Long time Windows developer gets a Mac

[technologist]

Besides Ruby, there's the Apache-PHP combo, Java, and a few minor ones (Apple's own WebObjects and Adobe's ColdFusion come to mind.)

I'd wager that Java would require the least retraining for someone coming from .NET. It's not as monolithic as the .NET stack...you've got to pick your IDEs and application servers, and sometimes it takes some configuring to get them to work together.

The flip side is that you can deploy anywhere. You can develop on your Mac and deploy on Mac OS X Server, Linux, or that other operating system.

 

[GroovyLinuxGuy]

Now my biggest struggle is figuring out a decent web development platform. I tried setting up Ruby on Rails and that has been a PITA. I realize that people say ROR is "really easy" but apparently there is some significant assumed knowledge that the Ruby community has - especially on the Mac side.

<rant>This may PO some one out there, but I think ROR is nothing but a real PITA. I just had to build an Enterprise class ROR/Mongrel/Apache/Mysql/etc, etc application on a Debian Linux platform. I dont' know whether it was the lack of planning/"just get it done and get it done yesterday" mentality of the higher ups, but I keep waiting for it to go down in a big flaming mess and leave a smoking crater where there servers used to be.</rant>

The biggest issue I found was the incredible lack of completeness. I felt like I was putting together a house built of Lego...add a brick here, a module there, oh if I wanna do this I have to do these 5 other things first...oh man...

Anyway have fun and enjoy the new Mac

 

[dalison]

<rant>This may PO some one out there, but I think ROR is nothing but a real PITA. I just had to build an Enterprise class ROR/Mongrel/Apache/Mysql/etc, etc application on a Debian Linux platform. I dont' know whether it was the lack of planning/"just get it done and get it done yesterday" mentality of the higher ups, but I keep waiting for it to go down in a big flaming mess and leave a smoking crater where there servers used to be.</rant>

The biggest issue I found was the incredible lack of completeness. I felt like I was putting together a house built of Lego...add a brick here, a module there, oh if I wanna do this I have to do these 5 other things first...oh man...

Anyway have fun and enjoy the new Mac

I finally got ROR up and running on my Mac and was... unimpressed. Sure, it's light and you can get a basic application up and running fast but as soon as you go beyond the basics it's as complicated as anything else.

I've never been a big fan of the Agile mindset that some have adopted - just start building it and figure out what it will really be later. This appears to be pervasive in the ROR community. I think Agile is just a lame *** response to people that don't want to figure out up front what they need to build, plain and simple.

OK, I've ranted with you GroovyLinuxGuy - hope you feel better! I'll spend more time in the right forum getting that rant out of my system. Actually this is good fodder for a Blog post...