I love this tool. Used it on multiple agile projects. Free too!

Yup! I replace my dad's virii infested XP machine tomorrow. My parents will have an all Mac house and I won't be getting any more whacky phone calls about why my dad can't open any docs anymore or the 10k other things that come as bonus features in teh Windows world. My mom, during all these years with her G4 iMac has not had one problem..

While 90k+ apps & over 2bln downloads makes it harder to get noticed, those numbers say it all.

I've used a few Android phones and I like them. But the thing that makes the iPhone great to develop for (after you get past obj-c hurdle, the api's are actually really good) is that it's *standard*. One form factor, end of story. I can't help but think Android is gonna fall into the same hole that J2ME did when it tried to support everything. Already developers are maintaining separate branches for separate devices for Android. I've developed J2ME apps before and they are a f-ing nightmare. That platform never took off for a reason, because there's *too much* choice and diversity. Everything to all people; good luck.

There are also no where near as many Android users as iPhone and so developing for that platform with the intent to make some money on your app is not very plausible at this point. Maybe in a few years, maybe not. (Plus I hate Eclipse, so much unnecessary bloat, just like Java. I want tools that are fast and that don't require 5mil downloads of some frameworks I'll never use. But the Eclipse thing is only my hang up and I'm sure most Android devs won't care.)

So as a developer what makes more sense? 5 code bases for 5 Android phones - all with different form factors / features - and relatively little money for all your toil? Or one platform and the chance to hit it big? It's the same argument on a PC; develop for the huge Windows market, or everyone else?

This is headline trolling. The 'cloud' is just a term used to describe what's already been around for over a decade. This has nothing to do with 'the cloud' and everything to do with bad infrastructure policy and incompetent IT staff.

All I have to say is this: Apple doesn't care in the slightest. They've forgotten about living under anyone's thumb because they're leaders now in a few key markets. They'll abuse it the say way anyone else does or is. At this point, people have to organize, complain, vote with their pocketbooks, hack. I do happen to like and own many Apple products, but they're no shining knight - never have been in my mind.

But instead... I got a Sony PRS-700. And I love it. Sure the screen could be bigger, but it supports PDF natively and a lot of the tech books I get (probably not going to be the case with most other books - yet) are in epub format, which is at least an open format. I know the Kindle DX supports native PDF, but I actually like the epub format now as it seems to render better on my PRS-700. The PRS-700 also has touch screen and a SD slot; so I can just download the epub's, copy them over to the sd, and then they show up on my 'bookshelf' on the reader. Exactly the amount of control I wanted.

I can see what Amazon is doing here - they're trying to mimic the success of the iTunes music store. I suspect this will work for a while, but at some point, others will come along and force Amazon to open up. Once they do, I might buy a bigger Kindle.

All in all, I think ebooks have finally arrived and I'm ditching all my paper text manuals and never buying another one again..

I'd even take this a step further and say Vista/XP gets in the way quite a bit. When I know how to do/use something, I don't need constant reminders to 'Apply' things or to confirm a bunch of operations. Every time I venture into MS land, I seem to get this. When I sit down to a Windows machine it's like, 'sigh'. This isn't to bash MS at all, I think they're necessary in the whole computing ecosystem. However, to me (and this has maybe been reduced since the advent of Vista) they are still a little too nerdy when it comes to OS's.

I used the 'Linux Desktop' for a long time, developing on/in it. I tried to like Gnome, but, yah, it's just a hog. I tried to like KDE, but it was too much like Windows (I think it's prob more stable and is faster than Gnome tho). So when OSX finally was usable I switched and never looked back.

Now where are all these guys? Gnome/Ubuntu - no uptake really. KDE - ditto. Windows - catchup, still a pain to use, still a bunch of money, still the overlords making u activate it. OSX however keeps getting better and more and more people are using it. I don't care about the 'Apple tax' because I think that's a lot of bs. Before I bought my first PowerBook I spent *weeks* looking for a capable Linux laptop. All were junk though which, to me describes the PC industry; a race to the bottom.

I don't think developers can make good GUI software. A developer just wants to get some things done and call it good. A 'professional' ui person want's the experience to be top notch. Like the poster above said "move this button 5px left, make this line #ffffff" - I've had to do that before and my attitude was "fuuuuuck you!". So, I feel I've experienced this first hand.

Now, the Mac/OSX isn't perfect - nothing is - and while I like their hardware/design, I definitely can see through their bullshit screen (which sometimes is worse than MS). But every day I sit down to my terminal or Textmate and start working or start on a task, I get it done with minimal interruption from the OS and with a lot of happiness because things work well and look pretty damn good. Looks are important and if anyone says differently then they should go back to fvwm (even circa '03) and hang out there. Looks DO matter.

My friend and I (also a Linux Desktop developer from way back) talk about the state of Gnome or the like and he's always saying - "yo, they're *still* using the same icons from 8 years ago", and it's true. Not saying for profit computing is the way to go, but money motivates and OSX - especially with Snow Leopard - is now king of the mountain. They're going to have to fuck up royally or some amazing something has to come along.

At this point in my life, I'm tired of garbage (like the machines in the Microsoft laptop commercials) and I don't care about compiling my OS anymore to get that extra 5% of performance. I want a beautiful machine that works and gets out of my way. The Mac pretty much fits that bill.

One last note. For servers (now this is a diff story), I 100% use Linux. For the server market, Linux has it figured out and that's where it will continue to shine.

I'm pushing 40 this year. Been programming most of my life. Never completed my CS degree. Worked on some fairly high profile projects in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco. I would say tho, at this point in my life, I'm definitely at the Sr. level and if I was to apply for a 'real' job it would be a Director or VP/CTO position - probably in a small startup.

I know of friends consulting companies that have guys in their 20's-40's. Other friends work for big software companies and have similar age groups. In the end, if you're a good programmer and not over 50 ;) then you shouldn't have a problem. But at some point, you're going to probably start your own company or be at a level above 'straight out of schoole 20-something coder'.

I wouldn't worry about the ageism thing at 35.