Comments on: Rails, Platforms, and Tools

by: Balky

Sun, 15 Jan 2006 20:03:35 +0000

“PS: I hadn’t heard anyone use “Bushist” before. Cute.”

What about Macvertsing - I made that up too right?

by: Justin

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 21:43:31 +0000

Mac OS X will run with 512 MB just fine and without paging delays, as long as one isn’t trying to run too many applications at once. I know people that develop on OS X with only 384 MB of RAM. It just depends on how many other applications you want to run at once. Clearly, for you and I, we would want 1.0 GB+. But that doesn’t mean it’s necessary for Rails development, which was the original point.

Providing constructive feedback is indeed contributing. I just don’t see a lot of constructive feedback going on in that thread.

I stand by my “put up or shut up” stance, and I strongly disagree that such a position runs counter to open source development or democracy. Calling it fascist/Bushist? It’s that type of hyperbole that is detracting from constructive discussion.

I am certainly not suggesting that people shouldn’t provide constructive feedback. That is important to any project, whether it’s open source or otherwise. I’m just surprised that people have no problems downloading a very useful and free tool, and then as thanks offer epithets and non-constructive criticism. This, to me, is not what the “whole open source thing” is supposed to be about.

PS: I hadn’t heard anyone use “Bushist” before. Cute.

by: Balky

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 21:22:01 +0000

Oh yeah - anyone who thinks OS X can be run well with less then a gig of ram is VERY patient.

by: Balky

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 21:20:37 +0000

“Others do it because of the products’ own merit. Based on your comments, I think you are selling a lot of smart people short.”

That’s a good point. I’ll give you that one.

What about the guy on the original post who said that providing feedback is contributing?

Your thoughts on the topic seem very closed-corporate. That’s what the whole open source thing is supposed to be about… software developed by a group, by it’s users for the benefit of the community. Put up or shut up doesn’t really fit. It’s not very democratic either, sounds a little fascist/bushist. Anyone who’s not with us is against us kind of deal.

By the way - I have nothing against rails or their developers, or apple, or you. I’m just agreeing with the people on that board that think that macvertising should be left off of the main rubyOnRails site.

by: Justin

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 06:00:18 +0000

I’m not going to go into the details of why my post is different from the whining going on in the aforementioned thread. The difference should be blatantly obvious, but clearly it isn’t to you.

Some people are heavily swayed by marketing and let that drive their purchase decisions. Others do it because of the products’ own merit. Based on your comments, I think you are selling a lot of smart people short.

by: Balky

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 05:33:20 +0000

Interesting. Looks like either you edited my first post, or I did.

Either way whining about whining doesn’t go over well.

Also, the corporation I was referring to was apple, not Textmate which I have no complaints about. I don’t mind the dev team advertising on the weblog one of their friend’s products. That’s great. But what I did mind was the better get an apple comment.

Apple marketing has people so wrapped it’s a little pathetic.

by: Justin

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 04:05:09 +0000

512 MB of RAM is enough for Rails development, but I agree that more is convenient for keeping other applications open. And I understand the desire to stick with what you have. I don’t think anybody believes that OS X and TextMate is the dev environment to rule them all.

by: Joe

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 02:41:03 +0000

If you plan on opening up other apps, 512 MB RAM is too little. Heck, I page occasionally with 1 GB RAM. With Windows 2000 and XP I haven’t had any problems with stability, viruses, or malware - not that I want to praise Windows.

Bottom line is that OSX+TextMate to me seems *somewhat* better than Windows/Linux+WhateverEditor - not a whole magnitude better - and I have invested years of time and money in Windows/Linux hardware and software (neither of which will physically migrate to the Mac world AFAIK), so I’ll be sticking with that for the foreseeable, warts and all.

by: Justin

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 01:52:45 +0000

Joe: You are right that it’s $900 and not $800. I’ll correct that above — thank you. It was $800 for the latter half of 2005 and probably will be at or below that level in the near future. In either case, even $900 is a far cry from “thousands of dollars.”

512MB of RAM is more than enough memory to do Rails development work, and it’s disingenuous to imply otherwise. Does Dell offer more RAM in their comparably-priced notebooks, like the Inspiron B130? Let’s see. Nope — 512MB.

Regarding speed… This is, sorry to say, simply irrelevant for Rails development. I use a number of different machines, including an AMD 3200-based Windows machine, a 2.5-year old dual G5, and a year-old iBook. Last time I checked, all three did a great job when it comes to developing Rails apps. The CPU is not the limiting factor for Rails development on any of these machines. Stability, viruses, and malware? These factors have a much greater effect on development productivity.

And finally, as you point out, any speed differences will soon be remedied with the transition to Intel CPUs. Prices for new, top-of-the-line machines are always higher and will come down as the transition completes.

by: Joe

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 01:26:56 +0000

Uh, just how “capable” is that “$800″ iBook? Looks like it’s more like $999-$100 rebate. And for 512MB RAM? Um, no. 12.1″ is pretty small too. And I was just talking with Mac developers who said their latest and greatest Macs are half the speed of AMD machines. Until and unless you want to shell out $2000-2500 in Feb. for the latest Mac that’s “4x faster.”