I have to admit that I am an Apple fan but I am also torn between OSX and Windows for development. You see all my clients are Windows based and would not consider moving to Mac for a number of reasons.
It’s not just the fact that PC’s are cheaper than their Apple equivalent, it’s also down to the fact that there are no good enterprise development tools for the Mac. XCode is a great tool, but it just does not have the capabilities to be used in the enterprise like Visual Studio.
Now this may be from my lack of real experience with XCode but I feel it is more down to it’s available features.
If you take the current project I am working on as an example. This project encompasses business rules, data objects, services, UI elements for both desktop and mobile. The client has a specific requirement for it to be non-web based, so the UI elements are desktop and mobile applications. The added complexity is the integration with a Windows based accounting system. There are no good accounting packages (UK) for the Mac.
To build such a thing in Visual Studio is relatively easy, but XCode needs to match this functionality if it is to be recognised as a true contender in the enterprise.
There is Java (no comments about Leopard and Java 6), but combining Java server components and XCode would be a nightmare to maintain.
There are other development environments in the Mac Space, like RealBASIC, but once again they lack the feature set required.
So the life of an enterprise developer becomes rather complicated. Just looking at my desk I have a MacBook on my left and my WindowsXP machine in front of me. I crave working on my Mac, but I always have to resort to the Windows PC.
I just can’t see the future businesses developing there internal systems for Mac now and in the near future. To me this is always going to be for the home consumer or a web shop. I just wish it was different or we could see a glimmer of this changing.
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