Minimal development platform

[JokerZ]

Hi Folks,

I have a dual 1Ghz G4 Powermac and absolutely love it. I had originally purchased it to work with at home and use as my development platform. Well work being what it is, I now use it at the office every day and the machine hasn't been home in several months.

I really need to restart my Mac development and to do so I want to buy a new machine. It doesn't have to have all the bells and whistles, but I am wondering what I will be able to get away with as a minimal development platform utilising both Project Builder and Java.

Obviously I'd love a new powebook when it comes out, but somehow it doesn't have that minimalist feel (and price) I am looking for.

Is a G3 enough? Should I really look at a G4? What about a 2nd hand cube? How abou an eMac?

Any advice would be appreciated.

JokerZ

 

[symphonix]

Since it seems you're really looking for Bang-For-Your-Buck performance at a low price, I'd suggest the eMac, with plenty of extra RAM.

If thats out of your budget then a second-hand G4 would be a realistic option, though there really aren't any problems with developing on a G3 unless you want to program for AltiVec.

I myself am doing advanced Java programming at Uni and have found my iBook 500, with only 128 mb RAM and a 66mhz bus, to be up to the task, albeit very slow - perhaps it is time I upgraded again ;-)

 

[phatsharpie]

I do Java (mainly J2EE - with JBoss and JRun), C, and C++ (using GCC) on my TiBook, and it's plenty fast. Just make sure you get as much RAM as possible.