Hi! I´m planning to buy a new desktop computer sometime in the following months and I´m seeking advice. My background: I´m a college student and a part-time programmer at a local software company that develops products for PDAs. I don´t play games very often but I enjoy doing game and graphics programming as a hobby. My current computer is a fine machine but its graphics capabilities are somewhat lacking so that´s why I´m planning to buy a new one. During the last few months I´ve been reading a bunch of good opinions about Macs and how fine its XCode environment is. Macs in Argentina are not exactly cheap (they´re almost twice as expensive as in the USA, which is a lot taking into account that our currency is significantly weaker than the US dollars), but I don´t mind spending that much as long as it´s worthy. On the other hand, I could buy a very nice desktop PC for half the money and install a Linux distribution that resembles OS X. I would like to hear your opinion about all this issue, especially from those that use Mac as a development environment. Feel free to ask if you have further questions about me. Thanks in advance, --Ignacio

I use both Visual Studio and XCode at work and I can tell you that when people have to make sure their code compiles on the Mac you know... because you hear swearing :) XCode sure is better than using raw GCC tools and the like, but there is still a very large gap between it and Visual Studio.

Although I can tell you that with the switch to Intel processors developing on the mac is a lot better than it was. It used to be absolutely abysmal with horribly slow debugging, etc... but considering the gcc tools on x86 have been around longer and used more than the PPC they are definately better.

Also note that the majority of video cards that apple packs in the systems are very weak until you get up to the really expensive models, whereas with the PC you can use what you want.

One upside to consider is that Macintoshs tend to be fairly durable and long lasting. While this is not to say that a PC is not capable, your Mac can easily end up lasting you 5-10+ years if you so desire. In my personal opinion (and don't nail me to the wall for this), they are easier to maintain and run when they become older. Although it is not my main computer, I use an 6 year old iBook running a fairly recent version of OSX without much of an issue. It handles much of the day-to-day stuff I need it to do in an acceptable manner. It also isn't covered in stuff I might have downloaded years ago. This is possible on a PC, by all means, but I am just lazy.

On the other hand, if you do end up purchasing a PC, the ability to upgrade down the line will be far cheaper and easier (for the most part) than if you were to purchase a Macintosh.

As much as I love the Macs, if money is indeed an issue, a cheap little desktop PC might be a much better choice for you.

Best of luck.

Quote: Original post by JBS103
One upside to consider is that Macintoshs tend to be fairly durable and long lasting. While this is not to say that a PC is not capable, your Mac can easily end up lasting you 5-10+ years if you so desire. In my personal opinion (and don't nail me to the wall for this), they are easier to maintain and run when they become older. Although it is not my main computer, I use an 6 year old iBook running a fairly recent version of OSX without much of an issue. It handles much of the day-to-day stuff I need it to do in an acceptable manner. It also isn't covered in stuff I might have downloaded years ago. This is possible on a PC, by all means, but I am just lazy.

On the other hand, if you do end up purchasing a PC, the ability to upgrade down the line will be far cheaper and easier (for the most part) than if you were to purchase a Macintosh.

As much as I love the Macs, if money is indeed an issue, a cheap little desktop PC might be a much better choice for you.

Best of luck.

Yup, I got a titanium G4 powerbook that I got back in 2001 that I still use for cross platform coding and have never had to reformat due to viruses,spyware,etc. So it's a good place to put all my important stuff.I used XCode several times when I was making some Allegro games and didn't really care for it that much. It might've got better since though since several newer versions have come out including intel support. It's amazing that the performance actually gets better with each release of macosx too.I can't say the same thing about any PC I've bought or built in the same period of time.

Quote: Original post by daviangel
It's amazing that the performance actually gets better with each release of macosx too.I can't say the same thing about any PC I've bought or built in the same period of time.

It's not really amazing because OS X ran like a dog and has been sluggish since it first came out. They have upgraded the OS (would have cost $600 so far to get all the point releases which are less of an upgrade than an XP service pack.. ouch!) and it continually gets faster. On the other hand it is a hell of a lot harder to increase performance on an tuned OS like XP. Although if you upgrade to Vista (which costs the same as the upcoming OS X update that is basically a service pack) you would see noticable performance over XP.

Quote:
One upside to consider is that Macintoshs tend to be fairly durable and long lasting.

That used to be the case but if you search around you'll find that since the switch to Intel and having to sell a lot more machines the quality has actually nosedived pretty badly. It is still not bad but they are below major PC manufacturers like Alienware and Dell.

I have a 12 year old mac here that still runs, almost got OS x running on it (it ain't my main computer though), Macs live a long time.

Thanks for your replies! I think I´m going to take the PC route for now. I´d really like to give Mac OS X a shot but, as I´ve mentioned before, they cost twice as much here in Argentina and, taking into account that I´m doing game and graphics programming as a hobby, I don´t think it´s worth the investment. Maybe in the future... :)

Thanks again for all your replies.

--Ignacio