Apples to Oranges?

Just call me 'Eve.'

Why? Because I've taken a bite of the apple and found the truth fascinating!

Now, I remember when Mac OS X came out, and being a bit of a Linux geek, I remember being pretty excited that OS X was based on Unix. And being maybe more than a bit of a Linux geek, I endorse any alternative operating system. You know, free code, free speech, and free beer to foment the seeds of dissent, to push us out of comfortable confines, to keep the technology and creativity moving, and growing.

My Uncle uses Mac -- this is really just a natural part of the order of things, since he's a sound engineer. He falls in that sorta-artsy-fartsy realm of computer geekitude, a small subset of the population that has long been served by the superior artistic tools that Mac provides. "I'm running Mac OS X now." he tells me. So one night, while over at his house and needing to get online, I pop onto his computer. I'd only really worked with Windows and *nix, but lo and behold, there was that shell access! From there, I managed to do what I needed to do, and just how cool was that?

But back in my world of PHP Dev, *nix and Windows sysadmin, and user support, news of Mac came through as that other OS, info bytes wafting in through the filters like news of a different country, interesting and someplace I might like to visit someday but off the immediate radar.

Then I start learning about Ruby on Rails. RoR is really just another programming language and development framework, the next generation or iteration of making and using tools that lift and set us on the shoulders of those who came before, that have incorporated the knowledge gained and best practices learned in the years before. I go to the local RoR user group, and what's this? I'm seeing apples glowing with that backlit life that sends a subtle hello world to folks sitting across the table. And what's this? The presenter is using Mac, and he's got multiple desktops, whiz-bang server platform tools that let him move easily from one web test server to another sitting in his box. And look at that! There's TextMate, a text editor/programming environment built specifically for RoR development, that not only completes the line your writing, but also completes the lines in the function below that undoes what it is you're doing now so you can revert to a previous rollout if need be.

And you can't get that on Windows, or Linux.

So I'm sitting there, interested in the underlying technology of course, but also a little flash-dazed by this idea that Mac, which once sat in my mind as an artist's platform, is also being used as a development platform. And thus began my state of Mac Envy. Yes, I've taken a bite, and found myself naked before the eyes of technology.

Anybody got a spare fig leaf?