[thelist] Switching back to Mac
Stephen Rider
evolt_org at striderweb.com
Wed Oct 27 10:14:15 CDT 2004
On Oct 27, 2004, at 7:27 AM, Mike Roy wrote:
> I guess my question is, do any of you do real work in both [Windows
> and Mac]
> environments, and if so, what are some of the drawbacks/advantages
> vs. staying with one platform.
I'm an admitted Mac-head. For web developing, one big advantage I find
is testing. With Virtual PC, I can test a page in Win IE 4, 5, 5.5, 6,
pretty much any version of Netscape, Mozilla, Safari, Opera, Lynx, etc.
etc. etc.
On a Windows machine you can't have more than one version of IE
installed (there are theoretical ways, which have been discussed on the
List before, but they involve a lot of messing around), and you can't
test Mac or Unix programs.
Also, Apache server is built in to OS X, making testing easier.
As you are, I am a big fan of BBEdit.
There are also some interesting text-manipulation Services (system wide
menu functions) available for the Mac. See "Word Service" for an good
example of this.
<http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10398>
or
<http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/freeware.php>
The second link there has several interesting Services available for
free.
This is all beyond the general stability and security of Macs, of
course.
The only disadvantage to using a Mac is that I've had difficulty
connecting to Windows servers without using a third-party Networking
software (Dave), and from time to time I would like to be able to
develop in MS Access, which is not available on the Mac.
Steve
More information about the thelist
mailing list