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
- 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.
