I prefer Mac for pretty much everything, including development, but the one thing I miss from Windows is the Delphi IDE. That was by far the best IDE I've ever used and I've found nothing to replace it. It entered the necessary code automatically for the interface elements and if you double-click a user interface element it makes an event handler automatically and takes you there straight away. I've found nothing anywhere near as easy on the Mac. That said, the Mac's libraries are a lot better. If Turbo Delphi could be ported to the Mac then I'd rejoice
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macOS Windows Development Is Far Superior..
- Thread starter gifford
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satans_banjo, I had that at first, too. But Interface Builder uses an entire different paradigm. It does not generate code, and I think that's a good thing. Why generate code if you can generate the end product directly (using serialization into a nib).
I do cross platform C++ development between Windows, OSX, Linux, PocketPC, Palm, Symbian and some other platforms and I am strongly of the believe that XCode/Interface Builder is over-engineered JUNK. It's the worst environment I work with. Now that people are pretty much forced to use the horrid hack of a language called Objective C, it's just pitiful. Of course this is a harsh assessment and will no doubt have some people around here taking it personally even though they don't own the tech or work for Apple.
Also, another thing I have noticed is that even though .NET is a blatant ripoff of J2EE, it's a far far superior development environment/technology and the framework itself is perfectly well designed OO.
Let me qualify this: I hate Microsoft as much as you all do, but I don't have my head quite as far up my ass with the Apple love.
The fact that so many Win32 comments have been made shows that none of you should be giving your opinion towards Windows development. There's no reason you should be mucking around in Win32 any longer. .NET is plenty powerful and can do most anything you need.
Yes, the tools for .NET development are far better than Xcode and Interface Builder. Argue that all you want but you all know it's true.
Apple makes a great operating system and desktop applications like the iLife and iWork suites. Apple hasn't done quite as good of a job with their development tools. To compare Xcode 3 and Visual Studio 2008 is kind of a joke. For those of you who think it isn't, you should try using VS08 and all of the available functionality. You'll soon understand why it's such a popular development platform.
I won't even begin to talk about web development...
Yes, the tools for .NET development are far better than Xcode and Interface Builder. Argue that all you want but you all know it's true.
Apple makes a great operating system and desktop applications like the iLife and iWork suites. Apple hasn't done quite as good of a job with their development tools. To compare Xcode 3 and Visual Studio 2008 is kind of a joke. For those of you who think it isn't, you should try using VS08 and all of the available functionality. You'll soon understand why it's such a popular development platform.I won't even begin to talk about web development...
The problem with Windows Development is the reason OS X would be ***** on anything over than Apple computers.
It has to work on 100's upon 1000's of different configurations of PeeCee, it's that simple.
It has to work on 100's upon 1000's of different configurations of PeeCee, it's that simple.
Although I kinda agree with that sentiment, I can't agree with the manner you've presented it. I have the utmost respect for people who can code directly with the Win32 API. Sure, there are easier ways, but you do have to be a good coder to get a good grasp of Win32. Of course, Win32 is gradually being subsumed by .NET, but there'll always be a market for Win32 code (device drivers and other low-level software). The few times I have to P/Invoke in .NET simply underlines my admiration for the stuff that was built using bare Win32.
Yes, the tools for .NET development are far better than Xcode and Interface Builder. Argue that all you want but you all know it's true.
I use VS2008 about 9 hours a day and yes, it is very, very, nice -- much quicker than VS2005 thankfully. But I'm not going to call Xcode a joke. I've not embarked on the learning-curve of Xcode, so yes, to me at present it does look less capable than VS to my untrained eyes. However, Xcode cannot be a joke -- just look at all the great Mac applications out there that have been built using it. iLife and iWork are products of Xcode (not to mention some really great free/shareware), so clearly it's possible for developers with the proper attitude and ability to get some great results out of Xcode.
True, true. But for the web stuff I do, Coda is an excellent OS X application.
Agreed.
Yes, the tools for .NET development are far better than Xcode and Interface Builder. Argue that all you want but you all know it's true.
Visual Studio vs Xcode is debatable. It's partly preference. I like them both very much, just as I like .NET and Cocoa. Visual Studio clearly has more features, but both implement the things they do in a different manner.
I can't agree on Interface Builder being worse than what Visual Studio offers. I think that code generation for interfaces (like the Windows Forms designer does) is a dead end.
I use both Xcode 3 and Visual Studio 2008 regulary. And no, I don't use all functionality available in either - I just don't need it! I enjoy working with both, and wouldn't want to stop using any of the two.
Long live TextMate!
ASP.NET is horrible. They try to make it work like you're making a desktop app, but the web is so much different! Let me write the fontend in HTML and CSS, and the backend in a nice object-oriented language! That's why I'm so happy with Ruby on Rails.
Yeah, including a 22MB re-distributable package isn't exactly a great idea is it? Especially only a group of your users need it installed. Doesn't help that MSFT hasn't provided a tool or custom action to grab/install .NET for you.
That said, I see .NET as quite useful on the desktop. It is certainly capable enough for WinCE's IDE package. Granted, it isn't a /full/ IDE (it exists as a series of plug-ins for VS now), but it isn't a tiny product either.
I definitely can't agree with you there. ASP.NET is a wonderful platform.
Huh? Because you can drag and drop web controls to a page? What are you talking about?
Wait, we are talking about ASP.NET, right?
That's exactly what you do with ASP.NET. Your presentation layer is built using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and ASP.NET controls. Just like Rails. The only real difference is the MVC pattern used by Rails and the Web Forms model used by ASP.NET. From the development perspective, there are pretty similar. In ASP.NET you still write your code in a class that powers the view. That class essentially mimics the Controller in Rails. And obviously the view in ASP.NET mimics the view in Rails.Rails is nice to play with and build small applications with. There are some serious performance issues with Rails and scalability just isn't there. Who wants to worry about having specific Mongrel instances all over the place to handle requests? Sure, Rails is a nice model to develop with, but MVC isn't new and exists in other, more enterprise quality, frameworks such as Java. Yes yes, Java is slow, but Ruby is slower.
Anyway, Rails is nice, I've used it a number of times for real applications, but I wouldn't dare use it for a high traffic site.
So you never support old code?
I don't know about you, but I still support stuff that was written 15 years ago...
Given that, I do like Visual Studio, X Code takes a little getting used to, but I haven't done anything serious with it. I'm not a big Objective C fan, but its not too bad, just different.
I've been using Eclipse lately, which is pretty powerful once you get a handle on it all.
I certainly wouldn't call Windows development Far Superior though. I guess it really depends on what your looking to do with it. Visual Development, multi-threaded development, cross platform development.
Its a big world and no tool fits all solutions, so there is not real answer to the question.
Okay, you know... I don't fully understand the hate for Win32 specifically. There, I said it. Maybe it's that I've been doing Win32 for approximately as long as there's been a Win32, but once you've bothered to learn it it's really no less straightforward than any other API. Writing a dialog proc directly, say, isn't really all that different even in the amount of work required than creating a dialog class with overridden message handlers.
A lot of what I'm hearing in this thread is "I've never done much Win32 but what I've seen looks hard, and therefore it's bad," and I'm having trouble crediting that criticism generally as a problem with the API. I'm not saying it's the best possible option, particularly if you're the sort who has grown up to expect a pretty object model for everything, but it certainly gets the job done.
No matter how you wrap it up, Win32 (or -64) is what Windows is doing under the hood, and historically the wrapped-up gizmos that are supposed to make the job easier by hiding that from me (VB, Delphi, OWL, MFC, ATL, .NET and whatever somebody comes up with next) can end up getting in my way in ways the core API doesn't for some tasks. Usually the best reasons to use one of those frameworks tend to be either the need to use some other library that's already coded to work with one of them, or that you're doing something so routine that you won't be pushing the boundaries of any object model (the equivalent of the "TextEdit clone" HiRez alluded to).
I'm sure this makes me just stupid and wrong, and plenty of people will gladly step up to tell me so, but there it is.
A lot of what I'm hearing in this thread is "I've never done much Win32 but what I've seen looks hard, and therefore it's bad," and I'm having trouble crediting that criticism generally as a problem with the API. I'm not saying it's the best possible option, particularly if you're the sort who has grown up to expect a pretty object model for everything, but it certainly gets the job done.
No matter how you wrap it up, Win32 (or -64) is what Windows is doing under the hood, and historically the wrapped-up gizmos that are supposed to make the job easier by hiding that from me (VB, Delphi, OWL, MFC, ATL, .NET and whatever somebody comes up with next) can end up getting in my way in ways the core API doesn't for some tasks. Usually the best reasons to use one of those frameworks tend to be either the need to use some other library that's already coded to work with one of them, or that you're doing something so routine that you won't be pushing the boundaries of any object model (the equivalent of the "TextEdit clone" HiRez alluded to).
I'm sure this makes me just stupid and wrong, and plenty of people will gladly step up to tell me so, but there it is.
To those that dislike Apple dev tools in favor of PC, if the apple tools are inferior, how come the end product on a PC is mostly utter garbage?
(consumer apps not corporate business apps).
This is where it really does not make sense for me. The culprit can only be the tools, language, frameworks and philosophies of the platform. Surely?
(consumer apps not corporate business apps).
This is where it really does not make sense for me. The culprit can only be the tools, language, frameworks and philosophies of the platform. Surely?
Perhaps this is included under "philosophies of the platform," but you left out culture, and that's a lot of the difference. Apple has from the start cultivated a culture of usability centered around the user where the "other side" has a culture of technology centered around efficient product cycles. C#/.NET make things easier on me. XCode/IB subtly encourage me to make things easier for my users.
Not to harp on "easy" development environments too much, but the fact is that the ready availability of such environments is responsible for a lot of the junk applications available out there on Windows. Pre-.NET VB and Delphi in particular gained awful reputations among developers and many users alike, because they resulted in a torrent of "easy-bake" products that were to application design what your typical MySpace page is to modern web design.
Not that it's impossible to produce a crappy application using any tool you'd care to name, but when you have tools designed to let you slap together a product, you shouldn't be surprised when you end up with slapped-together products.
I've never understood why so many people love VS/C#/.Net so much. I make my living on that platform and find it mediocre at best. A better Java than Java? Perhaps. Easier to use than Win32/MFC? Most certainly. But it's still nothing more than Microsoft reinventing Sun's wheel.
Now, I'll admit that when I first encountered ObjC/Cocoa, I had a serious "WTF?!" moment. But once I got past the learning curve, I discovered one of the nicest OO frameworks I've ever seen. It's clean, elegant, and largely responsible for giving small, independent developers the ability to create great OS X applications.
As for the tools, that's a mixed bag. When comparing VS 2008 to Xcode 3.0, I'll give VS the nod for its superior debugger and somewhat easier to understand UI. But the VS form designer is still a clunky POS. I'll take the new Interface Builder over that hunk of junk any day of the week.
In the end, I much prefer developing OS X applications using ObjC/Cocoa to developing Windows applications of any kind. I say this even though most of my career has been focused on the latter and includes five years as an SDE on the Microsoft Office team.
Now, I'll admit that when I first encountered ObjC/Cocoa, I had a serious "WTF?!" moment. But once I got past the learning curve, I discovered one of the nicest OO frameworks I've ever seen. It's clean, elegant, and largely responsible for giving small, independent developers the ability to create great OS X applications.
As for the tools, that's a mixed bag. When comparing VS 2008 to Xcode 3.0, I'll give VS the nod for its superior debugger and somewhat easier to understand UI. But the VS form designer is still a clunky POS. I'll take the new Interface Builder over that hunk of junk any day of the week.
In the end, I much prefer developing OS X applications using ObjC/Cocoa to developing Windows applications of any kind. I say this even though most of my career has been focused on the latter and includes five years as an SDE on the Microsoft Office team.
Java?
Where's the Java love?
It's a shame for the Java client scene that there's not even a mention of using Java for a client app, despite the fact that it's a relatively mature technology. I don't need to be convinced of why, though. Just too many rough edges in certain aspects, including automated deployment of the runtime. But there are some nice Java client apps out there.
As for the ide that Java is slow on the backend in a web-based MVC framework, that's just downright false. There is no better platform out there overall for web development than JEE. I don't mean to be evangelical or anything, but the notion of Java being slow was old back in 1999, let alone 9 years later, when it actually runs faster than C in many cases using the JIT compiler. Ask eBay and Amazon if they think Java is slow. And despite the fact that C# has some nice added features, there's just more to work with in Java from a web development perspective. If you like Rails, there are frameworks that duplicate it (Grails, for example) without the performance hangups.
Sorry, rant over. Wish I had the time and incentive to learn Objective-C because it looks really nice. Nearly every small-time shop that throws an app out there for Mac puts something together that's nicer than what the biggest dev houses throw out there for Windows. I'm assuming a large portion of that is due to the OS framework and tools.
Where's the Java love?
It's a shame for the Java client scene that there's not even a mention of using Java for a client app, despite the fact that it's a relatively mature technology. I don't need to be convinced of why, though. Just too many rough edges in certain aspects, including automated deployment of the runtime. But there are some nice Java client apps out there.
As for the ide that Java is slow on the backend in a web-based MVC framework, that's just downright false. There is no better platform out there overall for web development than JEE. I don't mean to be evangelical or anything, but the notion of Java being slow was old back in 1999, let alone 9 years later, when it actually runs faster than C in many cases using the JIT compiler. Ask eBay and Amazon if they think Java is slow. And despite the fact that C# has some nice added features, there's just more to work with in Java from a web development perspective. If you like Rails, there are frameworks that duplicate it (Grails, for example) without the performance hangups.
Sorry, rant over. Wish I had the time and incentive to learn Objective-C because it looks really nice. Nearly every small-time shop that throws an app out there for Mac puts something together that's nicer than what the biggest dev houses throw out there for Windows. I'm assuming a large portion of that is due to the OS framework and tools.
No, I was talking more about the idea that there are server-side versions of controls with properties much like with Forms (like BackgroundColor etc), which are translated to some CSS or whoever knows what when the page is generated. I want to have custom control.
Wait, we are talking about ASP.NET, right?
Yes, I see how that works. Web Forms is exactly what I happen to not like. Maybe I stated my opinion a bit too much as a fact, it's probably just personal preference.
Rails is nice to play with and build small applications with. There are some serious performance issues with Rails and scalability just isn't there. Who wants to worry about having specific Mongrel instances all over the place to handle requests? Sure, Rails is a nice model to develop with, but MVC isn't new and exists in other, more enterprise quality, frameworks such as Java. Yes yes, Java is slow, but Ruby is slower.
I surely agree on that part.