I had a question about programming on a Mac. Obviously, when you program, you can seriously mess up your computer. What safety measures do you recommend that Mac user take when he/she programs? I know the stuff already like, you shouldn’t program on an Administrator account and stuff like that.
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Matt
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Programming Safely on a Mac
Comments: 6 Responses to “Programming Safely on a Mac”
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Well, it depends on what you mean by programming.
You don't "just program" on a Mac (or any modern computer).
You develop software inside of a development environment.
Examples would be XCode or Adobe Flash, for instance.
You could write C, C++ or straight code using a text editor and compile in the Terminal, but I doubt that is what you mean.
I don't see a danger here. Sure, you could write a program to wipe your hard drive, but you couldn't do that by accident. No more than you could launch Disk Utility and wipe your hard drive by accident.
I've neer heard that you shouldn't program using an admin account. I'd imagine that most programmers are using an admin account.
So, what development environment are you talking about?
I guess what I mean is programming in general. Specifically, I would like to learn to program using a Mac. I was just wondering if there were any safety measures I should take to avoid messing up my system.
Well, you've got to pick a development environment first. Then, you can assess the safety measures.
The language I would use is C++. I would use a GCC compiler.
So, old school. I don't know about safety in regards to that. I'd find a forum or someone else who uses the GCC compiler on a Mac and ask for more information.
I personally would go with Objective C, as there are some very good books on how to learn it from beginning to advanced, and it is what is used (usually) to program for both Desktop Macs and mobile devices. Allowing you to take advantage of the pre-built and (mostly) free Xcode (app store now charges ~$4 for the newest version, but it is included on your install disks as an optional install)
Jason