I am a professional Windows software developer who bought an iMac a few months ago. I bought a refurbished 1.8GHz 17" iMac from Apple for about $800. ( Why spend a lot of money to discover if you are a Mac or a PC? ) My personal goal was to learn iPhone software development using Apple's Xcode tools. However, I still use Windows in my day job and VMware Fusion is the perfect solution for my "homework assignments".
It is true that Boot Camp works great for booting and running Windows XP or Vista; especially if you like to fast-forward-your-life into the future ( how'd I get to be twenty-something all of a suddden? ) playing high-frame-rate games ( VMware Fusion has experimental support allowing you to play select DirectX 9.0 games ). However, all dual-boot computers take time to shut-down and reboot into Windows. With VMware Fusion I can run Windows on Mac with my Visual Studio 2008 development environment under Mac OS X without having to shut down and re-boot. Performance is great on my iMac.
My current employer makes a portable USB device that uses proprietary USB drivers. The USB support for VMs under Fusion and OS X is perfect; the USB devices and Windows applications I develop have no idea they are running under a VM in Mac OS X. I am very happy with my switch to an iMac for my personal use. If my company could afford it, I would make my next Windows developer machine be a Mac as well.
Backup your VM's or configure VMware to not save changes once you have your VM configured the way you like then keep your data on a different drive or shared folder. This helps to avoid the semiannual "Windows rot" install-from-scratch rituals. I'd sacrifice a chicken to avoid this ritual as it takes me about a week to get my developer machine configured back the way I like it with all the many utilities and tools I use.
VMware , either Fusion or Workstation, is a must-have tool for any Windows software developer. I use multiple VMs; a Visual Studio 2008 developer machine, a Visual Studio automated build machine, and clean XP and Vista machines for testing installs and software applications. If you run out of room for VM storage on your iMac, get an external Firewire 800 SATA enclosure. If you are a PC and think you might be a Mac, don't bother with Boot Camp; switch to VMware Fusion and you will have no Windows remorse.
-Ed of the Mountain
See: "the semiannual Windows Tithe Day" from the "Evidence Based Scheduling" article on
Joel on Software
Thursday, April 10, 2008
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