Just curious: how long does a built run for Stacks take?
it depends on what you include.
during a normal debugging cycle i can make an edit, build those changes, and launch RW inside the Xcode debugger in about 20 seconds. faster on some of the smaller classes.
for a full release, itās a teensy bit longer. š
hereās what gets done:
- clean build + deep static analysis linked against RW 7
- then again RW8
- then again with RW beta
- units tests
- build+archive (build, create zip, appcast, change notes, send to apple notarization)
- deploy to server
this is what gitlab says for times:
static analysis: 3m 6s, 3m 7s, 3m 7s
unit tests: 22s
archive: 6m 30s
deployment: 3s
note: archive used to take the same as any other static analysis run (since i run analysis after everything one last time), but now includes apple notarization ā which takes a variable amount of time depending on appleās servers ā so this number is a crap-shoot. iāve seen it be instant and also take hours ā which causes my build server to give up and just try again later.
and there is quite a bit of time in processing the pipeline. i donāt have exact numbers. itās tens of seconds i think. so, all told from the time i do a git push to the final deployment: about 17 minutes ā if apple finishes notarization in a few minutes ā which seems nominal so far.
this is on my build server, a headless 2010 Mac Pro with 2.3GHz 6 core Xeons.
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I have got to the point with Apple hardware that they have reached their final strike of unacceptable build problems and insane products specs (iMac with spinning HDs, soldered memory, MacPro joke, etc) with prices that do not justify the performance. Tavās MBP tale was something I wonāt forget.
However, the good news which is win, win, win, is to just keep using your old Mac (with as much RAM and SSD as you can fit) and use an older MacOS. My main web machine is a 2012 MBP running Sierra and I hope to get many more years out of it. that solid workhorse does everything I ask of it. If it fails, then I already have spares and if that doesnāt work I will search eBay for another next day delivery 2012 MBP.
I think too many Mac users are lured into the trap of upgrading to the latest OS and then justifying a new Mac purchase to always run the latest OS. If I have an App that doesnāt run in an OS that my Mac canāt support then I will as a first line of solution, use a different App. We are getting closer and closer to the point where we can work independently from a HW choice and an OS choice, and this is especially true for web design with the plentiful choice of online web builders, image optimisation, graphic editing, etcā¦
I donāt think we are quite there yet, but RM are certainly not doing anything to delay that point in the future.
Agree, although I donāt see myself personally switching to a browser based solution. Mostly because my the time I need to make that switch, Iāll be permanently in the mountains of Spain, and while internet can be good enough for things like RW to work, it most likely wonāt have the oomph and consistency for fast browser editing. But weāll see. Never say never.
On the old Mac front: On my desk is an old 2009 which is my music/slack/Win10 machine, and just general stuff I like to have running in the background all the time but that isnāt actual work. This machine is great, but itās an HDD, so can be really slow. Sat next to that is my 2010, which is a workhorse. When the new one arrives the 2009 will be replaced with the 2010, which will be replaced with 2017.
In the office I have a 2008 iMac which manages all my bulk email tasks, it runs more or less 24/7, never missed a beat. And on the landing is a white plastic 2007 which acts as the hub for my CCTV system, which again never misses a beat, even though the fan failed about 8 years ago!
Old Macs work fine, until the software devs decided to force an upgrade. Which incidentally, the makers of the software that runs the CCTV has just done. The latest version needs HS as a minimum. But, the old version still works fine.
I largely agree, however there is definitely an issue with software compatibility sooner or later and also security. My web host now uses TLSv1.2 connections for email, which means my old iMac stuck on El Capitan is frozen out with Mail.
RW8 also requires Sierra or newer. Sierra wasnāt that long ago and when Catalina comes out will they still support Sierra? This doesnāt just apply to Realmac and will be common across many developers.
Anyway, the old 2007 iMac is not the issue. Long live the 2010 Mac Pro. There is nothing else in their line up that really ticks all the boxes.
My point is that I would need a bloody good reason to go RW9 if it needed a new MacOS and consequently a new Mac. RW6 to RW7 was not such a jump and RW7 to RW8 certainly wasnāt. It is often developers lack of backward thinking and driving sales with Fanbois fear and insecurity that makes perfectly good MacOSās and Macs redundant.
No need to convince me of that. I stuck with RW7 and Blocs 3 will run fast on practically any hardware. Sooner or later though we will run into problems somewhere critical in the workflow.
It arrived today. So far moved my apps over via a TM backup and have started to sync it with Dropbox, I think is now over 100gb of files, so thatās gonna take a while!
Iāve run thru launching some apps, and loading up some big files (Infinity Designer) and thus far itās faster it loads up the app and the files faster than the old one, which runs a 500gb SSD. The new one is a 1tb Fusion.
My understanding is that recently/most used apps and files stay on the SSD, but as this is the first time running, itās pulling this data initially from the HDD, if thatās correct, even the HDD is fast.
Obviously early days, with lots of testing to do. But the new and the old machines will sit on the desk next to each other and run a mirrored HDD for a while, so be interesting to see how things pan out over the next few weeks.
Initial findings are though that itās faster than I expected, which is good!
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Bloody hell. Thatās a nice screen.
And you donāt realise how dull your old screen had got until you stick it alongside a new one!
Itās all perspective. I find the āApple rapingā argument (and similar) unfair and more in line with a postmodern groupthink with a political anti-capitalist tint. How many other personal computer brands you know that will run for 10 years while maintaining you satisfied (self-admittedly in your case) in this Mooreās Law era? Surely, certain apps are too powerful and demanding for decennial Macs, so what? Try even launching a browser of a file explorer with a 5-year old, then-top-of-the-line PC with a current Windows Build PC and compare THAT experience with a decennial Macās. Ever try disposing of them environmentally? or sum up your 3-4 yer expenditures in new ones and, THEN compare costs?
Far too many long words for me!
I guess they read this thread:
Iād suggest that article is nothing more than the usual clickbait bollox. Thatās not aimed at the fact that Apple maybe a buy oe a sell, just that itās a completely non-report.
A report in the Telegraph that I read first was a bit more substantive, however that is behind a paywall.
Well funny enough, I have a 2012 Lenovo (4Gb) all in one i5 PC next to a 2012 MacBookPro (i5) with 16Gb ram and they both have 500Gb SSDs.
Booting up and for general browsing they are so similar that I canāt tell which is quicker. Obviously the PC will bog down when enough running apps fill the small 4Gb but that was also the case with the original configured MBP, when it too had only 4Gb ram.
Not trying to start a PC Mac war, but the top end Dell laptops which AFAIK, are about half the price of a top end MBP, and in addition they also have class leading OLED displays. They also have keyboards and display hinges that work.
Poor old Moore would be spinning in his grave (at 5200prm) if he new that Apple were still shipping spinning hard drives.
In the application of web design all that is needed is image optimisation and editing, fast image browsing and a essentially text processor that builds web pages. Performance is not needed and what worked 10 years ago should still be perfectly good today.
Except for RW which is a slug no matter what you use to run on when building complex sites.
Depends on the stacks you use.
The truest words ever spoken in web design. I really donāt want to jump through hoops at great expense trying different computers, frameworks and stacks just to discover what is fast and what runs like a dog.
For sure it does and stacks in stacks, number of settings, framework bloat, JS bloat, etc, etc.
However, I have a load of existing sites that are just so slow to edit that I am somewhat exposed to an unexpected amount of time needed should I need to make changes or address new changes in legislation, etcā¦ Some of these sites donāt even Publish on the first attempt and this adds significant chunks of time to any work needed.
I cannot rebuild these sites because I donāt have the time and if I did have the time, I would use something like Blocs to build them from scratch as that would be quicker that a RW rebuild that would still be slow. Or I might consider building them with an online system that would give me total HW independence.
Moving forward with RW there are some very exciting things happening that will boost the performance of RW with selective Stacks and true blank themes. Careful use of the best stacks (from the few developers who understand and can abut this) and also performance best practices as well as also reining in what RW can do, will hopefully make RW a great deal more usable for new sites.
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Iām in the same boat. Loads, more or less all really, older sites are a pig to work on. My new sites are a dream; edit/preview hops are instant, duplicating stacks on the page is instant, dragging new stuff the same, and publishing is fast, none of this āwaiting for unoptimised stacksā bollox.
For the last week Iāve worked only on new site, yesterday had to do a small update to an older site, total PITA. But, no one is going to pay me to rebuild it, so Iāll suffer it.
But, this is the nature of our business, no? Tech moves on, new stuff comes along which completely changes perceptions, weāre always having to update/rebuild stuff for it to stay current and as efficient as poss.
Other than a few BWD stacks, I havenāt touched any third-party stacks for weeks when building new sites. Iāve actually started enjoying using RW again.
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Perhaps we need a yes/no list for performance stacks & frameworks, but itās worth pointing out that Blocs runs fast, even on an old 2007 iMac with a SATA drive. I hate going back to RW sites built a couple years ago for updates.