Ruby on Rails Thursday, February 27, 2014

Il giorno martedì 25 febbraio 2014 23:00:14 UTC+1, Jason Hsu, Rubyist ha scritto:
I realize this is off-topic, but I understand that an overwhelming majority of Rubyists use Mac computers and not PCs.  I currently use Linux-powered PCs. Yes, I ditched Windows years ago just like many of you. Using Linux on a used PC is the cheapest way to compute. (I've been able to buy a 4 or 5-year-old PC that works for as little as $40-$50.)

I'm interested in purchasing a Mac to put myself on the same page as other software developers. (I'm used to Linux distros that provide the look and feel of Windows XP.) I will use the Mac for software development projects, but I intend to stick with my Linux-powered PCs for general computing. (I don't want to get locked into the Mac world, because it's so much more expensive.  Also, there is a case to be made for being versatile.)

I'm thinking of buying a new mini (starts at $600), a new MacBook (starts at $1000), or a refurbished MacBook (starts at $850).

Some questions:
1. How much has OS X changed over the past several versions? Is something from 5 years ago obsolete? Linux, on the other hand, is free. Any current Linux distro will work very well on a 5-year-old PC, and there are even some Linux distros (like Puppy Linux and antiX Linux) that work well on PCs that are 10 or more years old.
2. Is it just me, or are used Macs so exorbitantly expensive as to defeat the point of buying a used computer in the first place? I looked at Craigslist and found a number of used Mac laptops selling for as much as a new one. Most of the Macs selling for a few hundred dollars or less were very old, such as G4s. (I understand that those are 10-15 years old. Good luck getting even $100 or even $50 from a 10-year-old PC.)

the natural garden of Rails and Ruby is Linux on a PC (RHEL, CentOS, Fedora, Ubuntu or Debian are my choices), OSX is a beautiful exotic and very expensive os, but if you don't mind IOS development, for a posix-like developer a Mac is just a waste of money

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