You mention Macs doing the same job being real pricey and I'm wondering how you figure that? I have a 4 year old iMac and a netbook running Xununtu. The tools I use on both machines are basically the same with the big difference Bering my text editor (Chocolat on Mac and SublimeText on Linux). Other than that all the tools are free for both platforms. I've got my AMP stack, RVM, PHP, Apache, SQLite, etc., etc., all free. Even Xcode 4 is free on Lion and 3.6 is free if you run anything less. The Mac itself is more expensive but doing any equivalent work as I would on Linux doesn't require a real powerful Mac anyway. I love them both equally but prefer my Mac. It may be a comfort issue as my Linux box is a netbook but I digress. I'm just wondering, besides the cost of a mid grade Mac to begin with, what makes you say Mac development is expensive?
"You mention Macs doing the same job being real pricey" -- No, I never said any such thing. I said some software tools that are free on Linux (some programmer's editors for example, but a few other little things as well) have rather pricey equivalents on the Mac (unless you can find something on Macports or Brew that will compile on OS X. fdupes, mutt and cmus I must have for example).
Also some things demand I use a specific version of OS X, Why should, say for example, an editor, demand I use 10.7? Which I've no intention of using. Why do I need XCode when all I want from out of that is gcc? Not that this is a major ordeal in any way.
Mac hardware is slightly pricey but it is very good. I have no gripe whatsoever about that. I never said Mac development was expensive. I said it was slightly more of a faff to set everything up.
You mention you've a Linux netbook -- so do I. And here's the thing: it also boots OS X as well and that runs really well on that limited hardware. Maybe even running better than Linux. I also have two proper, actual Macs as well as an AMD based Linux PC and that ended up costing slightly more in the end than a Mac would because of some of its hardware.
Go back and read what I said. You're putting words in my mouth.
I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be argumentative at all. I was just curious about how you figured the Mac was so much more expensive but I misunderstood your comment so the question doesn't matter anymore and when you put it in terms of software then there's no question the Mac will end up costing you more. I only mention my experience not to argue that you're wrong but just to see what you're doing so differently that would make things expensive. But again, I misunderstood what you were saying to begin with so it doesn't apply. I know we can all get into heated debates around here but please don't jump the gun and be on the defensive as not every comment is meant as a rebuttal, and I was just asking out of curiosity. Sorry, man.
