Suitable Machine for Grail/Eclipse

[mkavanagh]

Hi,
I am new to grails and have been using the SpringSource Eclipse interface version 2.9.2 along with Grails 2.1 and have successfully been going through the Scott Davis Blogito tutorial.

I would now like to begin to develop web sites using this environment and will need a get a dedicated machine for this – currently I am doing my work on a PC running windows which grinds a way a bit!

I am looking for guidance regarding a suitable development platform.

If I continue to do development under windows what level of processor have people worked with successfully? I appreciate this is a bit of a “length of string” question.

One last thought before I take the plunge – should I consider the Unix option.

As I am familiar with using Unix scripting are there benefits to doing my development on a Unix box over a windows box?
Thanks for your replies.

-Mike

[Jonathan Andrew Ong]

Go for Mac, 8GB of RAM, and SSD. 

On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 5:56 PM, mkavanagh <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi,
I am new to grails and have been using the SpringSource Eclipse interface
version 2.9.2 along with Grails 2.1 and have successfully been going through
the Scott Davis Blogito tutorial.

I would now like to begin to develop web sites using this environment and
will need a get a dedicated machine for this – currently I am doing my work
on a PC running windows which grinds a way a bit!

I am looking for guidance regarding a suitable development platform.

If I continue to do development under windows what level of processor have
people worked with successfully? I appreciate this is a bit of a “length of
string” question.

One last thought before I take the plunge – should I consider the Unix
option.

As I am familiar with using Unix scripting are there benefits to doing my
development on a Unix box over a windows box?
Thanks for your replies.

-Mike




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[Antony Jones]

Hi Mike,

My current environment (which is perfect) is:

Ubuntu Linux 12.04
Intel Core i5
4gb RAM
Dual SSD in RAID0

As a minimum spec I wouldn't dip below Intel Core i3, and I wouldn't
go less than 4gb of RAM. The SSD is optional. 8GB of RAM is always
nice.
Mac is a good second best, but I find Ubuntu Linux far more practical
and usable.

Cheers,
Antony

On 8 August 2012 10:56, mkavanagh <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi,
> I am new to grails and have been using the SpringSource Eclipse interface
> version 2.9.2 along with Grails 2.1 and have successfully been going through
> the Scott Davis Blogito tutorial.
>
> I would now like to begin to develop web sites using this environment and
> will need a get a dedicated machine for this – currently I am doing my work
> on a PC running windows which grinds a way a bit!
>
> I am looking for guidance regarding a suitable development platform.
>
> If I continue to do development under windows what level of processor have
> people worked with successfully? I appreciate this is a bit of a “length of
> string” question.
>
> One last thought before I take the plunge – should I consider the Unix
> option.
>
> As I am familiar with using Unix scripting are there benefits to doing my
> development on a Unix box over a windows box?
> Thanks for your replies.
>
> -Mike
>
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Suitable-Machine-for-Grail-Eclipse-tp4632836.html
> Sent from the Grails - user mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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> To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
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[geezenslaw]

Hi, you might want to look at Beckwith's comments here:

http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Quick-Survey-What-workstations-are-Grails-developers-using-tp4630205p4630232.html

and this found on ZDNET during the search for the previous link:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/saying-goodbye-to-my-system76-notebooks/4455




On 08/08/2012 04:56 AM, mkavanagh wrote:

> Hi,
> I am new to grails and have been using the SpringSource Eclipse interface
> version 2.9.2 along with Grails 2.1 and have successfully been going through
> the Scott Davis Blogito tutorial.
>
> I would now like to begin to develop web sites using this environment and
> will need a get a dedicated machine for this – currently I am doing my work
> on a PC running windows which grinds a way a bit!
>
> I am looking for guidance regarding a suitable development platform.
>
> If I continue to do development under windows what level of processor have
> people worked with successfully? I appreciate this is a bit of a “length of
> string” question.
>
> One last thought before I take the plunge – should I consider the Unix
> option.
>
> As I am familiar with using Unix scripting are there benefits to doing my
> development on a Unix box over a windows box?
> Thanks for your replies.
>
> -Mike
>
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Suitable-Machine-for-Grail-Eclipse-tp4632836.html
> Sent from the Grails - user mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
>
>      http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
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[bond_]

I've heard SSD is not meant for high reads and writes can someone elaborate on that please?

On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 5:07 PM, David Brown <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi, you might want to look at Beckwith's comments here:

http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Quick-Survey-What-workstations-are-Grails-developers-using-tp4630205p4630232.html

and this found on ZDNET during the search for the previous link:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/saying-goodbye-to-my-system76-notebooks/4455

On 08/08/2012 04:56 AM, mkavanagh wrote:

Hi,
I am new to grails and have been using the SpringSource Eclipse interface
version 2.9.2 along with Grails 2.1 and have successfully been going through
the Scott Davis Blogito tutorial.

I would now like to begin to develop web sites using this environment and
will need a get a dedicated machine for this – currently I am doing my work
on a PC running windows which grinds a way a bit!

I am looking for guidance regarding a suitable development platform.

If I continue to do development under windows what level of processor have
people worked with successfully? I appreciate this is a bit of a “length of
string” question.

One last thought before I take the plunge – should I consider the Unix
option.

As I am familiar with using Unix scripting are there benefits to doing my
development on a Unix box over a windows box?
Thanks for your replies.

-Mike




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Thanks and regards,

Ravi Teja

[Antony Jones]

> I've heard SSD is not meant for high reads and writes can someone elaborate
> on that please?

It is true that SSD blocks have a finite write-limit, but this is
negated via use of TRIM+DISCARD which modern SSDs and OSs support. It
marks bad blocks as unusable.

Also it is worth noting that SSDs fail on write, not on read, so you
don't lose data - it is simply retried on a good block. Should be a
seamless experience.

Antony

On 8 August 2012 13:18, Raviteja Lokineni <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I've heard SSD is not meant for high reads and writes can someone elaborate
> on that please?
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 5:07 PM, David Brown <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> Hi, you might want to look at Beckwith's comments here:
>>
>>
>> http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Quick-Survey-What-workstations-are-Grails-developers-using-tp4630205p4630232.html
>>
>> and this found on ZDNET during the search for the previous link:
>>
>>
>> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/saying-goodbye-to-my-system76-notebooks/4455
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 08/08/2012 04:56 AM, mkavanagh wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>> I am new to grails and have been using the SpringSource Eclipse interface
>>> version 2.9.2 along with Grails 2.1 and have successfully been going
>>> through
>>> the Scott Davis Blogito tutorial.
>>>
>>> I would now like to begin to develop web sites using this environment and
>>> will need a get a dedicated machine for this – currently I am doing my
>>> work
>>> on a PC running windows which grinds a way a bit!
>>>
>>> I am looking for guidance regarding a suitable development platform.
>>>
>>> If I continue to do development under windows what level of processor
>>> have
>>> people worked with successfully? I appreciate this is a bit of a “length
>>> of
>>> string” question.
>>>
>>> One last thought before I take the plunge – should I consider the Unix
>>> option.
>>>
>>> As I am familiar with using Unix scripting are there benefits to doing my
>>> development on a Unix box over a windows box?
>>> Thanks for your replies.
>>>
>>> -Mike
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> View this message in context:
>>> http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Suitable-Machine-for-Grail-Eclipse-tp4632836.html
>>> Sent from the Grails - user mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
>>>
>>>      http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Thanks and regards,
> Ravi Teja
>

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[burtbeckwith]

 

I bought a System76 laptop (the Gazelle Professional) a couple of weeks ago and it's been fantastic. $1350 for 16GB memory, quad-core i7 processor, a 750GB non-SSD drive and a 2nd battery. I only recently heard about using 2 SSDs with RAID0, otherwise I'd have gone with that.

 

Burt 

 

On August 8, 2012 at 7:37 AM David Brown <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi, you might want to look at Beckwith's comments here:
>
> http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Quick-Survey-What-workstations-are-Grails-developers-using-tp4630205p4630232.html
>
> and this found on ZDNET during the search for the previous link:
>
> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/saying-goodbye-to-my-system76-notebooks/4455
>
>
>
>
> On 08/08/2012 04:56 AM, mkavanagh wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I am new to grails and have been using the SpringSource Eclipse interface
> > version 2.9.2 along with Grails 2.1 and have successfully been going through
> > the Scott Davis Blogito tutorial.
> >
> > I would now like to begin to develop web sites using this environment and
> > will need a get a dedicated machine for this – currently I am doing my work
> > on a PC running windows which grinds a way a bit!
> >
> > I am looking for guidance regarding a suitable development platform.
> >
> > If I continue to do development under windows what level of processor have
> > people worked with successfully? I appreciate this is a bit of a “length of
> > string” question.
> >
> > One last thought before I take the plunge – should I consider the Unix
> > option.
> >
> > As I am familiar with using Unix scripting are there benefits to doing my
> > development on a Unix box over a windows box?
> > Thanks for your replies.
> >
> > -Mike
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > View this message in context: http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Suitable-Machine-for-Grail-Eclipse-tp4632836.html
> > Sent from the Grails - user mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
> >
> >      http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
> >
> >
>
>
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[Ryan Vanderwerf]

You can always go with that, just swap out the HDD for a 512GB crucial M4 SSD (System76 has it for 375 extra on their config screen), they can be had for about 350 now if you look around. I'd stick with Intel, Samsung 830, or the Crucial M4 for SSD, avoid OCZ and other cheapo ones (they tend to die quickly). It's the best upgrade I've ever done for a PC doing Grails development (besides having enough RAM). I think raid 0 on a ssd is playing with fire personally ;)

I'm running an MSI 683R that runs Ubuntu great, the reason I went with it is it has a 15.6" laptop with 2 HDD bays + an optical bay. (So I have a 256GB Samsung 830 and a traditional 750GB hdd + blueray drive).


Ryan
________________________________________
From: Burt Beckwith [[hidden email]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2012 10:50 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [grails-user] Suitable Machine for Grail/Eclipse

I bought a System76 laptop (the Gazelle Professional) a couple of weeks ago and it's been fantastic. $1350 for 16GB memory, quad-core i7 processor, a 750GB non-SSD drive and a 2nd battery. I only recently heard about using 2 SSDs with RAID0, otherwise I'd have gone with that.



Burt



On August 8, 2012 at 7:37 AM David Brown <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi, you might want to look at Beckwith's comments here:
>
> http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Quick-Survey-What-workstations-are-Grails-developers-using-tp4630205p4630232.html
>
> and this found on ZDNET during the search for the previous link:
>
> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/saying-goodbye-to-my-system76-notebooks/4455
>
>
>
>
> On 08/08/2012 04:56 AM, mkavanagh wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I am new to grails and have been using the SpringSource Eclipse interface
> > version 2.9.2 along with Grails 2.1 and have successfully been going through
> > the Scott Davis Blogito tutorial.
> >
> > I would now like to begin to develop web sites using this environment and
> > will need a get a dedicated machine for this – currently I am doing my work
> > on a PC running windows which grinds a way a bit!
> >
> > I am looking for guidance regarding a suitable development platform.
> >
> > If I continue to do development under windows what level of processor have
> > people worked with successfully? I appreciate this is a bit of a “length of
> > string” question.
> >
> > One last thought before I take the plunge – should I consider the Unix
> > option.
> >
> > As I am familiar with using Unix scripting are there benefits to doing my
> > development on a Unix box over a windows box?
> > Thanks for your replies.
> >
> > -Mike
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > View this message in context: http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Suitable-Machine-for-Grail-Eclipse-tp4632836.html
> > Sent from the Grails - user mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
> >
> >      http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
> >
> >
>
>
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[Antony Jones]

The reason I have RAID0 SSD is because that's the default
configuration for this Sony VAIO Z. Technically it is playing with
fire, but so is buying a VAIO. No problems yet (fingers crossed) and
it's been 2 years. Drives are proprietary :( Toshiba SSDs. It cost
about the same as the System76 one at the time.

The reason I bought it is because it was lighter than the current
Macbook AIR when I bought it, and massively more powerful. Drivers for
Linux were a pain to start with, but it all runs fine now.

As long as you're running Linux, your oomph goes a little further.

Cheers,
Antony

On 8 August 2012 17:07, Ryan Vanderwerf <[hidden email]> wrote:

> You can always go with that, just swap out the HDD for a 512GB crucial M4 SSD (System76 has it for 375 extra on their config screen), they can be had for about 350 now if you look around. I'd stick with Intel, Samsung 830, or the Crucial M4 for SSD, avoid OCZ and other cheapo ones (they tend to die quickly). It's the best upgrade I've ever done for a PC doing Grails development (besides having enough RAM). I think raid 0 on a ssd is playing with fire personally ;)
>
> I'm running an MSI 683R that runs Ubuntu great, the reason I went with it is it has a 15.6" laptop with 2 HDD bays + an optical bay. (So I have a 256GB Samsung 830 and a traditional 750GB hdd + blueray drive).
>
>
> Ryan
> ________________________________________
> From: Burt Beckwith [[hidden email]]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2012 10:50 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [grails-user] Suitable Machine for Grail/Eclipse
>
> I bought a System76 laptop (the Gazelle Professional) a couple of weeks ago and it's been fantastic. $1350 for 16GB memory, quad-core i7 processor, a 750GB non-SSD drive and a 2nd battery. I only recently heard about using 2 SSDs with RAID0, otherwise I'd have gone with that.
>
>
>
> Burt
>
>
>
> On August 8, 2012 at 7:37 AM David Brown <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> Hi, you might want to look at Beckwith's comments here:
>>
>> http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Quick-Survey-What-workstations-are-Grails-developers-using-tp4630205p4630232.html
>>
>> and this found on ZDNET during the search for the previous link:
>>
>> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/saying-goodbye-to-my-system76-notebooks/4455
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 08/08/2012 04:56 AM, mkavanagh wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> > I am new to grails and have been using the SpringSource Eclipse interface
>> > version 2.9.2 along with Grails 2.1 and have successfully been going through
>> > the Scott Davis Blogito tutorial.
>> >
>> > I would now like to begin to develop web sites using this environment and
>> > will need a get a dedicated machine for this – currently I am doing my work
>> > on a PC running windows which grinds a way a bit!
>> >
>> > I am looking for guidance regarding a suitable development platform.
>> >
>> > If I continue to do development under windows what level of processor have
>> > people worked with successfully? I appreciate this is a bit of a “length of
>> > string” question.
>> >
>> > One last thought before I take the plunge – should I consider the Unix
>> > option.
>> >
>> > As I am familiar with using Unix scripting are there benefits to doing my
>> > development on a Unix box over a windows box?
>> > Thanks for your replies.
>> >
>> > -Mike
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > View this message in context: http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Suitable-Machine-for-Grail-Eclipse-tp4632836.html
>> > Sent from the Grails - user mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>> >
>> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > To unsubscribe from this list, please visit:
>> >
>> >      http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
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[basejump (Josh)]

SSD for sure!!! You will never look back. Its well worth the extra expense and will give you a huge dev performance boost and Eclipse opens crazy fast.
8 gig ram, 16 gig if you can get it.
Faster hz vs more cores. Unless you are using VM's heavily then the extra cores don't help a whole lot when doing dev
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[Antony Jones]

Yeah also I hate to turn my back on open source but you couldn't pay
me to use Eclipse. IntelliJ all the way.
8gig of RAM is more than enough, 16gig I think is superfluous.

On 8 August 2012 23:42, Josh (basejump) <[hidden email]> wrote:
> SSD for sure!!! You will never look back. Its well worth the extra expense and will give you a huge dev performance boost and Eclipse opens crazy fast.
> 8 gig ram, 16 gig if you can get it.
> Faster hz vs more cores. Unless you are using VM's heavily then the extra cores don't help a whole lot when doing dev
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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[Nathan Wells]

While I generally agree with Antony that 8GB is enough,

On Aug 8, 2012 5:08 PM, "Antony Jones" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yeah also I hate to turn my back on open source but you couldn't pay
me to use Eclipse. IntelliJ all the way.
8gig of RAM is more than enough, 16gig I think is superfluous.

On 8 August 2012 23:42, Josh (basejump) <[hidden email]> wrote:
> SSD for sure!!! You will never look back. Its well worth the extra expense and will give you a huge dev performance boost and Eclipse opens crazy fast.
> 8 gig ram, 16 gig if you can get it.
> Faster hz vs more cores. Unless you are using VM's heavily then the extra cores don't help a whole lot when doing dev
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[basejump (Josh)]

Ram is relatively cheap and I think the bang for the buck is well worth it but obviously not everyone will need it. With a VM or 2, Eclipse/Intellij and then a Grails on top of a handful of other apps, its really easy to smoke past the 8.

its ran an extra $40 to go with 16 instead of 8 on new macbook pro (not from apple of course).

On Aug 8, 2012, at 9:46 PM, Nathan Wells wrote:

While I generally agree with Antony that 8GB is enough,

[rlovtangen]

True, I have no problem using more than 8GB RAM. http://d.pr/i/t5Lv

On Aug 9, 2012, at 4:59 AM, Josh (basejump) wrote:

Ram is relatively cheap and I think the bang for the buck is well worth it but obviously not everyone will need it. With a VM or 2, Eclipse/Intellij and then a Grails on top of a handful of other apps, its really easy to smoke past the 8.

its ran an extra $40 to go with 16 instead of 8 on new macbook pro (not from apple of course).

On Aug 8, 2012, at 9:46 PM, Nathan Wells wrote:

While I generally agree with Antony that 8GB is enough,

[Jonathan Stott-5]

Except that you can't upgrade the RAM in the new MacBook Pros as it is soldered on to the motherboard. Upgrading from 8GB to 16GB costs an extra £160 here in the UK. The old MacBook Pros only support up to 8GB I believe.

Jonathan

On 9 August 2012 03:59, Josh (basejump) <[hidden email]> wrote:

Ram is relatively cheap and I think the bang for the buck is well worth it but obviously not everyone will need it. With a VM or 2, Eclipse/Intellij and then a Grails on top of a handful of other apps, its really easy to smoke past the 8.

its ran an extra $40 to go with 16 instead of 8 on new macbook pro (not from apple of course).

On Aug 8, 2012, at 9:46 PM, Nathan Wells wrote:

While I generally agree with Antony that 8GB is enough,

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[rlovtangen]

You can put 16GB in a 2011 MBP without problem, even though Apple officially only supports 8GB. See http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade for how much RAM you can put in an old MBP.

As for the new MBPs with soldered RAM, I would definitely max out the RAM.

On Aug 9, 2012, at 10:48 AM, Jonathan Stott wrote:

Except that you can't upgrade the RAM in the new MacBook Pros as it is soldered on to the motherboard. Upgrading from 8GB to 16GB costs an extra £160 here in the UK. The old MacBook Pros only support up to 8GB I believe.

Jonathan

On 9 August 2012 03:59, Josh (basejump) <[hidden email]> wrote:

Ram is relatively cheap and I think the bang for the buck is well worth it but obviously not everyone will need it. With a VM or 2, Eclipse/Intellij and then a Grails on top of a handful of other apps, its really easy to smoke past the 8.

its ran an extra $40 to go with 16 instead of 8 on new macbook pro (not from apple of course).

On Aug 8, 2012, at 9:46 PM, Nathan Wells wrote:

While I generally agree with Antony that 8GB is enough,

--
Dr Jonathan Stott
Development Team Leader

Axon Limited
"Connecting Healthcare"
2 Venture Road
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[John Fletcher-3]

> I am looking for guidance regarding a suitable development platform.

>

> If I continue to do development under windows what level of processor have

> people worked with successfully? I appreciate this is a bit of a “length of

> string” question.

>

> One last thought before I take the plunge – should I consider the Unix

> option.

 

Ahh I love these threads, another chance for everyone to chuck in his two cents about his favourite OS, IDE and HW config. Always very interesting. But, coming back to the question:

 

Yes, it's a bit of a "length of string" issue but it seems from the answers so far that 8GB is the recommended amount of RAM. I can tell you from experience that things go fine on Win7 with 4GB too. You can get 16 but you don't need it unless you want to do some of the advanced stuff mentioned like running a few VMs simultaneously. So go for 8.

 

Regarding CPU I don't even understand how to measure speed these days! So I just go to http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ - their best value chart is very handy. If you get something in the mid-high range which also goes well on the price/performance you'll be doing very well. But beware of too many cores, technically they are fast but you might have most of them sitting idle a lot of the time. Again there's no rule but maybe tend towards quad core.

 

SSD is "essential" (or rather, the last thing you should cut for budgetary reasons) as others have said. But to save money, don't get anything too big, 60 or 80GB is certainly big enough. If you need more storage because you want to start doing other stuff with your machine, plug your disk from your old machine in as a secondary disk or just make do for now and buy a new 500GB SSD in two years for the same price as your 80GB SSD today. (Of course if budget is no concern you can get a large SSD today).

 

Theoretically you're better of with a SATA3 than a SATA2 connection on your motherboard to the SSD, but in practice I'm not sure if it makes any difference (anyone know?).

 

Regarding OS this is really hard to say because mixed up with this question are always opinions, emotions, politics, personal image, etc. However I'll try to say something neutral:

 

• The core Grails developers seem to be on Mac. They sometimes ask people to test things on Windows because they don't have any Windows machines around. So you can sort of be guaranteed everything will work on Mac. Whereas Windows occasionally has an issue, though nothing really bad. Perhaps Linux too, I don't know.
• If you start trying to learn a new OS platform you might dilute your learning process. Do you want to focus and learn Grails ASAP before you lose motivation? Stick on Windows. Alternatively take time and get the ideal tools even if it takes longer.
• Mac generally costs more for equivalent HW.
• Mac and Unix/Linux give you nice command line stuff.

You think you're going to have a dedicated machine, but once you have this new machine why not use it for everything? You're not going to want to use your old one for anything else anymore. For this reason you may need to  stick with Windows depending on what else you want to do. You can do Grails development perfectly well on Windows. On the other hand Unix based systems give you the command line which is undoubtedly superior. Though I would suggest that a lot of that falls outside of the core usage of Grails as such.

 

So in summary you'd be fine just sticking with Windows, but if you want the ideal dev environment at the possible cost of a higher learning curve for you, go for Linux or Mac.

 

John

[Octavian Covalschi]

I personally opted for a desktop, since only with a custom built desktop I can achieve needed performance with a decent budget. 

In java world you need CPU and RAM. Recently SSD is a recommended to have too. Now, it all depends on your budget and long termn plan. I'd go with 16GB, the memory is CHEAP(i'm not even talking about regular deals)! But when you'll need it you'll have it there. You don't have to use VMs, just a simple case of a few grails apps running simultaneously (web, web-admin and some kind of rest...)  it all depends on your needs.

The more CPU you have the better. A simple example, when I upgraded from a dual core 2.4GHz CPU to a quad core desktop, my grails build from 2 minutes went to 40sec...

With laptops there is always a trade-off. If you need power you have to pay more, sometimes a lot more, as a result you get much more heat and may have a louder fan...

I'm also a Linux user. One of the advantages is that it's much closer to production environment (in my case at least). 

That's my 2 cents...

On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 6:10 AM, John Fletcher <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I am looking for guidance regarding a suitable development platform.

>

> If I continue to do development under windows what level of processor have

> people worked with successfully? I appreciate this is a bit of a “length of

> string” question.

>

> One last thought before I take the plunge – should I consider the Unix

> option.

 

Ahh I love these threads, another chance for everyone to chuck in his two cents about his favourite OS, IDE and HW config. Always very interesting. But, coming back to the question:

 

Yes, it's a bit of a "length of string" issue but it seems from the answers so far that 8GB is the recommended amount of RAM. I can tell you from experience that things go fine on Win7 with 4GB too. You can get 16 but you don't need it unless you want to do some of the advanced stuff mentioned like running a few VMs simultaneously. So go for 8.

 

Regarding CPU I don't even understand how to measure speed these days! So I just go to http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ - their best value chart is very handy. If you get something in the mid-high range which also goes well on the price/performance you'll be doing very well. But beware of too many cores, technically they are fast but you might have most of them sitting idle a lot of the time. Again there's no rule but maybe tend towards quad core.

 

SSD is "essential" (or rather, the last thing you should cut for budgetary reasons) as others have said. But to save money, don't get anything too big, 60 or 80GB is certainly big enough. If you need more storage because you want to start doing other stuff with your machine, plug your disk from your old machine in as a secondary disk or just make do for now and buy a new 500GB SSD in two years for the same price as your 80GB SSD today. (Of course if budget is no concern you can get a large SSD today).

 

Theoretically you're better of with a SATA3 than a SATA2 connection on your motherboard to the SSD, but in practice I'm not sure if it makes any difference (anyone know?).

 

Regarding OS this is really hard to say because mixed up with this question are always opinions, emotions, politics, personal image, etc. However I'll try to say something neutral:

 

• The core Grails developers seem to be on Mac. They sometimes ask people to test things on Windows because they don't have any Windows machines around. So you can sort of be guaranteed everything will work on Mac. Whereas Windows occasionally has an issue, though nothing really bad. Perhaps Linux too, I don't know.
• If you start trying to learn a new OS platform you might dilute your learning process. Do you want to focus and learn Grails ASAP before you lose motivation? Stick on Windows. Alternatively take time and get the ideal tools even if it takes longer.
• Mac generally costs more for equivalent HW.
• Mac and Unix/Linux give you nice command line stuff.

You think you're going to have a dedicated machine, but once you have this new machine why not use it for everything? You're not going to want to use your old one for anything else anymore. For this reason you may need to  stick with Windows depending on what else you want to do. You can do Grails development perfectly well on Windows. On the other hand Unix based systems give you the command line which is undoubtedly superior. Though I would suggest that a lot of that falls outside of the core usage of Grails as such.

 

So in summary you'd be fine just sticking with Windows, but if you want the ideal dev environment at the possible cost of a higher learning curve for you, go for Linux or Mac.

 

John

[Nathan Wells]

...continuing my previous email:

While I generally agree with Antony that 8GB is enough, you may need 16GB, depending on the size of app and complexity of the architecture. As is mentioned above, 2 Grails apps, with a DB, an LDAP server, a VM running the "backend" or "core", and a message queue could easily take up 16 GB RAM. I'm not advocating such an architecture, I'm just saying what I think would justify a 16GB machine.

Nathan Wells

On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 8:12 AM, Octavian Covalschi <[hidden email]> wrote:

I personally opted for a desktop, since only with a custom built desktop I can achieve needed performance with a decent budget. 

In java world you need CPU and RAM. Recently SSD is a recommended to have too. Now, it all depends on your budget and long termn plan. I'd go with 16GB, the memory is CHEAP(i'm not even talking about regular deals)! But when you'll need it you'll have it there. You don't have to use VMs, just a simple case of a few grails apps running simultaneously (web, web-admin and some kind of rest...)  it all depends on your needs.

The more CPU you have the better. A simple example, when I upgraded from a dual core 2.4GHz CPU to a quad core desktop, my grails build from 2 minutes went to 40sec...

With laptops there is always a trade-off. If you need power you have to pay more, sometimes a lot more, as a result you get much more heat and may have a louder fan...

I'm also a Linux user. One of the advantages is that it's much closer to production environment (in my case at least). 

That's my 2 cents...

On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 6:10 AM, John Fletcher <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I am looking for guidance regarding a suitable development platform.

>

> If I continue to do development under windows what level of processor have

> people worked with successfully? I appreciate this is a bit of a “length of

> string” question.

>

> One last thought before I take the plunge – should I consider the Unix

> option.

 

Ahh I love these threads, another chance for everyone to chuck in his two cents about his favourite OS, IDE and HW config. Always very interesting. But, coming back to the question:

 

Yes, it's a bit of a "length of string" issue but it seems from the answers so far that 8GB is the recommended amount of RAM. I can tell you from experience that things go fine on Win7 with 4GB too. You can get 16 but you don't need it unless you want to do some of the advanced stuff mentioned like running a few VMs simultaneously. So go for 8.

 

Regarding CPU I don't even understand how to measure speed these days! So I just go to http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ - their best value chart is very handy. If you get something in the mid-high range which also goes well on the price/performance you'll be doing very well. But beware of too many cores, technically they are fast but you might have most of them sitting idle a lot of the time. Again there's no rule but maybe tend towards quad core.

 

SSD is "essential" (or rather, the last thing you should cut for budgetary reasons) as others have said. But to save money, don't get anything too big, 60 or 80GB is certainly big enough. If you need more storage because you want to start doing other stuff with your machine, plug your disk from your old machine in as a secondary disk or just make do for now and buy a new 500GB SSD in two years for the same price as your 80GB SSD today. (Of course if budget is no concern you can get a large SSD today).

 

Theoretically you're better of with a SATA3 than a SATA2 connection on your motherboard to the SSD, but in practice I'm not sure if it makes any difference (anyone know?).

 

Regarding OS this is really hard to say because mixed up with this question are always opinions, emotions, politics, personal image, etc. However I'll try to say something neutral:

 

• The core Grails developers seem to be on Mac. They sometimes ask people to test things on Windows because they don't have any Windows machines around. So you can sort of be guaranteed everything will work on Mac. Whereas Windows occasionally has an issue, though nothing really bad. Perhaps Linux too, I don't know.
• If you start trying to learn a new OS platform you might dilute your learning process. Do you want to focus and learn Grails ASAP before you lose motivation? Stick on Windows. Alternatively take time and get the ideal tools even if it takes longer.
• Mac generally costs more for equivalent HW.
• Mac and Unix/Linux give you nice command line stuff.

You think you're going to have a dedicated machine, but once you have this new machine why not use it for everything? You're not going to want to use your old one for anything else anymore. For this reason you may need to  stick with Windows depending on what else you want to do. You can do Grails development perfectly well on Windows. On the other hand Unix based systems give you the command line which is undoubtedly superior. Though I would suggest that a lot of that falls outside of the core usage of Grails as such.

 

So in summary you'd be fine just sticking with Windows, but if you want the ideal dev environment at the possible cost of a higher learning curve for you, go for Linux or Mac.

 

John

[John Fletcher-3]

Mike is new to Grails and has just completed a "getting started" tute. So I find these scenarios somewhat unrealistic.

 

But, academically speaking, you are probably right.

 

John

2012/8/9 Nathan Wells <[hidden email]>

...continuing my previous email:

While I generally agree with Antony that 8GB is enough, you may need 16GB, depending on the size of app and complexity of the architecture. As is mentioned above, 2 Grails apps, with a DB, an LDAP server, a VM running the "backend" or "core", and a message queue could easily take up 16 GB RAM. I'm not advocating such an architecture, I'm just saying what I think would justify a 16GB machine.

Nathan Wells