Mark Ferree - Open Source Web Development

I have been making websites for about 15 years, and most have that time has been spent behind a Apple of some type or another.

Over the past two years I have worked as full time web developer, and been on an XP or (shudders) Vista machine.

The question is: which platform is best for building and designing websites?

There are a few thing that you need to be a succesful web developer in my opinion: image editing, source code editing, a test server environment, and a version control system.

Lets look at each item and see how the two platforms stack up.

Image Editing

When it comes to image editing there is only one serious contender. I would love to say that GIMP could successfully replace Photoshop, but unfortunately there is still a long way to go.

I can't seem to get decent performance from Photoshop on any PC that I've used. It seems to be a RAM and graphics card issue but no matter what I have all sorts of problems performance wise with Photoshop. And don't get me started on how lousy it performs on a Vista machine.

Most Macs come with decent graphics capability out of the box and I've rarely had a problem running Photoshop. The Intel transition was a little painful, but I'm still happy runnign CS2 on my 5 year old laptop as well.

One point for Apple.

Source Code Editing

The realm of source code editors is where this post will become a lot less scientific and a lot more opinion piece. It's possible to successfully write code on any machine with a simple text editor. The real difference comes from what is available for the two platforms.

My current preffered editor is Aptana. Built in real time error checking for my PHP is something I don't think I could live without. Aptana is open source, and available for free for both the PC and Mac. I've been a little frustated on how long the Java runtime takes to load on a mac, and can't seem to get the subversion addon running on my Mac, but otherwise the experience is almost identical.

When it comes to other editors there are a lot of options out there. Textmate, definitely shows what is possible with a modern editor, and I've been tempted to use it for my HTML and CSS. It's only available for the Mac, but E has recently come on to the scene as a PC alternative. I also am a big fan of the simplicity of Notepad++ for large text files and when you don't need a bloated IDE to get your work done.

So it looks like it's a tie depending on what you are looking for as far as source editing goes.

Test Server Environment

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but there's really no easy solution for setting up a robust testing environment. You have a long and tedious few hours ahead of you if you need to get up and running.

One quick solution that may fit your needs is to use WAMP or MAMP. These two products are almost identical providing a self contained server environemnt and will fulfill most of your needs, especially if you are a lone wolf working on your own system.

If you need to set up a separate server with specific requirements, or need a custom solution on your own machine neither platform is simple. Macs come with Apache, PostgreSQL, and PHP installed, so they take a slight advantage. Personally upgrading these to the latest versions took a significant amount of time, so I would say this gives Apple a half point advantage here. If you are on windows you are starting from scratch, there are installers readiliy available, but you will be investing a good amoutn of time to get everything running.

Version Control

I am a huge fan of Subversion for version control.

The tools available on the PC for subversion far surpass anythign available for the Mac. Specifically Tortoise SVN makes the whole process of using subversion a breeze, providing a whole set of contextual menu commands for managing your repository.

The tools available for the Mac are far inferior, making using Subversion a chore. I have resorted to using the command line, and editing config files more than once to get everything synching properly.

Plus one for the PC

Conclusion

Looks like overall, the Macs have it by a half a point. I wouldn't say that this is a very convincing lead. When it comes down to it, it really is important to look at what your needs are, what kind of environment you are developing for (IIS and .NET aren't going to work on a Mac outside of virtual machine) and what kind of budget you have before deciding what machine to purchase.

I've always loved my Apple computers, and wouldn't ever considering buying a PC for myself, but my time using a PC has taught me that with the right tools, any machine can be used to make great websites.