My Development Environment on OS X

I have had development environments on all the major platforms (Windows, varying flavors of Linux, and OS X) and I have to say, OS X wins by a mile. You can cobble together a relatively similar environment on Windows and Linux, but it never quite feels like it works right. On OS X, everything fits together nicely.

I had taken a few screenshots to help demonstrate, but they don’t do it justice. So I took a video with my new Kodak Playsport. You can’t really *read* what’s on the screen, but you can get the idea. Choose 720p for more clarity.

Software Featured

• RubyMine 2
• VIM w/ NERDTree Addon
• iTerm for full screen terminal
• Sequel Pro

I use Spaces to organize.
Space 1

• Browsers (Safari and Firefox with Firebug and Firecookie)
• AdiumX (IM)
• Colloquy (IRC)
• RubyMine

Space 2

• Terminals – I keep the project open in NERDtree so I can continue to work even if I’m watching a process (i.e. migrations, tests, or DB Import) I can still work. In this video I’m running a test db import and cloning a svn repository in git.

Space 3

• Sequel Pro – I highly recommend this piece of software. I can get around the MySQL command prompt as quick as the next guy, but most of the time, I can get the job done in a nice UI, with plenty of convenience features.

Space 4

• Mail
• Calendar

I think this system works very well and is pretty efficient, once you get used to switching back and forth between RubyMine and VIM anyways. Switch to 720p for more clarity.