[OT-Rodeo] Still waiting for the aha moment

[stephen barncard]

Hey I don't want to get into a 'pissing match' about platforms. And I am
stating  what I need to do to survive as well as support my clients, and I
am not judging anyone.

Somehow statements about how ultimately more practical and economical it is
to have an Intel Mac ( any Intel Mac* ) be one's main machine rather than a
PC and a Hackintosh has turned into some kind of discourse about 'class
struggle' between the rich Macintosh fanboys and the poor struggling Windows
/ Linux guys. Good lord.  Penny wise and pound foolish, IMHO.

One's family has nothing to do with my statement that MacOS should be tested
on the hardware that it was made to run.  I don't want to work around a
possible hardware problem caused by somebody's BIOS patches - the computer
hardware aspect of the hack has a level of maintaining and debugging that I
would rather no worry about - I'm writing software.

A stable OS working with the hardware beneath my coding is essential. Can I
be sure I'm getting the right updates? - what happens when the hacked
hardware fails? Just too much uncertainty. The reason Macs work well for me
is the integration of the OS with their tightly standardized hardware.

If I am going do a job, I try to get the best tools I can, otherwise I am
wasting my client's time with delays and my time I can't bill for, and I
also want the support of the OS company (Apple) if something goes wrong.
Uptime is very important to me and my clients. The so called 'added expense'
of hardware that works is worth real dollars back in reliability. This is
what I mean by a 'professional coder' and if you felt insulted by that, I
apologize. But this is what a professional does.

This really can't be about the 'cost of ownership' when a quick review of
ebay reveals 10 1.66 Core Duo Mac Minis with *Buy It Now and a 90 day
warranty<http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-Mac-Mini-A1176-Intel-Core-Duo-1-66GHz-Last-Few-/350372299422?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Apple_Desktops&hash=item5193d1029e#ht_3188wt_1026>going
for about $325. Overpriced?

I've been discussing the idea of a cross-platform world all along - It's
just that from a hardware issue, My opinion is that the Intel Mac is a good
way to run and test them all, and personally I'm pleased that the Rodeo team
has focused on the kind of hardware I and many other cross platform
developers here use.

Here's to a cross-platform (but Webkit-enabled) world.



On 21 July 2010 20:30, Andrew Kluthe <andrew at rjdfarm.com> wrote:

>
> If you are concerned with being a "professional coder", thats quite
> different. I don't seek a Mac OS out for any kind of "experience" it might
> give me. I do it to feed my family. Understand that beyond feeding my
> family
> I have no aspirations to be a professional anything. If you can afford to
> drop your own money on overpriced hardware, then I suppose you aren't in
> any
> kind of place to judge what I have to do to survive.
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Stephen Barncard-4 [via Runtime
> Revolution]
> <ml-node+2298002-102764140-139833 at n4.nabble.com<ml-node%2B2298002-102764140-139833 at n4.nabble.com>
> <ml-node%2B2298002-102764140-139833 at n4.nabble.com<ml-node%252B2298002-102764140-139833 at n4.nabble.com>
> >
> > wrote:
>
> > Hackintosh -  No thanks. somehow that's just not the same experience. I'd
> > rather have the real thing and everything working and updatable.
> Certainly
> > not something a professional coder would ever do.
> >
> >
> >
>



Stephen Barncard
San Francisco Ca. USA

more about sqb  <http://www.google.com/profiles/sbarncar>