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Developers - what tools work? what doesn't (yet)?

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Fomalhaut

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 6, 2020
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Calling all developers! (especially if you've been using the DTK)

Which common / popular developer tools are known to work without issue (either natively or under Rosetta 2), and which tools are not yet supported, or have issues?

Here a quick list of tools of interest to me personally:

1) Terminal app - any differences to the Intel-MacOS? Still using zsh by default? Any differences in OOTB OS commands?

2) Homebrew - I understand it still has some issues. Is it usable?

3) node.js / npm - Is it available? same as the aarch64 build or any differences?

4) Python 3.x / pip - available?

4b) Java? I think the OpenJDK is being ported - not sure of status

4c) build tools like Maven, Ant etc.

5) AWS CLI?

6) Git?

7) VSCode? I heard that Electron-based apps had some issues. Will VSCode plugin continue to work?

8) Docker - just aarch64 or hybrid images? Any success running x86_64 images with QEMU or similar?

9) SQL / NoSQL Databases? What's available?

10) Web / App servers: Apache, Nginx, Tomcat, Jetty?


Will 64-bit ARM versions of tools "just work", or will there be "gotchas"?

What has your experience been? What tools do you use?
 
Homebrew’ s issue tracker mentioned AWS CLI build errors, but didn’t follow up with the logs and issues to see if it’s just with installing it through homebrew or not.

Node is meant to work.. I think I’m just gonna wait out til March until more real-world usage stats come in.

MBA feels like it could suit my workflow but depends on how hot it gets and part of me is also expecting a design change in the March (I’m assuming March but could be later I guess) release to better take advantage of the M chips...
 
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There is no reason Terminal would be any different from the Intel MacOS version. Anything needed by MacOS and iOS developers should work, which would include git.

Tomcat & Jetty depend on Java. Once that is ported, they should work fine.
 
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Fomalhaut said:
2) Homebrew - I understand it still has some issues. Is it usable?
Click to expand...
Unstable. Current estimates sit at Q2 2021 before stable enough for production.
Fomalhaut said:
3) node.js / npm - Is it available? same as the aarch64 build or any differences?
Click to expand...
Not AArch, Darwin specific builds required. Some kind of work, none good enough for production.
Fomalhaut said:
4) Python 3.x / pip - available?
Click to expand...
3.8 - yes, 3.7 - no. pip - yes.
Fomalhaut said:
4b) Java? I think the OpenJDK is being ported - not sure of status
Click to expand...

Azul Systems only announced it happening today, so factor minimum 6-12 months before beta builds become available.
Fomalhaut said:
5) AWS CLI?
Click to expand...
Fails to build at the moment.
Fomalhaut said:
6) Git?
Click to expand...
Needs other dependencies to be fixed.
Fomalhaut said:
8) Docker - just aarch64 or hybrid images? Any success running x86_64 images with QEMU or similar?
Click to expand...
Golang still doesn't work yet, so Docker is going to take a while.
Fomalhaut said:
9) SQL / NoSQL Databases? What's available?
Click to expand...
PostgreSQL and SQLite
Fomalhaut said:
10) Web / App servers: Apache, Nginx, Tomcat, Jetty?
Click to expand...
Nginx yes, nothing else.
 
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ssong said:
Homebrew’ s issue tracker mentioned AWS CLI build errors, but didn’t follow up with the logs and issues to see if it’s just with installing it through homebrew or not.

Node is meant to work.. I think I’m just gonna wait out til March until more real-world usage stats come in.

MBA feels like it could suit my workflow but depends on how hot it gets and part of me is also expecting a design change in the March (I’m assuming March but could be later I guess) release to better take advantage of the M chips...
Click to expand...
Thanks. I'm tempted to a Mini "to play with", but won't be using it as my primary machine. There's no hurry, so I'm going to wait to see the feedback from the dev community.
 
GiantKiwi said:
Unstable. Current estimates sit at Q2 2021 before stable enough for production.

Not AArch, Darwin specific builds required. Some kind of work, none good enough for production.

3.8 - yes, 3.7 - no. pip - yes.


Azul Systems only announced it happening today, so factor minimum 6-12 months before beta builds become available.

Fails to build at the moment.

Needs other dependencies to be fixed.

Golang still doesn't work yet, so Docker is going to take a while.

PostgreSQL and SQLite

Nginx yes, nothing else.
Click to expand...
Great response, thank you!....but not very good news :-(

Sounds like there is still a lot of work to do before it's ready for prime-time unless you only need XCode.
 
I am surprised to hear that git doesn't work. It's included with Xcode and on my Intel Mac "git --version" returns "git version 2.24.3 (Apple Git-128)"
 
ssong said:
Homebrew’ s issue tracker mentioned AWS CLI build errors, but didn’t follow up with the logs and issues to see if it’s just with installing it through homebrew or not.
Click to expand...
List keeper here. Re-checked, confirmed to work, and updated the aws-cli entry.
We didn’t re-test every single formula on every new macOS beta, so I suspect the error magically went away in one of the updates, probably months ago. Thanks for bringing this up!
 
What do you mean by git doesn’t work? It’s part of Apple developer tools distribution, I can’t believe that Apple would ship Xcode without git working.
 
niray9 said:
Any updates on OP's Questions? Specifically non Rosetta.
Click to expand...

I believe virtually everything on OPs list runs natively in the meantime. The only major developer platform that still lacks Apple Silicon support is Haskell. And of course, GCC is not officially available (but there are unofficial GFortran patches that work well).
 
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I'm a web dev and I just run the terminal with Rosetta the entire time, there are too many things that are either broken or a pain to set up if you want to use native tools, also if you're working on project that are using older version of node or anything similar it's a bit of a pita to switch from native to rosetta.

Everything is working like on intel, node, homebrew, git, vscode, npm, yarn etc...
 
Koalified said:
I'm a web dev and I just run the terminal with Rosetta the entire time, there are too many things that are either broken or a pain to set up if you want to use native tools, also if you're working on project that are using older version of node or anything similar it's a bit of a pita to switch from native to rosetta.

Everything is working like on intel, node, homebrew, git, vscode, npm, yarn etc...
Click to expand...
Latest Node version supports AS natively. This sped up my webpack builds by 5x.
Homebrew supported AS since Feb: https://brew.sh/2021/02/05/homebrew-3.0.0/
VSCode was one of the first to support AS natively
NPM: see Node.js support

I'm curious, what do you actually use that is not supported natively on AS now?
 
Last edited:
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For any data scientists on here check out this link.

www.anaconda.com

Anaconda | A Python Data Scientist’s Guide to the Apple Silicon…

Even if you are not a Mac user, you have likely heard Apple is switching from Intel CPUs to their own custom CPUs, which they refer to collectively as "Apple Silicon." The last time Apple changed its computer architecture this dramatically was 15 years ago when they switched from PowerPC to Intel…
www.anaconda.com www.anaconda.com
 
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5425642 said:
Yes, that’s correct but still vscode was out fast but not powershell.

anyway I also missing horizon native support as I connect to remote when I need to run big stuff :)
Click to expand...

What’s horizon? Also, why do you need powershell on a Mac?
 
leman said:
Not to mention that if one can’t find it instantly it’s probably not the most common or popular tool…
Click to expand...
Horizon is a really common and popular tool as it’s the client for VMware Horizon VDI platform ;)

and I use powershell on my Mac to work with powershell In vscode but also administrate windows clients and servers :)
 
5425642 said:
Horizon is a really common and popular tool as it’s the client for VMware Horizon VDI platform ;)

and I use powershell on my Mac to work with powershell In vscode but also administrate windows clients and servers :)
Click to expand...

I didn't know you could run powershell on a Mac. I am not sure that is a common use case though, I suspect most developers on Mac are more comfortable with the Unix shells. I think that is one of the main selling points for using a Mac for developing software not specifically targeted to Apple platforms.

Microsoft is of course trying to address that by offering WSL linux on Windows and by offering Linux & CMake support in Visual Studio 2019.
 
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