[ic] Mac OSX viable as a development platform?

Wed Mar 6 05:30:01 2002

On Tuesday, March 5, 2002, at 10:20 , Robert Brandtjen wrote:

> On Tuesday 05 March 2002 06:46 pm, Chris Devers wrote:
>> ...was this back in Public Beta days? I suspect the Mac culture may 
>> have
>> evolved a bit since then -- there seems to be a big influx of Unix and
>> free/open software types using the platform these days.
> Umm - you apparently arent aware that, if anything, the ORIGINAL OSX 
> (1.x)
> was a direct NEXt/Openstep port, and as such was even more "unixy" as 
> was
> it's user base.
>
> OSX 1.x (rhapsody) debuted in 1996 - not the fall of 2000 - that was 
> OSX 10
> "Echs" - other wise known as rhapsody 1.3 (uname -r)

That was not what he meant.  OS X 10 is also a "direct port" of 
OpenStep, with more stuff added to it.  It is also more friendly to OSS 
stuff.

What he meant was that now, in the last 12 months, many more OSS people 
and Linux people are exploring and using OS X than ever did Rhapsody and 
Apple has also worked hard to  make it easier for OSS software to just 
"work" out of the box, so to speak, than even a year ago when OS X 10 
first was released.

Why would you run Linux on a Mac?  If I were to run Linux (which I did 
as often as possible, until OS X 10 came out and I got an iBook; now my 
Windows and Linux use is down 99%) I would use PC hardware.  Much more 
choice, more powerful, and cheaper.  OS X gives me the best of all 
worlds except Windows, and I don't care about that too much.  I can run 
Mac sw, X (X11 sw -- I have an X Server running under OS X as well) sw, 
OSS unix software, and OS X 10 software (OpenStep evolved).

Just like any new Distro or, for ecample, a BSD system or other 
commercial unix system, makefiles sometimes have to be hacked a small 
amount to set new flags etc.  Same for OS X.  The same that the BSD 
people often need to make a "port" of OSS software to work alright, OS X 
people often need to tweek a Makefile or config file the same.  No 
different and not any harder.

I have not tried to put IC on OS X, since my deployment box for that 
sort of thing is FreeBSD, I just ssh from OS X into my FreeBSD box and 
install it.  But I suspect that making sure your Perl is up to date and 
maybe making the BSD hack to IC that is needed on  FreeBSD (at least) 
would allow you to get IC up and running fine on OS X.

To the person who bought a G4 and the OSXS 1.2 for running hosting:  
were you hosting WebObjects or more "traditional" perl, cgi, php type 
stuff?  A G4 and OSXS 1.2 was definitely NOT the platform to choose for  
the latter.  For hosting WebObjects, it would have been the choice.  You 
need to choose the right tool for the job.

best regards
Chad