.Net Development on Mac

[NoNothing]

First off, Im not sure if it should go in this thread or in the Mac Development thread. I dropped it in here since I am going to bring up MB vs MBP and the development is not FOR mac, only on a mac.

 

Ok, Let me get into it. I am a software developer, Im in the market for a new laptop and Ive fallen in love with my Hackintosh (thank you everyone who helped me get that running). Since I am now a big fan of Mac's I am looking to get a Mac laptop.

 

I have researched .Net development on OS X and come up with some pretty good answers to programing fine within VM Fusion or Parallels on VS2008.

 

Having only used my Hackintosh for a while I am turning to your collective brainpower to help me figure out what would be my best purchase (I would go to an Apple store but saddly none are near me) And I have done research outside of this forum but would apreciate your opinions. And anyone who has done development on a Mactop I would greatly apreciate your input.

 

I am looking at either the Black MacBook with upgraded RAM to 4GB, or a MacBook  Pro 15" 2.4GHz with RAM upgraded to 4GB as well.

 

The benefits of the Black MacBook for me would obviously be price. I am personaly not a huge fan of its small screen real estate but the screen is smaller so it makes sense. The lack of LED backlit and no multitouch are a bit of a letdown since th

 MBP has them, but hell, again not a deal breaker. My MAJOR concern with the Black MacBook is the graphics. Would the lack of a more powerful mobile GPU cause issues with Parallels/VM Fusion or even the basic OS X interface? (again, these questions could easily be answered at an Apple Store but Im not looking to drive for hours to get to one)

 

The benefits of a MacBook Pro to me would be larger screen real estate, Multitou

h (Im very used to it on my iPhone and find myself trying to use multi-touch on my current laptop trackpad). GPU is a big bonus to me, unless I am told

the X3100 chip on the MacBooks are sufficient, I will be doing no video editing 

r any extreme image renders of any kind, I only need my graphics to keep up with

my GUI.

 

 

Any opinions either way, even a "just get a windows computer, idiot".

 

Thank you,

-Charlie

[A Nonny Moose]

Unless you're gaming or running Aperture, you won't notice Integrated Graphics.

[NoNothing]

Thank you A Nonny Moose.

 

My google fu must be weak lately as I couldent find anything to compare the two from a real persons prespective, only benchmarks which dont tell me anything unless Im looking to render/game.

[iPirate]

Think of it in terms of what limitations are you ok with? If you said the specs limited you like, say, a fence around your property, then a MacBook Pro is a small Farm as opposed to the MacBook townhouse.

 

Plus you get the matte screen on the MBPs which (IMO is better for colour, readability and viewing angle), better for video, desktop background, colours looking right at most viewing angles, etc.

 

And if anyone tells you to get a Windows computer, they're the idiot.

 

Hope this helped

[NoNothing]

iPirate. I love the analogy!

 

Thank you for your input. And I have had a few close friends tell me to use a windows laptop for price. And to be honest I felt the same way untill I built my Hackintosh. I fell in love with OS X (I should mention I am a former Microsoft Student Ambassador) over windows.

 

I like it so much I would gladly pay what most consider a premium for their product, it is better in my opinion, bottom line.

[Beechus]

I got a MacBook Pro two years ago for development on the Windows platform. It's never left me down, even when running 1GB! When i upgraded to 2GB it flew, so having 4GB.... I envy you!

 

My brother got a MacBook, and the difference in power was so clear. MacBook Pro is required for development in reality! Espessialy if you have multiple IDEs open, with any kind of database technology.... I'm looking to upgrade my MBP at somepoint to the latest model

 

Conclusion: MBP all the way for .NET development

[ne0star]

I'm a .Net developer and I have just purchased a Mac Book Pro after messing around with Hackint0sh. I have leopard on a partition, and Vista Ultimate on another using boot camp, and a vista license through my MSDN subscription. It gets a much higher experience rating than my work Dell.

 

I needed the bigger resolution of the 15.4inch screen though. I would have struggled to code using the smaller low resolution screen of the mac book.

 

I love it, easily the best laptop I have ever owned.

[papillon68]

I have a MacBook Pro High-Res, I'm a web designer and a .net programmer. I installed VMWare+VS2008 and it works perfectly, using it in full screen mode I can do all my work without issues, while still being in Leopard ...

[EastcoastSix13]

Me and my partner do Ruby on Rails development(and Java in my case) on our blackbooks with 4 gigs ram. It never flitches even when running vista on vmware. The integrated video is fine and I am able to run WoW fine on it. Couldn't imagine .net development would require more.

[rollcage]

Looks like your decision is really only between a 13 or 15 inch screen. VM's can't use the GPU, so the one in the MBP isn't going to do much (integrated graphics will work fine with OSX). Both would have the same processor and RAM, so they're equal in that perspective. I would probably go with the MBP, I think a 13 inch screen is just too small to do a lot of coding on. I looked at the MB, but ended up going with a MBP for that same reason.

 

Now have you thought of getting a Macbook Air? You could do all of your programming inside of a manila envelope!

[swirling_vortex]

If you're interested in moving away from VMs, you can also look at the Mono project, which seeks to be an open-source replacement for .NET. It's not a perfect 100% drop-in replacement and not as "pretty", but some things do work. If you can install it on your Windows machines, it would enable you to be extremely cross platform.

 

http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page