NEWB Needs Advice - RE Using Parallels for developer

Discussion in 'Parallels Desktop for Mac' started by wpwj40e, Jan 16, 2007.

  1. wpwj40e

    wpwj40e Bit poster

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    2
    HI all,
    Please excuse my NEWB questions. Ihave read and browsed - but hopefully someone can just cut to the heart of the matter and give me a straight answer!

    I am a recent MAC switcher (iMac 2.0) and my hubby who has spent his life in Windows finally asked about the MAC environment. Has seen me use boot camp and that pretty much convinced him he could make the switch.

    He is a developer - windows/visual studio/SQL etc - now doing some Moss 2007 work and uses the other typical windows programs (visio/PPT etc). He wants a Mac Pro...

    my question - can he use "Parallels Desktop for Mac " instead of bootcamp so he can go back and forth between the environments? As in is this relatively seamless and NOT buggy?

    He does very little "fun" stuff - does not play games at all - is a contractor and all his work is with windows. He will spend 75% of his time networked to work developing and the remainder in email/PPT etc.

    He likes the config of the PRO - wnats to play with OS/X and is not allowed on my machine. He has played enough that he is intrigued and willing to try.

    Okay - developers out there....will this work for him?

    Thanks
    Therese
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2007
  2. drval

    drval Pro

    Messages:
    490
    I use Parallels for my development platform and am a software developer for Windows. So far I have had no problems supporting the work I need to do.
     
  3. Rich White

    Rich White Member

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    I use Parallels / Windows XP every day with using Visual Studio, CodeWarrior for 68K and HC08, REALbasic 2007 for Windows. I've had no problems with any development environment so far. I have not tried Visual Studio.NET - it didn't work very well under Virtual PC but I expect it probably works ok under Parallels.
     
  4. buzzdat

    buzzdat Member

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    39
    Another developer here - switched to mac from PC in August (though I ditched Windows several years ago). My development tasks are primarily Java J2EE (web development) and embedded systems work (primarily Linux based C/C++), but I do occasionally work on legacy Delphi (Win32) and VS .NET projects. Visual Studio .NET is very useable under Parallels on a Mac Pro (2.66/2Gigs here). Parallels is especially nice in my case, as my development environment requirements vary wildly between customers (especially in the case of Delphi, where various customers use different, often incompatible, component libraries); Parallels allows me to have a clean, sandboxed environment for each customer.

    I can't comment on bootcamp, as I've never really seen the point - Parallels works admirably well for my needs.
     
  5. drval

    drval Pro

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    490
    Nice to know about Visual Studio.Net -- have you used VS 6? I need some access to that at times for legacy code.
     
  6. pfloydn

    pfloydn Member

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    Same boat as your husband...

    Made the switch to a MacbookPro - haven't looked back. I don't use Bootcamp - just parallels. I run Visual Studio, MSSQL, Webserver - all from XP over parallels. Works flawlessly. It's faster than my 2 year old Dell laptop. All I'll say is make sure you've got 2 gigs of memory, and you'll be fine. It's a beautiful setup.

    -Pete
     
  7. CountZero

    CountZero Member

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    43
    Another .Net developer here using Mac Pro and Parallels VM. I used the Transporter to migrate my existing XP partition into a VM image. Works flawlessly. I only wish SMP support is here soon so I can assign a second CPU to XP!
     
  8. rhind

    rhind Member

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    84
    I also just use Parallels for development. I run both Visual Studio 2005 and Borland C++Builder 6 and don't have any issues a the moment with build 3120. This is on a MacBook Pro. I did try Boot Camp but went back to using a VM image as didn't need the performance either and even being a single core C2D, it complies quicker than my old Desktop P4 2.8GHz I had at work.

    In one of the interviews for the expo, they have said SMP support will be coming and that the next major beta should be available in a couple of months so I'm sure that will help performance even more.

    Cheers

    Russell
     
  9. misterjangles

    misterjangles Member

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    i have VS 2003, VS 2005 and the good old version 6 all running on parallels with no issues.
     
  10. tomservo291

    tomservo291 Member

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    I've had my MBP since June 06...

    I am a also a switcher, my first Mac ever. 15.4" MBP, 1.84GHz Core Duo with 2GB of RAM. Ever since Parallels had their first beta, I have been using their software. I love it, it works great... and in that time I have finished school and got a job as a "real" developer... namely Java dev in a Windows environment.

    Similarly, I do all my work in networked windows setups etc (whatever it may be, mapped network drives, VPN whatever..)

    I spent a good amount of time learning how to setup OS X and a Windows VM to run side by side and play night (seamlessly share entire filesystems,) get Windows and OS X to recognize windows based networks (OS X was challenging, but it can be done.) I managed to get it all working nicely, and I loved it. Sadly, as I become more in depth at this new job, I've been taking on more work and starting needing to create my own test domains for Weblogic, JBoss servers and the like.

    This means I was now running memory hog dev software (Oracle on occasion, Weblogic, Jboss, Eclipse, huge ant tasks, various other memory hungry dev tools.) Now that so much of my work was Windows only and eating up so much memory, it became cumbersome to run this all in a VM. I've since switched to using a Boot Camp solution.

    I currently do not have Parallels installed, but I plan to re-download it once the next major version release is stable with Boot Camp support that wont ruin my partition. I won't be using it in a work environment, but I will use it on my own time.

    It's fantastic software, but if he is going to be doing hardcore dev it might not be the best solution. However, this might be different depending on the power of this Mac Pro. The story might be different if I had 4 or 8 cores and 4GB of RAM.
     
  11. wpwj40e

    wpwj40e Bit poster

    Messages:
    2
    Thanks for the great responses! It appears that this will work for him. Although as pointed out in the last post - bootcamp might be btter if he is doing all development for several days at a time.

    The USB issues do concern a bit as currently he has 5 or 5 external HD's both USB/firewire.

    But think he has made the decision to go for it. Just awaiting to see if there any new developments (ie new releases of the MAC pro) in the next couple of weeks. Machine has to be bought in Q1 for tax reasons.

    Thanks again for the very informative reply's!

    Therese
     

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