[TampaDeveloper]

Hi. Sorry if this question has been asked, but has anybody made the transition from developing standard web business apps (n-tier web applications with JSPs, EJBs, database, w or w/o struts) on a PC to developing them on a Mac? If so, was it a difficult transition? What kinds of machines were/are you using? How are compile times? How about app servers? Do they work reliably? Do they start reasonably quick? Any gotchas you can think of?

I also want to play, in addition to doing work. Can I develop cool Aqua applications well (for fun on the side) using Java? Anybody tried SWT and does that look/work nice?

Thanks! Sorry so many questions... I'm an excited newbie to development on the Mac.

[Arkham_c]

Originally posted by TampaDeveloper:
Hi. Sorry if this question has been asked, but has anybody made the transition from developing standard web business apps (n-tier web applications with JSPs, EJBs, database, w or w/o struts) on a PC to developing them on a Mac? If so, was it a difficult transition? What kinds of machines were/are you using? How are compile times? How about app servers? Do they work reliably? Do they start reasonably quick? Any gotchas you can think of?

Everyone at work used Windows 2000 to do development. Most of our servers are AIX and Solaris, but the desktops are all PCs. Some use JBuilder 5 for development on them

I carry my iBook/600 to work with me to do development. I use Eclipse for an IDE, although lately I've been using Oracle's JDeveloper for EJB development. I've used JBuilder on the iBook, but it's not the fastest mac, and JBuilder lags.

For database design and development I cannot recommend anything in the world more than Advenio's SQLGrinder. It's the best database tool I have found HANDS down. The schema browser is amazing, and it will talk to Oracle, Sybase, MySQL, and PosrgreSQL equally well (as well as others I don't use).

As far as app servers, any pure java server will run if you can get it installed. I have run JBoss (included with Panther), Tomcat (included with Panther), WebLogic 6.1SP3 (we use it at work), Resin, and JRun. I use Tomcat for servlet work since that's very portable, and I use WebLogic for EJB stuff I am writing for work, since EJBs are not that portable. All of them work reliably, although WebLogic has some native IO libraries that are missing on OSX, resulting in some areas of slower performance. I should try WebSphere one of these days.

I also want to play, in addition to doing work. Can I develop cool Aqua applications well (for fun on the side) using Java? Anybody tried SWT and does that look/work nice?

Download Eclipse. It's written in SWT and looks quite nice. The Apple dev tools include Java support for the Cocoa framework, but I've not used it. If you know Java, Cocoa is easy to learn, and Cocoa apps are faster as native apps than Cocoa/Java.

[DaGuy]

I think J2EE dev is very smooth on MacOSX. All you need is a good app server and several run very well on the mac: JRun4, JBoss a WebObjects and any 100% Pure Java one will do just fine.

I use JRun4 for web & app server. At work we use Windows2000 and I have no choice but to use that. However, every once in a while I'll take some work home and run it of my imac 800 MHZ, 768 MB RAM. I prefer the mac. The OS just doesn't stand in your way, you got a Unix etc.

As longs as you are not hooked on some windows only tool, then you should be fine.

[TampaDeveloper]

Hi. Just wanted to say thanks for the responses. Your input helped alot and I really look forward to having new toys to play with soon.