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dillorscroft

Posted: Saturday, November 29, 2008 8:48:11 PM

Rank: Devotee

Joined: 7/24/2008
Posts: 50
Location: Crewe, UK

Hi,

Just wondered what sort of systems and OS's you guys use to develop Umbraco web sites with?

I've got a MacBook Pro which I almost exclusively handed over to 32bit Vista Ultimate. My 6 month reinstall is infamous in the household because if a single thing goes wrong with the reinstall I start again. If Windows Update fails to install an update then bang.... I start again. I guess Im weird.

Anyway I'd been thinking about 64bit Vista but can get the drivers on a MacBook Pro. I've recently looked at keeping OS X on the full partition and using VMWare Fusion. I can get a 64bit version of this going but I just keep thinking to myself is it worth it when I will do 90% of my work in Vista so why run this through a VM.

Should I go Vista 64bit in a VM on OS X or Vista 32bit via Bootcamp. I've got a 7200rpm drive and 4gb RAM so it should be quick enough either way.

I guess I go go with the best of both worlds and use Bootcamp partition as the VM hard drive but then I cant decide the percentage of a 200gb drive to give to each partition.

Any thoughts?

DC

Adz

Posted: Monday, December 01, 2008 12:10:46 AM

Rank: Aficionado

Joined: 6/5/2008
Posts: 148
Location: United Kingdom

Hi there,

Since you asked on Twitter I thought I'd reply!

There's been the odd discussion about dev environments in the past and different people seem to have different preferences.

We tend to use Mac Book Pro's with 4GB RAM and Fusion, either with XP Professional or Windows Server 2003.
We then use Visual Studio 2008 in the VM for developing .NET controls or for debugging / patching Umbraco.
We also run SQLServer 2005 in the VM. Oh, and of course antivirus (AVG).

We tend to use OSX tools for web development: CSS Edit for one, TextMate is also a favourite.

For Umbraco v4 so far, Firefox seems to be the most stable browser but it doesn't run well in the VM: it seems to consume as much CPU as possible and brings Umbraco to it's knees on occasion. So I use Firefox in OSX and use it to browse IIS on my VM...

IE7 testing can be done in the VM, and I run a 2nd VM (at the same time) which basically runs IE6 only.

In theory I guess you could even run MySQL on OSX and just have IIS+Umbraco+VS2008 running in the VM - but since we do not use MySQL on our production servers that is not a practical solution for me.

We haven't had any reason to run VISTA as it seems unnecessary for developing Umbraco sites.

This setup works well for us, it isn't slow. However if you are happy working in Windows 100% of the time then why not run it on Bootcamp? I think it's personal preference.

Unless there are apps in OSX that you really like to use?

As I said, we use TextMate and CSS Edit; but a killer app for us is iChat. It's fantastic as a tool for a dev team which work remotely: screen sharing with audio make it a great way to work from remote locations. We do use another app called Yuuguu (multiplatform) for screen sharing but you need to couple it with Skype to get the audio and even then the screen sharing experience is not quite as good.

Another useful 'team' tool is Skitch, a screen grab program; and I understand that Screenflow is one of the best screencasting apps around (though we haven't tried it yet) - so there are some additional reasons for using OSX as our primary environment.

Be interesting to hear how other Mac users develop!

Adz

Adam Perry (blog, twitter), developing Umbraco based websites and applications for ConnectDigital.

nwahlberg

Posted: Monday, December 01, 2008 4:52:31 PM

Rank: Devotee

Joined: 10/20/2008
Posts: 83
Location: USA

Hi all,

I am a converted Mac user as of about 2 months ago. I have to say, I will never go back! I opted to use a VMWare install because I figured I am using a Mac for a reason, and it isn't necessarily for the great hardware, but rather a combination of the hardware and OSX (plus other software features). So, I would definitely go with a VM install and take advantage of the stability and reliability of OSX for day-to-day tasks. I found that most of the software I was using on my Dell D820 (XP install) had equivalent versions of the same software of better programs from other vendors. Of course, I am very comfortable with the BSD command line and vi so that was a natural transition for me as well.

I use a couple of Mac specific tools for development:

- Smultron: This is a code editor that I find very pleasant to work with (syntax hi-lighting of course, code snippets, and great keyboard shortcuts)

- Changes: A version comparison tool that works great

- Oracle SQL Developer (this is available in Win and Linux as well)

- FileZilla FTP client

Then, for my VMWare Vista install, I have things like SQL Management Studio Express, Visual Studio, Textpad and some other windows specific apps that I had licenses for from before.

Overall (as I mentioned earlier) I would never go back to a PC and love the VM Fusion/OSX combo. Additionally, I run spaces to handle various different types of software, and have an external wide screen monitor which I dedicate to my Vista install making the separation even better. It literally is like having two laptops on my desk.

Hope this helps some.

Best,
Nik

Level 1 Certified / www.scandiaconsulting.com

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