites.
Internet explorer is the most used browser (unfortunately) so it is
necessary to check your site there and it is easy with windows to have
all the versions and generally all the popular browsers. So windows
and rails is ok I think and I personally prefer it from OS X :).

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.

To post to this group, send email to rubyonra...@googlegroups.com.

[aldo.nievas]

I bought a Macbook Pro from Argentina by u$2200 through
megadistributors.com
Just only u$300 more than US. And they delivered it at your door home.

And why Mac for Rail development ? Did you use combination Mac +
Texmate ? It's awesome.

DHH and his team were developed Rails using that combination.

Cheers.
Aldo Nievas
www.satio.com.ar
aldo.nievas (skype)


On Dec 4, 10:16 pm, Agustin Nicolas Viñao Laseras

<agustinvi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I talked Mac in Argentina (reseller, not direct Mac Store) is expensive to
> buy the equipment. Whoever knows the benefits of using Mac hardware knows it
> is not the same team using a different brand with OSX.
> The price of Macbook Pro 2.66 in Argentina is $ S 3300 and in U.S. u $ s
> 1999. And the reason is not taxes, is by middlemen.
>

> Spanish mac reseller:http://www.macstore.com.ar/producto.php?id=1615&idCategoria=1&idSubca...

> (1 u$S = $3.82 argentine pesos)
>
> Mac U.S. web:http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro
> _______________________
>         Agustin Viñaowww.agustinvinao.com.ar
>    agustinvinao (Skype)
>

> On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 6:32 PM, Colin Law <clan...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > 2009/12/4 Agustin Nicolas Viñao Laseras <agustinvi...@gmail.com>:

> > > So sad that Mac not in countries like Argentina, only have expensive
> > > resellers, we must pay price of 150% or more compared with the U.S..
> > > _______________________
>
> > Then you could use Ubuntu or one of the other similar distributions.
> > That is good for RoR and cheaper, with excellent community support.
>
> > Colin
>
> > --
>
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to rubyonra...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

> > rubyonrails-ta...@googlegroups.com<rubyonrails-talk%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> > .

[Pardee, Roy]

True enough, alas. But thanks to the efforts of Luis Lavena and the others working on rake-compiler and the new rubyinstaller for windows (rubyinstaller.org), things are getting better and better for windows based rubyists. 1.9 is noticeably faster, and DevKit lets gem developers on non-windows platforms easily include windows-compatible binary components w/their gems.

-Roy

GHC Confidentiality Statement

This message and any attached files might contain confidential information protected by federal and state law. The information is intended only for the use of the individual(s) or entities originally named as addressees. The improper disclosure of such information may be subject to civil or criminal penalties. If this message reached you in error, please contact the sender and destroy this message. Disclosing, copying, forwarding, or distributing the information by unauthorized individuals or entities is strictly prohibited by law.

[RVince]

Colin,

If you were running on Ububtu, what editor would you use? -RVince



On Dec 4, 4:32 pm, Colin Law <clan...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> 2009/12/4 Agustin Nicolas Viñao Laseras <agustinvi...@gmail.com>:

[Sergio Sergio]

I would use emacs

2009/12/8 RVince <rvin...@hotmail.com>

[Colin Law]

2009/12/8 RVince <rvin...@hotmail.com>:

> Colin,
>
> If you were running on Ububtu, what editor would you use? -RVince

I am, I use jEdit, which I can also use when I have to be in Windows,
but there are choices on Ubuntu to suit all tastes.

Colin

[Norm Scherer]

I use vi (vim or gvim) usually with occasional forays into emacs.  I have used vi for 25 years or more and find it meets most coding needs.

[Leonardo Mateo]

+1 for vim with the right plugins. It is fully featured, light,
portable, flexible and productive (after a learning curve). Learining
VIM might ease your requirements for coding drastically. E.g. with a
small tarball (~300K) you can have a code editor with Syntax Highlite,
Code Navigation (Similar to Ctrl+Click in Eclipse), Autocompletion,
Code Snippets, Filesystem Tree operations, VCS integration and more.
(Of course, you'll get tabs, horizontal/vertical split multi buffer
edition, command line interaction, block text selection, regexp based
search and replace, and many more nice features from vim itself)

Of course it has a learning curve, but it definately worth it.

--
Leonardo Mateo.
There's no place like ~

[Philip Hallstrom]

> +1 for vim with the right plugins. It is fully featured, light,
> portable, flexible and productive (after a learning curve). Learining

http://unix.rulez.org/~calver/pictures/curves.jpg :-)

If you go the vim route, look into the vim-ruby gem as well. Good
stuff.

[RVince]

Ron,

I suspect your client doesn't want to pay what it costs to get that
type of skill in/to that location. The H1's are gone (the dollar
debacle drove lots of offshore talent away, along with the cost of a
Visa here) and despite the economy, lots of us aren't really looking
to work for a lot of the prevailing wages. I can;t tell you how many
java positions I've turned down in recent months because they just
aren;t willing to pay enough to get me motivated to do the job.

Just as people griping about homes they cannot sell, who, if they cut
the price to the market, would sell it in short order, similarly with
labor. -RVince

On Dec 4, 1:44 pm, Ron Brinson <ron.brin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Then why is it so hard for me to find just one of you guys for a Delaware
> spot?  I need a ROR Mac Developer for a project with Bank of America in
> Delaware..

>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 1:33 PM, Jim Knowlton <jknowlton...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am a QA engineer who works in Ruby quite a bit, and I've never been
> > able to figure out...why is there a disproportionately large
> > contingent of Mac users among Ruby developers?  Macs are probably 10
> > percent of the computer market, but every time I go to a Ruby
> > conference, probably 80 percent of the laptops there are Macs.
>

> > Any thoughts?

>
> > --
>
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to rubyonra...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

> > rubyonrails-ta...@googlegroups.com<rubyonrails-talk%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> > .

> > For more options, visit this group at
> >http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.
>

> --
>
> Ron at 704-975-2810
>
> ron.brin...@gmail.com
> twitter =  rbrinson2810

[Sérgio Eurico]

I use a Mac because i was tired of virus and BSOD on Windows and i
dont have Adobe Flash running on Linux. On a Mac, everything just
works!!
Before Ruby on Rails i develop with Coldfusion (that is nice!), but
develop with RoR is fun and very nice! :)

> To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-
> ta...@googlegroups.com.

> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-ta...@googlegroups.com

[Tom Stuart]

2009/12/8 RVince <rvin...@hotmail.com>:

> Colin,
>
> If you were running on Ububtu, what editor would you use? -RVince
>

Vim is probably the best choice, but I just want to put a plug out
there for Gmate (http://github.com/lexrupy/gmate). It's by no means
perfect, but it's impressive what a few Gedit plugins can achieve.

[seanlynch]

Gedit also has a set of plugins that make it very useful for Ruby on
Rails.

See:
Make gedit behave (almost) like textmate:
http://rubymm.blogspot.com/2007/08/make-gedit-behave-roughly-like-textmate.html

textmate like gedit in a few steps:
http://grigio.org/pimp_my_gedit_was_textmate_linux

-sean

On Dec 9, 3:45 am, Tom Stuart <mortwa...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> 2009/12/8 RVince <rvinc...@hotmail.com>:

[Sergio Eurico]

Jim, maybe this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTM19XLnzPU  can explain ;)

regards.

2009/12/4 Jim Knowlton <jknowl...@gmail.com>

I am a QA engineer who works in Ruby quite a bit, and I've never been
able to figure out...why is there a disproportionately large
contingent of Mac users among Ruby developers?  Macs are probably 10
percent of the computer market, but every time I go to a Ruby
conference, probably 80 percent of the laptops there are Macs.

Any thoughts?

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
To post to this group, send email to rubyonra...@googlegroups.com.

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-ta...@googlegroups.com.

[byrnejb]

On Dec 4, 1:33 pm, Jim Knowlton <jknowlton...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am a QA engineer who works in Ruby quite a bit, and I've never been
> able to figure out...why is there a disproportionately large
> contingent of Mac users among Ruby developers?  Macs are probably 10
> percent of the computer market, but every time I go to a Ruby
> conference, probably 80 percent of the laptops there are Macs.
>

Most people learn by example. I suspect that the reason most Rubyists
use Mac's is because the people they learned Ruby from (and/or admired
for their Ruby skills) used Mac's. Why those people used Mac's is
anyone's guess, but I would speculate that there exists a strong
'contrarian' trait in many early adopters. Mac's are THE great
'contrarian' IT statement. This trait may also possibly account for
why the early adopters picked up the Ruby language to begin with.

Personally, I have worked with Ruby on all three of the major Ruby
development platforms (Linux, OS-X and MS-Windows XP). I simply do
not see all that much difference between them, ONCE one has customized
each environment to ones own taste. To be frank, I have never really
taken to Apple's 'Aqua/Finder' windowing environment and that is one
of the reasons (out of very, very many) that I found MS-Vista so
repellent.

On my MS-Windows laptop I use the CYGWIN environment together with VIM
(windows installer version with the vivid_chalk plugin) and POSTGRESQL
(also the windows installer version). Between the three of these I
essentially have an identical duplicate of my CentOS-5.4 desktop
environment wherever I travel. Since most of my business associates
(nearly all non-developer, non-IT types) use MS-Windows themselves,
this arrangement allows me to easily work within their corporate
standard MS-windows products on site and yet still retain the
convenience of a Linux-like environment for everything else.

[Peter Hickman]

I would be surprised if many programmers bought Macs, having owned something else presumably, just to run a language. Ruby was available on all platforms from the off (or at least since the article in Dr Dobbs). In my experience a lot of web developers and graphics people like Macs and Rails is a web framework. So Ruby, via Rails, caught on with Mac users who are not shy about telling the world about things they think are great.

Community and Evangelism tend to go hand in hand with Mac users :)

[MarcRic]

I really don't understand why giving so many importance to Hardware
and Software.

What really matters IMHO is People and his Ideas, from Matz to we all.

I have written something about that here:

http://marcricblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/ruby-on-rails-for-sale-under-2500.html

And here:

http://marcricblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-matters-most-size-or-pleasure.html

I do use Windows so far with no problems (thanks to Luis Lavena), if I
need to change for any reason, will never go to an even more
proprietary O.S. (OS-X only runs on Mac hardware...), will go to any
Linux flavor in a hardware of my choice and budget.

Regards.

[Eno]

On Mon, 14 Dec 2009, MarcRic wrote:

> I do use Windows so far with no problems (thanks to Luis Lavena), if I
> need to change for any reason, will never go to an even more
> proprietary O.S. (OS-X only runs on Mac hardware...), will go to any
> Linux flavor in a hardware of my choice and budget.

I think the fact that Macs come with lots of developer-friendly tools
(ssh, vi, ruby, etc) makes them more useful out of the box than a Windows
machine (which will require you download tons of stuff just to have an
equivalent devlopment environment).



--

[tommy xiao]

i think OSX is suite with programmer. special if you need  make slide,you can use  keynote. this is killer app.

2009/12/15 Eno <ra...@bitblit.net>

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
To post to this group, send email to rubyonra...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-ta...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.

--
tommy xiao
E-mail: xiaods(AT)gmail.com

[Diego Brito]

Because Rails developer wants to be fashion. lol

Atenciosamente, 

Diego Brito 

Consultor em Marketing Estratégico

Blog Pessoal: www.diegobrito.com.br

Consultoria: www.d2bconsultoria.com.br

Twitter: http://twitter.com/diegodebrito

[taryneast]

On Dec 5, 6:24 pm, seanlynch <sean.seanly...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mac buyers spend all that extra money an pure fresh ground beef on
> artisan baked rolls with fresh trimmings.
> Linux users grill their own at home.

Yeah, and we have a thriving recipe-swapping community ;)

Great analogy btw

Taryn

[Wojciech Kruszewski]

Hey Gintautas,

You stole my points. They were good points (-.

I also use Ubuntu and have a separate workstation for Photoshop/
Windows. This other workstation has plenty of other uses that justify
its existence, but the sheer fact that I need two workstations just to
have couple dozens terminals opened and have Photoshop at the same
time is giving me shivers.

BTW by "those other uses" I mean: Ubuntu through VirtualBox running
tests for the application. And it's an extra monitor so... couple
dozens terminals more! Just don't tell me that MacBook is mobile while
my environment is not. My setup would also be mobile if I only had a
camel.

I think I should have a Mac just because most of developers I
collaborate with and clients in the U.S. use them. Only I'd need to
learn all quirks of a Mac, and you know, we developers are lazy.
Fortunately my current team (Rails team in Sage Software) settled on
Ubuntu as well.

Cheers,
Wojciech

--
http://twitter.com/WojciechK

On Dec 5, 8:49 pm, Gintautas Šimkus <dihita...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well I have been sceptical about Mac (Ubuntu user here), because a big part
> of it is just brand, but now when I think about it there are some advantages
> of using Mac over Ubuntu:
> 1) Photoshop has a version for mac, but not for Linux and as a freelancer I
> have to deal with graphics from time to time.
> 2) Textmate. Haven't used it myself, but from the podcasts I've seen it
> looks pretty sexy. Currently using gvim.
>
> So when the time to buy a new laptop comes I will consider getting a mac.

>
> Does anybody have any other arguments for using mac over ubuntu?
>

> 2009/12/5 esavard <savard.etie...@gmail.com>
>
> > Anything is better than Windows to develop Rails.  Linux (Ubuntu) does
> > the job for me.  I'm not a Mac guy mainly because the hardware cost
> > much more than the equivalent (bogomips for bogomips) PC.
>
> > By the way, it's a nice script Colin.  I have put something similar
> > together but it install rails and other development tools (SCM,
> > Database, Java, etc.) on Ubuntu using a dialogs (GUI + bash):
> >http://symbiosoft.net/ubuntu_devenv
>
> > Etienne.
>
> > On 5 déc, 04:56, Colin Law <clan...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > > 2009/12/4 Steven Elliott Jr <stevenelliott0...@gmail.com>:
>
> > > > Macs are by fat the easiest way to get going in rails/ruby because
> > > > it's there out of the box. A few gem commands and you're rockin' and
> > > > rollin'. Windows and Linux are easy to set up too but require a bit
> > > > more setup work.
>
> > > > Ubuntu is good but you have to use the stuff in the repositories by
> > > > default which is ok but not as good as issuing gem commands.
>
> > > Not true, it is easy to install so that the gem commands can be used
> > > in the normal way.  I use this script to install the lamp stack, mysql
> > > ruby and rails (on ubuntu 9.10), it does not get much easier than
> > > this.  It assumes that there is a folder ~/downloads
>
> > > # this installs the lamp stack, the ^ is important. Seehttps://
> > help.ubuntu.com/community/Tasksel
> > > sudo apt-get install lamp-server^
> > > sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql phpmyadmin
>
> > > # this derived fromhttp://
> >www.hackido.com/2009/04/install-ruby-rails-on-ubuntu-904-jaunt...
> > > # bits for building stuff
> > > cd ~
> > > sudo apt-get install build-essential
> > > # ruby and mysql stuff, this assumes that the lamp stack with mysql
> > > has already been installed
> > > sudo apt-get install ruby ri rdoc libmysql-ruby ruby1.8-dev irb1.8
> > > libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libmysql-ruby1.8 libmysqlclient15off
> > > libnet-daemon-perl libplrpc-perl libreadline-ruby1.8 libruby1.8
> > > rdoc1.8 ri1.8 ruby1.8 irb libopenssl-ruby libopenssl-ruby1.8
> > > libhtml-template-perl
> > > wget -N  -P ~/downloadshttp://
> > rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/60718/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
> > > tar xvzf ~/downloads/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
> > > cd rubygems-1.3.5
> > > sudo ruby setup.rb
> > > cd ..
> > > rm -rf rubygems-1.3.5
> > > echo "making symlinks - not sure if this will always be necessary,
> > > must be done if gem -v does not work"
> > > sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/local/bin/gem
> > > sudo ln -s /usr/bin/ruby1.8 /usr/local/bin/ruby
> > > sudo ln -s /usr/bin/rdoc1.8 /usr/local/bin/rdoc
> > > sudo ln -s /usr/bin/ri1.8 /usr/local/bin/ri
> > > sudo ln -s /usr/bin/irb1.8 /usr/local/bin/irb
> > > # rails latest version
> > > sudo gem install rails
>
> > > Colin

>
> > --
>
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to rubyonra...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

> > rubyonrails-ta...@googlegroups.com<rubyonrails-talk%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> > .

[Jarin Udom]

Rails:
Makes common decisions for you so you can focus on the end result.
Works great for 99% of cases, but if you want to do your own thing for
special cases it's not hard to do.

OS X:
Makes common decisions for you so you can focus on the end result.
Works great for 99% of cases, but if you want to do your own thing for
special cases it's not hard to do.

On Dec 15 2009, 10:59 am, Wojciech Kruszewski <wojci...@oxos.pl>
wrote:

> Hey Gintautas,
>
> You stole my points. They were good points (-.
>
> I also use Ubuntu and have a separate workstation for Photoshop/
> Windows. This other workstation has plenty of other uses that justify
> its existence, but the sheer fact that I need two workstations just to
> have couple dozens terminals opened and have Photoshop at the same
> time is giving me shivers.
>
> BTW by "those other uses" I mean: Ubuntu through VirtualBox running
> tests for the application. And it's an extra monitor so... couple
> dozens terminals more! Just don't tell me that MacBook is mobile while
> my environment is not. My setup would also be mobile if I only had a
> camel.
>
> I think I should have a Mac just because most of developers I
> collaborate with and clients in the U.S. use them. Only I'd need to
> learn all quirks of a Mac, and you know, we developers are lazy.
> Fortunately my current team (Rails team in Sage Software) settled on
> Ubuntu as well.
>
> Cheers,
> Wojciech
>

> --http://twitter.com/WojciechK

> > > rubyonrails-ta...@googlegroups.com<rubyonrails-talk%2Bunsubscrib e...@googlegroups.com>

[Jerry Van Baren]

Jarin Udom wrote:
> Rails:
> Makes common decisions for you so you can focus on the end result.
> Works great for 99% of cases, but if you want to do your own thing for
> special cases it's not hard to do.
>
> OS X:
> Makes common decisions for you so you can focus on the end result.
> Works great for 99% of cases, but if you want to do your own thing for
> special cases it's not hard to do.

Windows:

Makes common decisions for you so you can focus on the end result.

Guesses wrong for 99% of cases, and it is a bitch to make it do what you
want it to do. Ultimately, you give up and redefine "wrong" to be "right."

Linux:
Historically it did not make *any* decisions for you. With "modern"
distributions it now offers reasonable defaults. If you are smart, you
decide to accept the defaults. You *always* do your own thing. Turn
the dial to 11.

:-D

gvb