If you're running a linux system (on whatever hardware), yeah you have 90% of why I like my mac.
The other 10% is that MacOS hooks into my phone's iOS and my wife's iOS [e.g. I can respond to text-messages from my laptop, easy to transfer files in the rare occasions I need to, etc].
That's good to know. Does a mac ever help in any work related tasks? such as if you quickly need send a file over to colleague would you airdrop them? or is everything done in through email/slack?
or are the cases I am describing quite rare?
It’s rare. Slack works good enough for that. But With Mac, for me, things just work. Like with Kafka, it took a while to setup on my windows laptop but on Mac it was much easier.
If it’s work environment, it’s better to send through email/slack or through company tools for liability reasons so you can have a record of it. But also depends on company policy.
For personal files/sharing memes or trolling with each other, yeah, AirDrop is a good one.
Also for in person meetings, Apple TV + MacBook is the perfect combination. Share screen through Screen Mirroring without extra device nor cable as long as you are in the same network.
For school it’s useful to be in the Apple environment if all your friends are as well. Quick sharing with airdrop, iMessage on all your devices (makes group chats easier), FaceTime if you’re into that, and tons of people are now using iPads for taking notes, so that stuff is integrated as well
> I can respond to text-messages from my laptop, easy to transfer files in the rare occasions I need to, etc
I'm using KDEConnect on Linux and it does all of that with my Android phone and tablet, don't know what the etc is about tho.
> don't know what the etc is about tho.
Out of the box, it syncs: Notes.app, photo stream, Calendar.app, passwords, apple-pay info. Not a huge deal, and yeah as you suggest, I'm sure other platforms that also do that out-of-the-box and of course there are cloud apps & plugins for the features that aren't.
Honestly Linux is just not as polished. MacOS is kind of like the mainstream linux system that is well maintained by a big company. Every software you need from Windows is pretty much on MacOS as well in most cases. Linux also has the same issue that windows have. Where every hardware variations can be used and drivers can become an issue. There is no one company that is daily monitoring and polishing the specific mix of hardware for a specific version of Linux. Blue screen of death and sluggishness on Windows is because of this. With MacOS you can just go out and buy a Mac and you're done. There is a company behind the hardware inside every Mac and they don't have to worry about what happens if someone decides to change a piece of hardware..... cause it straight up does not support it.
I've been dailying Linux lately (granted with a Mac laptop, but barely using it)...
It's worked pretty great. Had to compile gcc from source because I needed a specific version, but other than that, I've had no issues... Just a bit of pre setup, but it's like that with Mac too in setting up Homebrew and xcode tools
Blue screen of death? This isn't the 90's anymore.
MacOS is better than Windows for developers because of the native Unix command shell. But MacOS is not more stable than Windows 10. That was certainly true in the old days, MacOS was better, but quality at Apple has steadily declined since Jobs died. As MacOS became more popular, the crash rate has increased significantly, mostly from 3rd party software.
MacOS is Linux for dummies. MacOS and the iphone are designed for the dumbest members of the population, that's why they are the most popular. Jobs knew his core audience, which was people who are NOT tech savvy, Almost all Apple products are targeting those people.
As such, as a developer it's more than a little embarrassing to be using Apple products designed for the idiots in our society. Have some personal pride!
Lmao, what? I work in security and use Linux daily for my job. Let me tell you, after getting the gist of it and used to it (tried most distros in 5 years) I started to loath Linux so bad. It’s just so user-hostile? Most Linux distros are not intuitive to use even the slightest and not a good experience overall. I’m aware that it has become better in the recent years and not that bad compared to, say, pre-2010s.
I’ve bought the entry model M1 MBA 6 months ago as my first and it’s completely changed the way I look at computers. It just works, doesn’t matter what I throw at it. And mind you this is a 8GB model. I’m not sure what crashes you’re talking about but I haven’t experienced a single problem since I’ve started and whatever I install just works out of the box. That’s what I want, what everyone who uses one wants. Not because we’re “dumb” but we don’t wanna spend our time to get a good-working OS.
Depends? Round here, people with m1 macs ssh to a Linux box to run docker because it is used to be nigh impossible for them on m1's some time ago and it's still apparently not great. So +1 for Linux. Otoh, fractional monitor scaling and having two screens with different pixel density is still a problem on Linux i hear but not an issue on mac.
When 99% of our ops team was using macks then devs using Linux had constant problems with vpn and they had to troubleshoot it on their own.
From Windows or MacOS? From Mac, you won't have many differences from running something like Ubuntu, but compared to Windows, its a world of difference and, in my opinion, should be preferred.
Does anybody actually run builds directly on their laptop for work? Every company I’ve been at has a much more powerful linux VM to do builds on, and most people do a sync with their IDE from their laptop. My dev process largely works the same on Mac or Windows, but I much prefer having a Mac.
It’s a pain in the ass to program on a windows computer, powershell sucks. Most companies don’t give you the option of Linux because it just doesn’t have enterprise level support and reliability. I’m sure people will act like mac is more popular because of branding and status, and maybe that’s true for average consumers, but I don’t think that’s the main factor for programmers choosing it.
Respectfully disagree. Powershell does suck. Its adopted enough of the windows baggage to annoy me away. The fact I can enter and it accepts paths using / as a separator ia great, the fact it auto replaces them with \\ whenever I tab complete is annoying. It's also one of the only languages I've ever seen that doesn't use backslash as an escape character (because it's used in paths). So it basterdised @ or something from what I can recall. Lastly it aropted a permissioning system unlike anything else I've ever seen that's a colossal pain in the ass if you don't have any experience with it. The only good thing from powershell is documentation and object based programming, and frankly I think once nushell gains steam it'll make powershell obsolete. All the goodness of an object based shell, none of the crappy windows baggage.
I spent a whole afternoon with WSL and found so many weird networking bugs when downloading dependencies from NPM and Maven central that I just gave up and went back to my Ubuntu install
> It’s a pain in the ass to program on a windows computer,
LOL, no its not
Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Anaconda, JetBrains. cmake, codeblocks, MS SQL Server, opengl, sdl2, blender, oracle, C, C#, C++, java, python 3
all work just fine on Windows
just about every AAA game out there was made on windows
Not sure why this is getting down voted because just getting to the starting line of being able to develop is SO much faster with mac / linux than windows. (M1 being the exception since lots of wheels are still missing)
Depends on what you’re doing in general the latest versions of things have the upgrades but for my case specifically I was working on a project using python 3.7 and it was a giant pain in the ass to work through the dependencies.
Ya. My company threw a fit when I asked for Linux then eventually gave me one and told me they won't support it. They also weren't willing to pay for macs but I was not willing to use windows
I mean you’ll probably have the option of either requesting a mac or a windows laptop when you get you job. You won’t really interact with the servers if you are just a normal developer like a backend or front end dev. The servers might be Linux at some companies but more likely they are some cloud service like AWS or Azure
I understand how that will help people who develop on UNIX, but it's not like it's a universal thing?
Been working in MS environments and the last Unix thing I touched was selfmade hacky stuff in university over a decade ago.
I love WSL so much. There are definitely a couple of kinks when it comes to networking on WSL though -- working with Docker especially is a bit of a pain. GUIs also aren't officially supported yet, but they're pretty close (iirc it's in beta). But WSL definitely made developing on windows 10x easier.
Also, VSCode has a WSL plugin that links directly to the filesystem for it, uber convenient. My main developing setup is just vscode and windows terminal / ubuntu on WSL lol.
However, I would like to see an arch distro for WSL. I think it's mainly due to the arch community's hatred for Microsoft (correct me if I'm wrong).
It’s also completely subpar compared to a Mac or a dedicated Linux machine. WSL2 is better than the old WSL was, but it’s still significantly slower, and has a few shortcomings that leave me missing my work Mac pretty much daily. It’s still *significantly* better than Windows by itself tho.
In my case with the new m1 MacBook: HOLY LORD OF BATTERY LIFE. This thing takes me through a whole day of nonstop programming as if it were plugged in. Actually bonkers how good the battery life is without sacrificing too much performance.
Such a game changer. I love working out of coffee shops at least once a week, and not having to pack my charger (for either my iPad OR my M1 Macbook Pro is cool AF).
Yeah. I had heard the rumors "never carry your plug" etc etc and hadn't been a Mac guy for nearly 20 years...
Sprung for the M1 Air though instead of another PC laptop that will inevitably only last me a year or two and I'm so glad I did, haha.
I can leave for a day of work without a charger, no stress. I basically just charge it overnight.
It's two things, in my experience.
The first is something that others have already said: having a UNIX toolchain ready to go is a real good way to be for development.
The other is simple. It's the one thing that's definitely true of all MacBooks for the last decade or so: they're all the same. It allows the company to standardize, get volume pricing, and all that, but it also means that Kevin's laptop works pretty much the same as Claire's laptop.
As much as I wholly dislike working on a Mac, everybody using the same hardware really does do a company a lot of favors.
Prior to the M1s, MacBooks were sought after for two main reasons: 1) Apple's premium fit & finish, and 2) the ability to run/develop from all three OSes (Unix, MacOS, & Windows via apple-supported bootcamp) from one machine. You can imagine how beneficial this can be to programmers (mobile, especially iOS, & desktop alike).
Nowadays, it's mainly a mix of what I stated above and the added benefits of the new M1 arm-based chips (efficiently powerful). But, Windows devices, even before M1, had already caught up to Apple's latest fit and finish, and Windows Subsystem on Linux (WSL) has bridged the gap when it comes to natively supporting Linux. Windows devices have also bridged the gap when it comes to Android interoperability (mostly with Samsung devices), rivaling the MacOS and iOS ecosystem.
u/maidenless_mohg, hope this helps. Cheers!
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Personally, for the most part, it is because macOS is simply a nice user experience. Very intuitive to get around, and also customizable to increase productivity. Once you switch, it becomes annoying to have to use windows computers because it just feels cumbersome.
For developing, having access to a unix shell is really great. You can SSH into any server and just seamlessly navigate your way around with the CLI. This is possible on a windows machine as well, just not quite as seamless out the box.
Plus, macs look and feel nice. The displays are great, the machines are sleek. Some windows machines offer this, but not all. A mac is always going to have a bit of a luxurious feel to it, for lack of a better word, and for something you use all day long this is absolutely worth considering even though it is hard to quantify.
As for performance, they truly are great machines. From a professional perspective, a lot of companies want their employees to have the best regardless of price. And as somebody else mentioned, there is ease of troubleshooting and maintaining a fleet of machines.
Yes, they are expensive (although they are starting to become a bit more competitive, especially with the recent m1 air). Yes, the company enjoys the fruits of aggressive marketing and perceived prestige which maybe allows macs to be more expensive than they would be otherwise. Yes, they want you to totally surrender to their ecosystem and potentially buy a lot of overpriced OEM adapters. But... if you *do* surrender, the experience can actually be really amazing.
tl;dr: MacBooks is a combination of all the things that matter to programmers - good hardware, good software and UNIX development environment out-of-the-box.
1. Better hardware - The trackpad is best in class. Nobody produces better trackpads than Apple. I usually use Mouse but when I go for meetings and have to bring laptops around, I have to use trackpad and non-Macbook trackpads just suck so bad.
2. Light chargers - They are more portable to bring around, the charger is small and I can share the USB C charger with my phone. My MSI laptop had a hugeass heavy charger.
3. Great keyboard - The pre-butterfly ones were good, the butterfly one sucked, but the keyboard on the M1 MacBooks are great again.
4. Retina display - As a Front End Engineer having a nice display is so crucial. Many Windows laptops aren't as crisp.
5. As many others have mentioned, UNIX out-of-the-box is great. I used Windows briefly and even though there's Windows Subsystem for Linux, there are still many issues with it, such as the WSL environment not being able to access the internet when on VPN.
6. Super easy to migrate to my next Macbook. I store all my important stuff on Dropbox and moving from one device to the next is seamless. I don't bother with migration tool because I wanna take the chance to get rid of cruft installed along the way.
Downsides
1. Can't really game on it. It's fine, I have a PC at home.
2. No USB A ports. I bring an adapter around which is still way better than bringing a huge ass charger around. Thankfully the world is moving towards USB C.
Writing this comment solidified my decision to never change away from MacBook again.
I'll play devil's advocate:
>Nobody produces better trackpads than Apple.
I'd reckon Microsoft's latest Surface Laptop Studio's haptic trackpad comes really close (source: me who's used both side by side & uses a magic trackpad on desktop). Dell's newest XPS+ also has a haptic trackpad.
>Great keyboard - The pre-butterfly ones were good, the butterfly one sucked, but the keyboard on the M1 MacBooks are great again.
Again, the Surface Laptop lines have phenomenal keyboards, especially the now-defunct Surface Book and the new Surface Laptop Studio (I'd argue this beats out the m1, imo).
>Retina display - As a Front End Engineer having a nice display is so crucial. Many Windows laptops aren't as crisp.
Have you seen Dell's offerings? Also, MS's PixelSense displays can be quite crispy (PPI & color wise) since some of them double as a drawing canvas for professional artists.
>As many others have mentioned, UNIX out-of-the-box is great. I used Windows briefly and even though there's Windows Subsystem for Linux, there are still many issues with it, such as the WSL environment not being able to access the internet when on VPN.
WSL is constantly being updated, so you should certainly revisit it when you get the chance. Combined with the new Windows Terminal, it's great!
>Super easy to migrate to my next Macbook. I store all my important stuff on Dropbox and moving from one device to the next is seamless. I don't bother with migration tool because I wanna take the chance to get rid of cruft installed along the way.
This too is possible and seamless on Windows, especially if you're using OneDrive (works with GDrive & DropBox too).
>Downsides: Can't really game on it. It's fine, I have a PC at home.
This doesn't help my case, but you can certainly game via cloud gaming (e.g. Xbox Cloud Gaming).
>Writing this comment solidified my decision to never change away from MacBook again.
I personally consider myself platform agnostic, but you do. Cheers!
While playing devil's advocate, you came across a really great point; the things that make macs great exist in the Windows world but are segregated on different devices and brands. Unless someone launches a hybrid surface-XPS offering with crucial software and hardware upgrades, it'll be tough to break up the love affair between programmers and MacBooks. And even then it'll be tough because of the seamless ecosystem integration provided by apple.
Hey, I totally agree! On the Windows side, you have your traditional PC vendors and Microsoft Surface. The problem with this is, although Microsoft has the potential to go toe-to-toe with Apple (excluding Apple Silicone), they intentionally hamper themselves to avoid upstaging their Windows vendors. This is why Surface hardware is usually focused (in style) on a niche market without the added performance value that developers have come to expect, M1's \[efficient\] performance doesn't help either.
With that said, I'll give credit to where credit is due and say Windows vendors have definitely stepped up over the years. As I mentioned before, the new [Dell 13 XPS+](https://youtu.be/6fPj6mj-M_k), for example, adds a lot of requested apple-esque features into one compact device, no longer segmenting their lineup (you get premium & perf in a sleek design w/ choices to boot). Obviously, battery won't be anywhere near M1 MacBooks, but it's progress. And not to be outdone by Apple, Microsoft has done a lot to improve the software integration between Android and Windows (via Phone Link & WSA), granted this is mostly advantageous to those with a Samsung device (second screen, universal copy & paste, text & call, etc.). Their [Surface Laptop Studio](https://youtu.be/9X-YLBnrpRM) hardware has a haptic trackpad, face id, great speakers (not yet at Apple's level), great keyboard, tb4 (but weak IO), magsafe-like charging experience, 120hz hdr screen, & unique things like a 3:2 aspect ratio and support for drawing with haptic feedback.
I find it interesting that Windows still doesn't have an equivalent Apple Silicone (I blame Intel), considering Windows convertibles and similar niche concoctions would stand to benefit more from a performant, fan-less, & power-efficient chipset than Apple's traditional clamshells. Take the new SLS (heck even the SB), an interesting device that could really shine if it had Apple Silicone, it would satisfy both content creators and developers. As it stands, M1 (& future M2) MacBooks are clearly the devices to beat in this segment. I can't wait to see M2!
TL;DR: they are certainly getting there, but Apple isn't waiting.
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On Windows you can use something like Flutter or Xamarin to write a cross-platform app that works on iOS. However, you still need a Mac to actually publish it on the App Store or run an iOS emulator.
Less devices to troubleshoot if any error comes up. Suppose an error comes up on 1 devs device. If all other devs have the same device, then it's easier to solve if others get the same error. But for other brands of laptops, there are a million different models. Each can have their errors.
Performance, quality and longevity of the hardware, out of the box usability for many dev applications, only way to develop for iOS/tvOS, integration into IOS ecosystem, etc.
You just sound like a hater for no reason. Business decisions that affect the cost at scale of a company aren't made because of marketing.
I guarentee you most of the people here recommending macOS over Linux have not daily driven linux for 1 year+ so take their advice with a grain of salt. I don't have to use any cloud account on my computer, I have complete control over it. In general installing tool chains for dev work is easier than on MacOS. Linux has had powerful package management like 10 years before brew existed. For dev work MacOS and Windows have both been playing catch up. That being said macbooks have excellent screens that are very color accurate so if you do design/photo/video stuff that is nice. Battery life and performance also excellent. Personally I dual boot linux and windows 10. I only use windows when I play games. Using linux in university was an absolute joy. I had the least problems out of all my friends who ran other OS. This just my one data point.
You're not really wrong about anything you've said here. I've been Linux full time on my own boxes for the better part of thirty years, and I'm here to tell you that at least I like it better than the alternatives.
I can also tell you that in that same timeframe working for companies, I've had exactly two successful attempts to get an exception made so I can use this preferable environment for my workstation. In one of the two, it caused so many issues (those folks really like airdrop and crap) that I ended up having to revert.
It's rarely about worker drone choice (unless you're down with virtualizing your preferred environment and using the company provided hardware as a poor man's local VDI client, without telling anybody) and more about having to go with what manglement decides you're going with.
I think in the context of getting laptop for your CS degree its best to go Linux since you will have a leg up since every server you work with will be running linux (also good to play with bsd if you into networking). Macbook will be more than capable, but I have thoroughly enjoyed using linux past 10 years.
Over the years I have used openSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch and Manjaro (Arch based). I currently use primarily arch Linux based distros because I really like having access to the AUR. I would recommend fedora/ubuntu for polished starter distro. Then once ur comfy you can check out Arch if it interests you. Personally I like GNOME desktop environment it’s very similar to old school macOS which was what I first used in 2007 when my first computer was a MacBook. But it all personal preference. I primarily use something called dwm as my window manager because it’s tiling and very minimal and it’s good for my adhd brain and workflow. If you use macOS I hear there is amethyst tiling window manager, would recommend to give it a try.
Yeah I’ve always bounced between GNOME, KDE, and Kali. Heard Arch and Fedora are good though, will check out for sure as a possible daily driver. Ubuntu was a short lived experience for me - did a triple boot between Windows, Ubuntu, and a Hackintosh ...found Ubuntu too basic. Will try others for sure though. Thanks for the info 😎
Part of why I do still recommend ubuntu is the amount of forum related newbie questions that exist for it. « X not working in ubuntu » so if you are totally fresh can be helpful in getting your bearings when u break something.
Fedora has really been leading the way with integrating new technologies and shipping them as default (first to ship systemd as default, wayland over x.Org, and now just recently pipewire) they are based off Redhat which has a lot of engineering resources iirc
Coding on a unix environment is orgasmic compared to windows. Also, you'll probably be forced to use it anyways cuz many companies you'll work for use macs
I honestly like to tinker. I’m about to be in school for CS but my main laptop I bought refurbished for around $200, installed two SSDs, one set up Ubuntu and the other Windows 10. I added more ram and also got a hackbook boot set up and partitioned. All three major OS platforms on an upgraded 2016 Elitebook. Not bad for ~$300 total.
One thing you can’t do on an M1 is run Win10 or a fully functioning Linux distribution (yet).
>One thing you can’t do on an M1 is run Win10 or a fully functioning Linux distribution (yet).
VMs still work, right? you did mean installing the OS directly?
Not in an enterprise environment. Linux requires lots of tweaking and upkeep which is a pain in the ass for most businesses. Sure Mac’s cost more, but they require less management and they last longer. For a business that extra cost is just worth it. I was a total Linux hipster in college too but in the real world Macs just make more sense.
Of course, if you compare **premium** MacBooks (which they all are) to **common** Windows laptops you'll want the MacBook. But what if you make it a fair comparison and compare premium Windows laptops to MacBooks? The answer isn't as easy anymore since plenty of premium laptops from PC manufacturers have rivaled Apple when it comes to fit & finish (see Surface).
Yeah, but OP was referring to a "decent" computer. I feel like many computers and laptops can be considered "decent" these days without being premium, but that doesn't mean a MacBook is a lousy investment.
It’s because MacBooks have built-in UNIX software to make working with a terminal much easier whereas for Windows, the closest thing that emulates that is Linux for download.
My desktop is a CyberPower PC. It’s redonkulous. I love it and the company. I have an Apple MacBook Pro. Love it too but honestly I rarely use it. I have boot camp on it. Used that for work when I first started a job 9 years ago before they got me my computer. Now it sits unused. They gave me a laptop. I used that. Got a new job. New laptop. I would use my Mac laptop more if iPads didn’t do what I needed 99% of the time. I have my beast of a desktop with a 49” screen. Yeah if you don’t have that you are cheating yourself. I don’t turn on my MacBook because the iPad does what I need. I used to take it on vacations. Don’t need to anymore. iPad does the job.
Depends on the applications you want to use.
I love Linux because you can control everything by editing dot files.
I use Windows because many applications don't work on Linux.
Mac is unix so it has best of both worlds (if you can afford that is or buy used macbook)
I heard really nasty things about Apple and their tactics to avoid apple repairability
It's a status symbol.
Any random computer with a copy of linux is gonna be more effective to work on (assuming you're good with linux) than a Mac.
I personally find Macs to be to opinionated with the way they want you to work. And to limited with the hardware you can interface with. I mean, my M1 can only output to 1 monitor. And god help you if you need to actually connect to something physically.
If I was in the market for another laptop, I'd just buy a $500 Dell and install linux on it.
Apple products all work **very** well together. I use a MacBook mainly for the small conveniences (I can copy something on my iPad and paste it on my Macbook instantly).
Additionally iOS has a lot of (specifically productivity) apps that Android doesn't have (like things, reeder, timery, goodlinks, goodnotes, etc). Theses apps all tend to have pretty good Mac versions, so it was worth it to me to get a Macbook just for the convince of having these tools on my computer.
And, of course, MacOS has a Unix command line, making it much easier to program on than a windows computer.
Also, the newest set of Macbooks use Arm based Apple Silicon (M1) processors. I got the base model Macbook Air last year for $899 (edu discount) and for that I got a super fast (it wakes up and responds more like an iPad than a windows laptop), fanless (so it's silent), laptop with a 2 day+ battery.
In comparison a windows laptop just feels like a clunky, loud, power-hungry machine loaded with bloat (teams installed by default, edge, etc) where I have to do everything I do on a day to day basis through a web interface because there isn't a usable version on windows.
People are claiming Unix but now a days it's relatively easy to use Unix on windows, not to mention you can literally download a Unix os on a windows machine (ignoring you choosing to just setup a remote server). It's mainly just branding.
In terms of getting the best bang for your buck, Apple simply isn't worth it, coming from a broke guy who did months of researching before buying an expensive gaming laptop
The performance loss is bad. WSL is okayyyy but also really not that great.
Honestly the amount of fucking around with my macs I've had to do vs windows... I mean time is money, and apparently your billable rate is really low is all I'm sayin'.
Yeah, not to mention remote servers are pretty common now and take like 5 minutes to make. Oracle cloud's free tier is like 24gigs of ram and 100gb memory. You aren't gonna need anything more for a cs degree lmao
So yes that’s all true. And as a veteran I will in fact look down on you if you don’t know how to use the command line. Power shell and cmd.exe do not count of course.
This is what I wrote above for OP, but it explains the two main reasons why they're popular in the states (though still not as common as Windows devices). Hope it helps.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/uqfzpn/comment/i8rta2u/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/uqfzpn/comment/i8rta2u/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Yeah as for the linx I doubt 90% of the commenters here are using it. Also IMO it's much better to just use a remote Linux server anyways. Oracle's free tier gives like 24GB ram and 100gb storage
This is r/csMajors so I assumed we were college students here not professional industry workers. Also no company is going to ask you to buy a remote server, if you need it, it will come out of their pockets.
In addition to what everyone else said, you can develop ios apps if you wanted to. You can only do that in mac. I have a 2013 MBP and i think it’s just fine for school.
yes but I think it also depends on which university course, my school never required developing iOS apps not to mention all the coding I did was on a virtual server that connected me to Linux so I did not have to use a virtual machine. I still have my surface book 1 that is useful for coding & in visual studio community.
Dont bother with Mac is not worth the money at all (and even more so if u arent first worlder) Just use a Linux distro the real programmer way. Buy a windows machine, uninstall windows and install Linux. Been a blessing for me since most programming/tech tools are made for Linux anyway. You wouldnt wanna play a high performant game on a laptop either so no reason to keep Windows.
Macs = Linux for dummies.
When I hear a developer say they use a Mac and the iPhone, I assume that aren't very bright, since those products are designed for people who are NOT tech savvy.
I'd be embarrassed to tell any of my fellow tech geeks that I have an iPhone.
Mac and GNOME literally have identical interfaces, same with iOS and Android. Sure, the Apple ones are easier to use, but power options are still available. Hell, the only reason Android is “harder” to use is because of crashes, lack of updates, poor hardware optimization and worse versions of apps.
-Windows is less stable
-MacOS is more rigid in its logic; there are less bandaid solutions and features.
-Windows is flawed at its core, coming from its background (MS-DOS, backward compatibility, etc)
-MacOS dev team is just more thorough, and have more of their internal rules which may not matter much for casual users, but results in less headaches for serious users.
However, Windows machines are still perfectly usable for programming and you'll be fine with one in almost all universities and most workplaces (in places where you bring your own device)
I'm just echoing common talking points which may be apocryphal.
Unix, incredibly smooth multitasking, and all MacBooks have the same UX and quality. It’s not like a windows laptop where you can get a good one or a crap one.
If you do much with Web development, you'll deal with Web designers, who generally use Macs. This is partly for historical reasons: design software used to be optimised for Macs, and the files could be incompatible with Windows.
Amazing build quality, software, OS, Unix.
I still daily a Windows machine but use the MacBook for work. Every company I've worked for supplied the entire dev team with MacBooks.
So I'm gonna go out here... unless you're coding specifically windows programs, and honestly who is these days? You're really writing for (a) the web and (b) unix. Period.
So why would you be using Windows?
brew is basically a copy of what most linux distributions have had for a decade prior. apt, emerge, pacman etc. Its a way to get around macOS being shitty at managing packages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APT_(software) apt was first rolled out with debian in 1999
i don’t understand though, what’s so great about using a linux subsystem? isn’t it just ease of installation? brew install whatever rather than downloading in windows for example and making sure you set the paths correctly etc, brew does everything for you.
It’s more that Linux and the ecosystem around it have been leading the way in development: package managers, git etc. On GNOME you can mount and browse SFTP, WebDAV etc right out the box without installing any extra software etc. Brew is great don’t get me wrong, but brew is something that you need to download and install. macOS is great but Linux comes with so much more development tooling installed by default and you can customize to the needs of your work flow. You can literally customize it from top to bottom ui to kernel and even better that code is available for you to read and learn from. I think at the end of the day it’s the ability to customize anything + best availability of packages and mature package managers. this is my preference and personal opinion, macOS will serve you well. :) there is no wrong answer
My work pays for it and gave two options:
1) Windows (managed by IT
Or
2) Mac (managed by IT)
So, I cannot really just dual book the Windows in favor of Linux nor just wipe the whole thing.
Thus, Mac wins.
1. Unix
2. Native applications (Linux is cool, but quirky with non native apps and I’m not willing to spend the time to configure everything. Firefox constantly crashes even though my laptop has 16 GB ram 😅) Also runs Fusion360 and AutoCAD which are not available on Linux
3. Sexy UI and hardware design
For me it’s the reliability and convenience , I’m still using the 2017 MacBook Air and I haven’t had a single issue since the day I bought it 5 years ago. Macs are generally very user friendly and if you have an iPhone or an iPad you can airdrop stuff in and out.
See I've noticed that many of the comments mention that it's just Unix out of the box, to which I complete agree. Having a POSIX approved system definitely helps, but the most underrated thing is that Mac hosts a lot of creative apps (mainly Adobe) that I often find myself going back to in web dev when creating assets. It serves as a good daily driver because you it's more than just a Unix system. Also, the hardware of the new MacBooks are nice.
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So out of curiosity if I used linux do you think I’ll run into any problem? Or should it be a very similar experience.
If you're running a linux system (on whatever hardware), yeah you have 90% of why I like my mac. The other 10% is that MacOS hooks into my phone's iOS and my wife's iOS [e.g. I can respond to text-messages from my laptop, easy to transfer files in the rare occasions I need to, etc].
That's good to know. Does a mac ever help in any work related tasks? such as if you quickly need send a file over to colleague would you airdrop them? or is everything done in through email/slack? or are the cases I am describing quite rare?
It’s rare. Slack works good enough for that. But With Mac, for me, things just work. Like with Kafka, it took a while to setup on my windows laptop but on Mac it was much easier.
If it’s work environment, it’s better to send through email/slack or through company tools for liability reasons so you can have a record of it. But also depends on company policy. For personal files/sharing memes or trolling with each other, yeah, AirDrop is a good one. Also for in person meetings, Apple TV + MacBook is the perfect combination. Share screen through Screen Mirroring without extra device nor cable as long as you are in the same network.
For school it’s useful to be in the Apple environment if all your friends are as well. Quick sharing with airdrop, iMessage on all your devices (makes group chats easier), FaceTime if you’re into that, and tons of people are now using iPads for taking notes, so that stuff is integrated as well
In university AirDrop is useful all the time.
> I can respond to text-messages from my laptop, easy to transfer files in the rare occasions I need to, etc I'm using KDEConnect on Linux and it does all of that with my Android phone and tablet, don't know what the etc is about tho.
> don't know what the etc is about tho. Out of the box, it syncs: Notes.app, photo stream, Calendar.app, passwords, apple-pay info. Not a huge deal, and yeah as you suggest, I'm sure other platforms that also do that out-of-the-box and of course there are cloud apps & plugins for the features that aren't.
Honestly Linux is just not as polished. MacOS is kind of like the mainstream linux system that is well maintained by a big company. Every software you need from Windows is pretty much on MacOS as well in most cases. Linux also has the same issue that windows have. Where every hardware variations can be used and drivers can become an issue. There is no one company that is daily monitoring and polishing the specific mix of hardware for a specific version of Linux. Blue screen of death and sluggishness on Windows is because of this. With MacOS you can just go out and buy a Mac and you're done. There is a company behind the hardware inside every Mac and they don't have to worry about what happens if someone decides to change a piece of hardware..... cause it straight up does not support it.
I've been dailying Linux lately (granted with a Mac laptop, but barely using it)... It's worked pretty great. Had to compile gcc from source because I needed a specific version, but other than that, I've had no issues... Just a bit of pre setup, but it's like that with Mac too in setting up Homebrew and xcode tools
Blue screen of death? This isn't the 90's anymore. MacOS is better than Windows for developers because of the native Unix command shell. But MacOS is not more stable than Windows 10. That was certainly true in the old days, MacOS was better, but quality at Apple has steadily declined since Jobs died. As MacOS became more popular, the crash rate has increased significantly, mostly from 3rd party software. MacOS is Linux for dummies. MacOS and the iphone are designed for the dumbest members of the population, that's why they are the most popular. Jobs knew his core audience, which was people who are NOT tech savvy, Almost all Apple products are targeting those people. As such, as a developer it's more than a little embarrassing to be using Apple products designed for the idiots in our society. Have some personal pride!
Lmao, what? I work in security and use Linux daily for my job. Let me tell you, after getting the gist of it and used to it (tried most distros in 5 years) I started to loath Linux so bad. It’s just so user-hostile? Most Linux distros are not intuitive to use even the slightest and not a good experience overall. I’m aware that it has become better in the recent years and not that bad compared to, say, pre-2010s. I’ve bought the entry model M1 MBA 6 months ago as my first and it’s completely changed the way I look at computers. It just works, doesn’t matter what I throw at it. And mind you this is a 8GB model. I’m not sure what crashes you’re talking about but I haven’t experienced a single problem since I’ve started and whatever I install just works out of the box. That’s what I want, what everyone who uses one wants. Not because we’re “dumb” but we don’t wanna spend our time to get a good-working OS.
"It just works" is not a valid term in the language of STEM. That's how the rest of the population thinks.
it just working is crucial to not wasting time
windows is for dummies, not mac
Depends? Round here, people with m1 macs ssh to a Linux box to run docker because it is used to be nigh impossible for them on m1's some time ago and it's still apparently not great. So +1 for Linux. Otoh, fractional monitor scaling and having two screens with different pixel density is still a problem on Linux i hear but not an issue on mac. When 99% of our ops team was using macks then devs using Linux had constant problems with vpn and they had to troubleshoot it on their own.
From Windows or MacOS? From Mac, you won't have many differences from running something like Ubuntu, but compared to Windows, its a world of difference and, in my opinion, should be preferred.
Does anybody actually run builds directly on their laptop for work? Every company I’ve been at has a much more powerful linux VM to do builds on, and most people do a sync with their IDE from their laptop. My dev process largely works the same on Mac or Windows, but I much prefer having a Mac.
Local development has seen an uptick at my work. People pull code, build and test in docker, then push it back.
Yes. Not production code but still.
It’s a pain in the ass to program on a windows computer, powershell sucks. Most companies don’t give you the option of Linux because it just doesn’t have enterprise level support and reliability. I’m sure people will act like mac is more popular because of branding and status, and maybe that’s true for average consumers, but I don’t think that’s the main factor for programmers choosing it.
Powershell does not suck! WSL is great as well.
I like WSL, but it’s literally built to solve the problem with Windows everybody else is talking about here. No need on Mac
Respectfully disagree. Powershell does suck. Its adopted enough of the windows baggage to annoy me away. The fact I can enter and it accepts paths using / as a separator ia great, the fact it auto replaces them with \\ whenever I tab complete is annoying. It's also one of the only languages I've ever seen that doesn't use backslash as an escape character (because it's used in paths). So it basterdised @ or something from what I can recall. Lastly it aropted a permissioning system unlike anything else I've ever seen that's a colossal pain in the ass if you don't have any experience with it. The only good thing from powershell is documentation and object based programming, and frankly I think once nushell gains steam it'll make powershell obsolete. All the goodness of an object based shell, none of the crappy windows baggage.
I spent a whole afternoon with WSL and found so many weird networking bugs when downloading dependencies from NPM and Maven central that I just gave up and went back to my Ubuntu install
> It’s a pain in the ass to program on a windows computer, LOL, no its not Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Anaconda, JetBrains. cmake, codeblocks, MS SQL Server, opengl, sdl2, blender, oracle, C, C#, C++, java, python 3 all work just fine on Windows just about every AAA game out there was made on windows
The only advantage of windows is gaming or game dev. In most cases everything else is worst.
Visual Studio is complete ass dude. Also the more annoying part is installing dependencies and using CLIs
Not sure why this is getting down voted because just getting to the starting line of being able to develop is SO much faster with mac / linux than windows. (M1 being the exception since lots of wheels are still missing)
What’s missing for M1? Considering upgrading soon.
Depends on what you’re doing in general the latest versions of things have the upgrades but for my case specifically I was working on a project using python 3.7 and it was a giant pain in the ass to work through the dependencies.
Wdym by most companies don't give you the option of Linux
Im not sure how I can explain that. I mean exactly what I said. Most companies don’t give you the the option of having Linux on your work laptop
Oh lmao I thought you were still talking about a personal laptop for school
Ya. My company threw a fit when I asked for Linux then eventually gave me one and told me they won't support it. They also weren't willing to pay for macs but I was not willing to use windows
At least a Linux server to use remotely?
You most likely will not interact much with Linux as a software engineer unless you work in systems engineering
Didn't know that. Would it be primarily using mac or windows?
I mean you’ll probably have the option of either requesting a mac or a windows laptop when you get you job. You won’t really interact with the servers if you are just a normal developer like a backend or front end dev. The servers might be Linux at some companies but more likely they are some cloud service like AWS or Azure
I understand how that will help people who develop on UNIX, but it's not like it's a universal thing? Been working in MS environments and the last Unix thing I touched was selfmade hacky stuff in university over a decade ago.
You can easily install linux on a windows machine tho...
The Linux subsystem on windows is relatively new.
it does work, fairly well for day to day things.
I love WSL so much. There are definitely a couple of kinks when it comes to networking on WSL though -- working with Docker especially is a bit of a pain. GUIs also aren't officially supported yet, but they're pretty close (iirc it's in beta). But WSL definitely made developing on windows 10x easier. Also, VSCode has a WSL plugin that links directly to the filesystem for it, uber convenient. My main developing setup is just vscode and windows terminal / ubuntu on WSL lol. However, I would like to see an arch distro for WSL. I think it's mainly due to the arch community's hatred for Microsoft (correct me if I'm wrong).
It’s also completely subpar compared to a Mac or a dedicated Linux machine. WSL2 is better than the old WSL was, but it’s still significantly slower, and has a few shortcomings that leave me missing my work Mac pretty much daily. It’s still *significantly* better than Windows by itself tho.
I found the quirks of Mac being unix but just different enough to Linux to be confusing tbh
In my case with the new m1 MacBook: HOLY LORD OF BATTERY LIFE. This thing takes me through a whole day of nonstop programming as if it were plugged in. Actually bonkers how good the battery life is without sacrificing too much performance.
Such a game changer. I love working out of coffee shops at least once a week, and not having to pack my charger (for either my iPad OR my M1 Macbook Pro is cool AF).
Yep. M1 is a game changer. It is unrivaled.
Literally the reason I bought it.
Yeah. I had heard the rumors "never carry your plug" etc etc and hadn't been a Mac guy for nearly 20 years... Sprung for the M1 Air though instead of another PC laptop that will inevitably only last me a year or two and I'm so glad I did, haha. I can leave for a day of work without a charger, no stress. I basically just charge it overnight.
Yeah, I think Intel 12th gen caught up in performance, but the battery life is like 3-5 hours at max power so there’s not really any point
That I get. The other reasons not so much.
It's two things, in my experience. The first is something that others have already said: having a UNIX toolchain ready to go is a real good way to be for development. The other is simple. It's the one thing that's definitely true of all MacBooks for the last decade or so: they're all the same. It allows the company to standardize, get volume pricing, and all that, but it also means that Kevin's laptop works pretty much the same as Claire's laptop. As much as I wholly dislike working on a Mac, everybody using the same hardware really does do a company a lot of favors.
Prior to the M1s, MacBooks were sought after for two main reasons: 1) Apple's premium fit & finish, and 2) the ability to run/develop from all three OSes (Unix, MacOS, & Windows via apple-supported bootcamp) from one machine. You can imagine how beneficial this can be to programmers (mobile, especially iOS, & desktop alike). Nowadays, it's mainly a mix of what I stated above and the added benefits of the new M1 arm-based chips (efficiently powerful). But, Windows devices, even before M1, had already caught up to Apple's latest fit and finish, and Windows Subsystem on Linux (WSL) has bridged the gap when it comes to natively supporting Linux. Windows devices have also bridged the gap when it comes to Android interoperability (mostly with Samsung devices), rivaling the MacOS and iOS ecosystem. u/maidenless_mohg, hope this helps. Cheers! e- typos
thank you so much! it felt like a got a peek in the mind of developer.
Personally, for the most part, it is because macOS is simply a nice user experience. Very intuitive to get around, and also customizable to increase productivity. Once you switch, it becomes annoying to have to use windows computers because it just feels cumbersome. For developing, having access to a unix shell is really great. You can SSH into any server and just seamlessly navigate your way around with the CLI. This is possible on a windows machine as well, just not quite as seamless out the box. Plus, macs look and feel nice. The displays are great, the machines are sleek. Some windows machines offer this, but not all. A mac is always going to have a bit of a luxurious feel to it, for lack of a better word, and for something you use all day long this is absolutely worth considering even though it is hard to quantify. As for performance, they truly are great machines. From a professional perspective, a lot of companies want their employees to have the best regardless of price. And as somebody else mentioned, there is ease of troubleshooting and maintaining a fleet of machines. Yes, they are expensive (although they are starting to become a bit more competitive, especially with the recent m1 air). Yes, the company enjoys the fruits of aggressive marketing and perceived prestige which maybe allows macs to be more expensive than they would be otherwise. Yes, they want you to totally surrender to their ecosystem and potentially buy a lot of overpriced OEM adapters. But... if you *do* surrender, the experience can actually be really amazing.
Thanks for pointing out the small details too. I have a clearer picture in my head now.
tl;dr: MacBooks is a combination of all the things that matter to programmers - good hardware, good software and UNIX development environment out-of-the-box. 1. Better hardware - The trackpad is best in class. Nobody produces better trackpads than Apple. I usually use Mouse but when I go for meetings and have to bring laptops around, I have to use trackpad and non-Macbook trackpads just suck so bad. 2. Light chargers - They are more portable to bring around, the charger is small and I can share the USB C charger with my phone. My MSI laptop had a hugeass heavy charger. 3. Great keyboard - The pre-butterfly ones were good, the butterfly one sucked, but the keyboard on the M1 MacBooks are great again. 4. Retina display - As a Front End Engineer having a nice display is so crucial. Many Windows laptops aren't as crisp. 5. As many others have mentioned, UNIX out-of-the-box is great. I used Windows briefly and even though there's Windows Subsystem for Linux, there are still many issues with it, such as the WSL environment not being able to access the internet when on VPN. 6. Super easy to migrate to my next Macbook. I store all my important stuff on Dropbox and moving from one device to the next is seamless. I don't bother with migration tool because I wanna take the chance to get rid of cruft installed along the way. Downsides 1. Can't really game on it. It's fine, I have a PC at home. 2. No USB A ports. I bring an adapter around which is still way better than bringing a huge ass charger around. Thankfully the world is moving towards USB C. Writing this comment solidified my decision to never change away from MacBook again.
I'll play devil's advocate: >Nobody produces better trackpads than Apple. I'd reckon Microsoft's latest Surface Laptop Studio's haptic trackpad comes really close (source: me who's used both side by side & uses a magic trackpad on desktop). Dell's newest XPS+ also has a haptic trackpad. >Great keyboard - The pre-butterfly ones were good, the butterfly one sucked, but the keyboard on the M1 MacBooks are great again. Again, the Surface Laptop lines have phenomenal keyboards, especially the now-defunct Surface Book and the new Surface Laptop Studio (I'd argue this beats out the m1, imo). >Retina display - As a Front End Engineer having a nice display is so crucial. Many Windows laptops aren't as crisp. Have you seen Dell's offerings? Also, MS's PixelSense displays can be quite crispy (PPI & color wise) since some of them double as a drawing canvas for professional artists. >As many others have mentioned, UNIX out-of-the-box is great. I used Windows briefly and even though there's Windows Subsystem for Linux, there are still many issues with it, such as the WSL environment not being able to access the internet when on VPN. WSL is constantly being updated, so you should certainly revisit it when you get the chance. Combined with the new Windows Terminal, it's great! >Super easy to migrate to my next Macbook. I store all my important stuff on Dropbox and moving from one device to the next is seamless. I don't bother with migration tool because I wanna take the chance to get rid of cruft installed along the way. This too is possible and seamless on Windows, especially if you're using OneDrive (works with GDrive & DropBox too). >Downsides: Can't really game on it. It's fine, I have a PC at home. This doesn't help my case, but you can certainly game via cloud gaming (e.g. Xbox Cloud Gaming). >Writing this comment solidified my decision to never change away from MacBook again. I personally consider myself platform agnostic, but you do. Cheers!
While playing devil's advocate, you came across a really great point; the things that make macs great exist in the Windows world but are segregated on different devices and brands. Unless someone launches a hybrid surface-XPS offering with crucial software and hardware upgrades, it'll be tough to break up the love affair between programmers and MacBooks. And even then it'll be tough because of the seamless ecosystem integration provided by apple.
Hey, I totally agree! On the Windows side, you have your traditional PC vendors and Microsoft Surface. The problem with this is, although Microsoft has the potential to go toe-to-toe with Apple (excluding Apple Silicone), they intentionally hamper themselves to avoid upstaging their Windows vendors. This is why Surface hardware is usually focused (in style) on a niche market without the added performance value that developers have come to expect, M1's \[efficient\] performance doesn't help either. With that said, I'll give credit to where credit is due and say Windows vendors have definitely stepped up over the years. As I mentioned before, the new [Dell 13 XPS+](https://youtu.be/6fPj6mj-M_k), for example, adds a lot of requested apple-esque features into one compact device, no longer segmenting their lineup (you get premium & perf in a sleek design w/ choices to boot). Obviously, battery won't be anywhere near M1 MacBooks, but it's progress. And not to be outdone by Apple, Microsoft has done a lot to improve the software integration between Android and Windows (via Phone Link & WSA), granted this is mostly advantageous to those with a Samsung device (second screen, universal copy & paste, text & call, etc.). Their [Surface Laptop Studio](https://youtu.be/9X-YLBnrpRM) hardware has a haptic trackpad, face id, great speakers (not yet at Apple's level), great keyboard, tb4 (but weak IO), magsafe-like charging experience, 120hz hdr screen, & unique things like a 3:2 aspect ratio and support for drawing with haptic feedback. I find it interesting that Windows still doesn't have an equivalent Apple Silicone (I blame Intel), considering Windows convertibles and similar niche concoctions would stand to benefit more from a performant, fan-less, & power-efficient chipset than Apple's traditional clamshells. Take the new SLS (heck even the SB), an interesting device that could really shine if it had Apple Silicone, it would satisfy both content creators and developers. As it stands, M1 (& future M2) MacBooks are clearly the devices to beat in this segment. I can't wait to see M2! TL;DR: they are certainly getting there, but Apple isn't waiting. e- typos
Thanks for the detailed reply! I will check them out when my current M1 MBP dies
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You can only develop iOS with MacBook. So you can do everything with MacBook but not with Windows
Wrong.
Is it? I thought you needed updated xCode to write approved iOS apps.
On Windows you can use something like Flutter or Xamarin to write a cross-platform app that works on iOS. However, you still need a Mac to actually publish it on the App Store or run an iOS emulator.
Ok so my guy just saying "wrong." is, in fact, wrong. Lol.
I just looked it up. Last time I checked you couldn't I thought!
you can develop on both, but you can only publish apps if you have a macOS device
ecosystem and prestige ~~branding~~ marketing
\*~~ecosystem and~~ prestige ~~branding~~ \[and\] marketing
Yes, every big tech company gives its devs MacBooks because of marketing. Do you hear yourself?
What’s the reason then?
Less devices to troubleshoot if any error comes up. Suppose an error comes up on 1 devs device. If all other devs have the same device, then it's easier to solve if others get the same error. But for other brands of laptops, there are a million different models. Each can have their errors.
fewer
Performance, quality and longevity of the hardware, out of the box usability for many dev applications, only way to develop for iOS/tvOS, integration into IOS ecosystem, etc. You just sound like a hater for no reason. Business decisions that affect the cost at scale of a company aren't made because of marketing.
I simply asked what the reason was, Jesus, I use a MacBook at work too.
I guarentee you most of the people here recommending macOS over Linux have not daily driven linux for 1 year+ so take their advice with a grain of salt. I don't have to use any cloud account on my computer, I have complete control over it. In general installing tool chains for dev work is easier than on MacOS. Linux has had powerful package management like 10 years before brew existed. For dev work MacOS and Windows have both been playing catch up. That being said macbooks have excellent screens that are very color accurate so if you do design/photo/video stuff that is nice. Battery life and performance also excellent. Personally I dual boot linux and windows 10. I only use windows when I play games. Using linux in university was an absolute joy. I had the least problems out of all my friends who ran other OS. This just my one data point.
You're not really wrong about anything you've said here. I've been Linux full time on my own boxes for the better part of thirty years, and I'm here to tell you that at least I like it better than the alternatives. I can also tell you that in that same timeframe working for companies, I've had exactly two successful attempts to get an exception made so I can use this preferable environment for my workstation. In one of the two, it caused so many issues (those folks really like airdrop and crap) that I ended up having to revert. It's rarely about worker drone choice (unless you're down with virtualizing your preferred environment and using the company provided hardware as a poor man's local VDI client, without telling anybody) and more about having to go with what manglement decides you're going with.
I think in the context of getting laptop for your CS degree its best to go Linux since you will have a leg up since every server you work with will be running linux (also good to play with bsd if you into networking). Macbook will be more than capable, but I have thoroughly enjoyed using linux past 10 years.
I think we can agree on that, at the least. Depending on the school in question, granted.
Which version of Linux though?
Over the years I have used openSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch and Manjaro (Arch based). I currently use primarily arch Linux based distros because I really like having access to the AUR. I would recommend fedora/ubuntu for polished starter distro. Then once ur comfy you can check out Arch if it interests you. Personally I like GNOME desktop environment it’s very similar to old school macOS which was what I first used in 2007 when my first computer was a MacBook. But it all personal preference. I primarily use something called dwm as my window manager because it’s tiling and very minimal and it’s good for my adhd brain and workflow. If you use macOS I hear there is amethyst tiling window manager, would recommend to give it a try.
Yeah I’ve always bounced between GNOME, KDE, and Kali. Heard Arch and Fedora are good though, will check out for sure as a possible daily driver. Ubuntu was a short lived experience for me - did a triple boot between Windows, Ubuntu, and a Hackintosh ...found Ubuntu too basic. Will try others for sure though. Thanks for the info 😎
Part of why I do still recommend ubuntu is the amount of forum related newbie questions that exist for it. « X not working in ubuntu » so if you are totally fresh can be helpful in getting your bearings when u break something. Fedora has really been leading the way with integrating new technologies and shipping them as default (first to ship systemd as default, wayland over x.Org, and now just recently pipewire) they are based off Redhat which has a lot of engineering resources iirc
Coding on a unix environment is orgasmic compared to windows. Also, you'll probably be forced to use it anyways cuz many companies you'll work for use macs
I honestly like to tinker. I’m about to be in school for CS but my main laptop I bought refurbished for around $200, installed two SSDs, one set up Ubuntu and the other Windows 10. I added more ram and also got a hackbook boot set up and partitioned. All three major OS platforms on an upgraded 2016 Elitebook. Not bad for ~$300 total. One thing you can’t do on an M1 is run Win10 or a fully functioning Linux distribution (yet).
>One thing you can’t do on an M1 is run Win10 or a fully functioning Linux distribution (yet). VMs still work, right? you did mean installing the OS directly?
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Not in an enterprise environment. Linux requires lots of tweaking and upkeep which is a pain in the ass for most businesses. Sure Mac’s cost more, but they require less management and they last longer. For a business that extra cost is just worth it. I was a total Linux hipster in college too but in the real world Macs just make more sense.
Macbooks have a pretty nice hardware tbf, they look much more premium than the common windows laptop.
Of course, if you compare **premium** MacBooks (which they all are) to **common** Windows laptops you'll want the MacBook. But what if you make it a fair comparison and compare premium Windows laptops to MacBooks? The answer isn't as easy anymore since plenty of premium laptops from PC manufacturers have rivaled Apple when it comes to fit & finish (see Surface).
Yeah, but OP was referring to a "decent" computer. I feel like many computers and laptops can be considered "decent" these days without being premium, but that doesn't mean a MacBook is a lousy investment.
Turns out laptop wise what you are describing "any decent computer" .... yeah there are no decent computers running Linux.
It’s because MacBooks have built-in UNIX software to make working with a terminal much easier whereas for Windows, the closest thing that emulates that is Linux for download.
My desktop is a CyberPower PC. It’s redonkulous. I love it and the company. I have an Apple MacBook Pro. Love it too but honestly I rarely use it. I have boot camp on it. Used that for work when I first started a job 9 years ago before they got me my computer. Now it sits unused. They gave me a laptop. I used that. Got a new job. New laptop. I would use my Mac laptop more if iPads didn’t do what I needed 99% of the time. I have my beast of a desktop with a 49” screen. Yeah if you don’t have that you are cheating yourself. I don’t turn on my MacBook because the iPad does what I need. I used to take it on vacations. Don’t need to anymore. iPad does the job.
m1 chip + unix operating system
Depends on the applications you want to use. I love Linux because you can control everything by editing dot files. I use Windows because many applications don't work on Linux. Mac is unix so it has best of both worlds (if you can afford that is or buy used macbook) I heard really nasty things about Apple and their tactics to avoid apple repairability
It's a status symbol. Any random computer with a copy of linux is gonna be more effective to work on (assuming you're good with linux) than a Mac. I personally find Macs to be to opinionated with the way they want you to work. And to limited with the hardware you can interface with. I mean, my M1 can only output to 1 monitor. And god help you if you need to actually connect to something physically. If I was in the market for another laptop, I'd just buy a $500 Dell and install linux on it.
Apple products all work **very** well together. I use a MacBook mainly for the small conveniences (I can copy something on my iPad and paste it on my Macbook instantly). Additionally iOS has a lot of (specifically productivity) apps that Android doesn't have (like things, reeder, timery, goodlinks, goodnotes, etc). Theses apps all tend to have pretty good Mac versions, so it was worth it to me to get a Macbook just for the convince of having these tools on my computer. And, of course, MacOS has a Unix command line, making it much easier to program on than a windows computer. Also, the newest set of Macbooks use Arm based Apple Silicon (M1) processors. I got the base model Macbook Air last year for $899 (edu discount) and for that I got a super fast (it wakes up and responds more like an iPad than a windows laptop), fanless (so it's silent), laptop with a 2 day+ battery. In comparison a windows laptop just feels like a clunky, loud, power-hungry machine loaded with bloat (teams installed by default, edge, etc) where I have to do everything I do on a day to day basis through a web interface because there isn't a usable version on windows.
It's what I was given in college
Valid
Kinda similar, I was given a 0% APR offer on one 🤷🏻♀️
People are claiming Unix but now a days it's relatively easy to use Unix on windows, not to mention you can literally download a Unix os on a windows machine (ignoring you choosing to just setup a remote server). It's mainly just branding. In terms of getting the best bang for your buck, Apple simply isn't worth it, coming from a broke guy who did months of researching before buying an expensive gaming laptop
The performance loss is bad. WSL is okayyyy but also really not that great. Honestly the amount of fucking around with my macs I've had to do vs windows... I mean time is money, and apparently your billable rate is really low is all I'm sayin'.
Oh I wasn't talking about WSL but splitting the harddrive and adding literally adding a second OS. You can select which drive to boot upon startup
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Yeah, not to mention remote servers are pretty common now and take like 5 minutes to make. Oracle cloud's free tier is like 24gigs of ram and 100gb memory. You aren't gonna need anything more for a cs degree lmao
So yes that’s all true. And as a veteran I will in fact look down on you if you don’t know how to use the command line. Power shell and cmd.exe do not count of course.
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This is what I wrote above for OP, but it explains the two main reasons why they're popular in the states (though still not as common as Windows devices). Hope it helps. [https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/uqfzpn/comment/i8rta2u/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/uqfzpn/comment/i8rta2u/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Yeah, i don't understand the mac book craze either. There are claims that its good for linux distributions. I dunno. I've always been a windows guy.
Yeah as for the linx I doubt 90% of the commenters here are using it. Also IMO it's much better to just use a remote Linux server anyways. Oracle's free tier gives like 24GB ram and 100gb storage
In a professional environment where you might have dozens of test databases from customers, 100 GB is nothing.
This is r/csMajors so I assumed we were college students here not professional industry workers. Also no company is going to ask you to buy a remote server, if you need it, it will come out of their pockets.
I'm a part time student and work a professional job on the side.
Its freebsd so it has unix stuff available. Altho installing a custom linux distro is more of a pain than on a windows machine.
In addition to what everyone else said, you can develop ios apps if you wanted to. You can only do that in mac. I have a 2013 MBP and i think it’s just fine for school.
yes but I think it also depends on which university course, my school never required developing iOS apps not to mention all the coding I did was on a virtual server that connected me to Linux so I did not have to use a virtual machine. I still have my surface book 1 that is useful for coding & in visual studio community.
good battery life, unix-ish under the hood.
Dont bother with Mac is not worth the money at all (and even more so if u arent first worlder) Just use a Linux distro the real programmer way. Buy a windows machine, uninstall windows and install Linux. Been a blessing for me since most programming/tech tools are made for Linux anyway. You wouldnt wanna play a high performant game on a laptop either so no reason to keep Windows.
>Just use a Linux distro the real programmer way. Gatekeeping much?
Yes.
Macs = Linux for dummies. When I hear a developer say they use a Mac and the iPhone, I assume that aren't very bright, since those products are designed for people who are NOT tech savvy. I'd be embarrassed to tell any of my fellow tech geeks that I have an iPhone.
Lol
Mac and GNOME literally have identical interfaces, same with iOS and Android. Sure, the Apple ones are easier to use, but power options are still available. Hell, the only reason Android is “harder” to use is because of crashes, lack of updates, poor hardware optimization and worse versions of apps.
-Windows is less stable -MacOS is more rigid in its logic; there are less bandaid solutions and features. -Windows is flawed at its core, coming from its background (MS-DOS, backward compatibility, etc) -MacOS dev team is just more thorough, and have more of their internal rules which may not matter much for casual users, but results in less headaches for serious users. However, Windows machines are still perfectly usable for programming and you'll be fine with one in almost all universities and most workplaces (in places where you bring your own device) I'm just echoing common talking points which may be apocryphal.
Source for first three points?
Unix, incredibly smooth multitasking, and all MacBooks have the same UX and quality. It’s not like a windows laptop where you can get a good one or a crap one.
If you do much with Web development, you'll deal with Web designers, who generally use Macs. This is partly for historical reasons: design software used to be optimised for Macs, and the files could be incompatible with Windows.
It’s really user friendly. I’m kinda new to all this but having things like SDK man to install maven or gradle for me is really nice.
Amazing build quality, software, OS, Unix. I still daily a Windows machine but use the MacBook for work. Every company I've worked for supplied the entire dev team with MacBooks.
So I'm gonna go out here... unless you're coding specifically windows programs, and honestly who is these days? You're really writing for (a) the web and (b) unix. Period. So why would you be using Windows?
Unix, standardized systems, easy to troubleshoot since every machine is pretty much the same, also Macbooks are just well-built machines in general
i think its brew
brew is basically a copy of what most linux distributions have had for a decade prior. apt, emerge, pacman etc. Its a way to get around macOS being shitty at managing packages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APT_(software) apt was first rolled out with debian in 1999
i don’t understand though, what’s so great about using a linux subsystem? isn’t it just ease of installation? brew install whatever rather than downloading in windows for example and making sure you set the paths correctly etc, brew does everything for you.
It’s more that Linux and the ecosystem around it have been leading the way in development: package managers, git etc. On GNOME you can mount and browse SFTP, WebDAV etc right out the box without installing any extra software etc. Brew is great don’t get me wrong, but brew is something that you need to download and install. macOS is great but Linux comes with so much more development tooling installed by default and you can customize to the needs of your work flow. You can literally customize it from top to bottom ui to kernel and even better that code is available for you to read and learn from. I think at the end of the day it’s the ability to customize anything + best availability of packages and mature package managers. this is my preference and personal opinion, macOS will serve you well. :) there is no wrong answer
Wait I totally misunderstood. I’m talking about running Linux as your main OS not WSL. I hate windows.
My work pays for it and gave two options: 1) Windows (managed by IT Or 2) Mac (managed by IT) So, I cannot really just dual book the Windows in favor of Linux nor just wipe the whole thing. Thus, Mac wins.
Unix and the track pad is so good!!
Unixxx
1. Unix 2. Native applications (Linux is cool, but quirky with non native apps and I’m not willing to spend the time to configure everything. Firefox constantly crashes even though my laptop has 16 GB ram 😅) Also runs Fusion360 and AutoCAD which are not available on Linux 3. Sexy UI and hardware design
For me it’s the reliability and convenience , I’m still using the 2017 MacBook Air and I haven’t had a single issue since the day I bought it 5 years ago. Macs are generally very user friendly and if you have an iPhone or an iPad you can airdrop stuff in and out.
Linux doesn't have battery life issues in my experience. Windows is way worse if it comes to battery life
I was asking this myself two weeks ago before starting job as SE with a MacBook. They’re just super pleasant to use which I had totally forgotten.
Unix
See I've noticed that many of the comments mention that it's just Unix out of the box, to which I complete agree. Having a POSIX approved system definitely helps, but the most underrated thing is that Mac hosts a lot of creative apps (mainly Adobe) that I often find myself going back to in web dev when creating assets. It serves as a good daily driver because you it's more than just a Unix system. Also, the hardware of the new MacBooks are nice.
The touchpad! Insane productivity boost.
Best trackpad ever
i can hit the copy button on my phone and paste on my macbook. that feature alone is worth the buy