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Honest question, why go through this transition with macOS as a developer instead of Linux or Windows? Is there something that macOS provides developers that ot

Honest question, why go through this transition with macOS as a developer instead of Linux or Windows? Is there something that macOS provides developers that other operating systems don't?

pmarreck 6y ago
As a user of all three OS’es... macOS generates the fewest admin headaches. I’ve slowly been moving more to Linux though
atonse 6y ago
A relatively smooth desktop experience and nice client apps, baseline security at the hardware level, and still the ability to get under the hood to a shell. Windows does this now with WSL2 especially, but the desktop experience still has a lot of cruft left over. I do look with envy at the choice of hardware on the Windows side though. Especially on the desktop side.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Been using OSX since just after xmas (work issued the new macbook pro) alongside Fedora (all my machines) and there really isn't any difference in terms of a "smooth desktop experience" which is a credit to Fedora and Cinnamon really. There are things I like about both platforms and things I dislike but I'm productive as a developer on either and mostly they feel the same. At home if I want to do some dev I'm more likely to reach for my thinkpad though because I prefer the keyboard and it runs a lot cooler on my knee.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  From experience I wouldn't call macOS a smooth experience personally, especially not 10.13, but I realize it depends if you ran into bugs personally or not.
  - gumby 6y ago
    You seem to be quite unhappy with it. Why do you use it at all? There are plenty of programming domains where other systems rule.
    - AsyncAwait 6y ago
      Not by choice. I do sometimes have to use it at work as MacBooks is what they provide. Luckily, I didn't need to use a macOS machine for a couple of months now thanks to lockdown and us being allowed to use own hardware at home.
karmicthreat 6y ago
It has a linuxy backend with a good gui frontend. And the hardware is usually very good. I just don't really like flapping about trying to get everything working well in linux.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Looks more like BSD to me.
breakfastduck 6y ago
Yes, the ability to develop mac, iPad and iPhone apps. That and people may just generally prefer using the actual OS over the other two. I can't stand using Windows for anything other than playing games, for example. I've also never been won over by Linux for anything other than working on the command line only. Also the way macOS handles 'spaces' (i.e. multiple desktops) especially when connected to extra monitors is unmatched on any OS with a decent gui
- seanalltogether 6y ago
  On top of that, every mobile developer I know uses a mac because even if you're an exclusive android developer, at some point you will likely be asked to look into writing code for ios, or be asked to work on a cross platform solution which still requires access to xcode.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Not sure if the topmost model is able to keep Android Studio and Gradle happy though.
Spartan-S63 6y ago
For me, the fact that it's enterprise Unix, basically. It's polished, smooth, well-supported, the hardware it runs on is spectacular, and it Just Works™. I do like Linux for server computing and for command-line/batch computing, but I don't like the state of the Linux Desktop and thus don't consider it seriously as a primary machine. Windows is just a nightmare and even with WSL2, it still feels like it's bolted on. I only keep a Windows desktop around for gaming. I don't and won't do any productive work on Windows anymore.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  Enterprise indeed, including charging premium for features that should come by default. As someone who has to use a Mac at work, it still baffles me how macOS doesn't even ship with a serious file manager by default in 2020 and every decent alternative costs decent amount of money.
  - Spartan-S63 6y ago
    Interesting. I've never had an issue with the features of Finder. I'm a pretty light user of a file manager, though. What types of things does it not do that you want it to do?
    - AsyncAwait 6y ago
      It seems like Finder was designed to hide the filesystem. In a normal file manager you start in your home directory and have a toolbar at the top allowing you to easily change your current path, see where exactly on the actual filesystem hierarchy your are etc. Finder seems to like to show you what seem like various 'views' of things but these views aren't actual folders or at lest usually don't contain what you would think the folder would or it doesn't initially open where you'd expect it to, if you want to go to an actual particular folder, (once you even figure out where you are if you have any amount of complexity to your FS hierarchy), it has to be done via a nested menu item, (Go=>Go to folder), where it should be front and center, most managers have it under or as part of the menubar itself. The search doesn't seem to work much of the time, unless one uses Spotlight for everything, no dual pane support & tab support is very, very recent. Not to mention it doesn't seem to remember my view/display preferences for any length of time, doesn't have sane right click options, (it didn't even have copy paste last time I bothered to check). I am probably forgetting a bunch of things since I long switched to alternatives like Path Finder & Forklift, but of course you can't even remove it from the dock if you don't use it.
donniemattingly 6y ago
These questions often ignore the investment (both in time and money) people have made in a particular platform. Even if you assume each platform is equivalent (which isn't true), there's still switching costs incurred moving from one to the other. For many people those switching costs will outweigh any costs incurred from the chip transition.
chongli 6y ago
I used Linux as a daily driver for about a decade until a few weeks before I started university in fall 2017. That’s when I bought my first Mac in well over a decade. Why did I switch just before school? Because I didn’t want the stress of trying to troubleshoot breakage from updates when I was in the middle of assignments and midterms etc. During all of that decade of using Linux daily, there was never a time when I felt like things wouldn’t randomly break (usually from an update) to the point where X wouldn’t even start at boot, requiring a deep dive into display manager configuration, drivers, initial ramdisks, kernels, and everything in between. Macs just work. The trackpad support is unbeatable. Ditto for battery life. And the terminal ecosystem is fine with homebrew. I’m not one of those people who insists on having the GNU version of all the basic tools, so I don’t mind the old BSD versions of most things.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  > Why did I switch just before school? Because I didn’t want the stress of trying to troubleshoot breakage from updates when I was in the middle of assignments and midterms etc. I am certain your experience was as your describe but I do wonder if the community is making a mistake by continuing to recommend Ubuntu or the like as I've always heard most stories of this nature from there. Which is kind of funny considering Arch is generally considered not stable, but I am was able to depend on it during my uni years as well as now when I am a full-time software dev, running close to a decade without major issues in fact.
  - pmontra 6y ago
    To add a data point, I upgraded Ubuntu from 19.10 to 20.04 a week ago. It was 99% uneventful maybe for the first time in 10 years. I didn't have to reconfigure even the dozen Gnome Shell extensions I use. The missing 1% is the new openssl. It didn't let me connect to a few servers with old ciphers. I had to google how to enable them again. Hardly Ubuntu's fault and I don't have control on those servers or I would have upgraded them too and solved the problem in the right way.
  - Leherenn 6y ago
    I would tend to agree. I think the issue is the LTS model, it's great for servers, but not so much for users. As the LTS version gets older, most of your software starts to get seriously out of date, so every time you need something newer, it's easy to make a mess because you will have multiple versions of the same thing, as well as the dependencies and so on. Upgrades are also quite scary, and often results in broken systems. Rolling releases like Arch are much more user friendly in that regard, and breakage are uncommon. Installing older versions of already installed software is also much less frequent, and with the AUR it's really easy (at least compared to PPAs).
ogre_codes 6y ago
> why go through this transition with macOS as a developer instead of Linux or Windows? With everything still in beta/ pre-release, it's impossible to know how big a transition this is going to be for me personally. By the time I get my next computer most of this will likely be resolved. > Is there something that macOS provides developers that other operating systems don't? I prefer MacOS to Windows. In my experience the platform just has less bullshit to deal with. That said, Windows has gotten quite a bit better for Web Developers over the past 10 years or so, so it might be worth revisiting, but I suspect the headache of migrating to Windows will be just as bad for me as the headache of migrating to MacOS ARM (or worse). If you are a Mobile developer, the transition is almost a no-brainer. Running iPhone apps native is a pretty slam dunk feature. For Web Devs, it's a bit less clear, particularly if you use VMs or Docker as part of your workflow. It's really a huge unknown right now and until they start shipping hardware to end users, I suspect we won't really know what the whole picture looks like.
jamil7 6y ago
I do mostly iOS and some Android work. ARM will likely make things easier for me long term. Occasionally need to do some web dev too, but if I was still just doing web I’d maybe consider linux again.
olliej 6y ago
You need an arm desktop system and those are currently few and far between. The arm windows systems are most robust but they lack a tonne of software - whereas the big name apps already work on Mac/arm (^h^h^hApple Silicon) already. Coupled with native support for iOS apps (because nothing sounds as awesome as running a phone app on my laptop) I wouldn't be surprised for Macs to become the most common arm pc fairly quickly.

Honest question, why go through this transition with macOS as a developer instead of Linux or Windows? Is there something that macOS provides developers that other operating systems don't?

pmarreck 6y ago

As a user of all three OS’es... macOS generates the fewest admin headaches. I’ve slowly been moving more to Linux though

atonse 6y ago

A relatively smooth desktop experience and nice client apps, baseline security at the hardware level, and still the ability to get under the hood to a shell. Windows does this now with WSL2 especially, but the desktop experience still has a lot of cruft left over. I do look with envy at the choice of hardware on the Windows side though. Especially on the desktop side.

noir_lord 6y ago
Been using OSX since just after xmas (work issued the new macbook pro) alongside Fedora (all my machines) and there really isn't any difference in terms of a "smooth desktop experience" which is a credit to Fedora and Cinnamon really. There are things I like about both platforms and things I dislike but I'm productive as a developer on either and mostly they feel the same. At home if I want to do some dev I'm more likely to reach for my thinkpad though because I prefer the keyboard and it runs a lot cooler on my knee.
AsyncAwait 6y ago
From experience I wouldn't call macOS a smooth experience personally, especially not 10.13, but I realize it depends if you ran into bugs personally or not.
- gumby 6y ago
  You seem to be quite unhappy with it. Why do you use it at all? There are plenty of programming domains where other systems rule.
  - AsyncAwait 6y ago
    Not by choice. I do sometimes have to use it at work as MacBooks is what they provide. Luckily, I didn't need to use a macOS machine for a couple of months now thanks to lockdown and us being allowed to use own hardware at home.

karmicthreat 6y ago

It has a linuxy backend with a good gui frontend. And the hardware is usually very good. I just don't really like flapping about trying to get everything working well in linux.

pjmlp 6y ago
Looks more like BSD to me.

breakfastduck 6y ago

Yes, the ability to develop mac, iPad and iPhone apps. That and people may just generally prefer using the actual OS over the other two. I can't stand using Windows for anything other than playing games, for example. I've also never been won over by Linux for anything other than working on the command line only. Also the way macOS handles 'spaces' (i.e. multiple desktops) especially when connected to extra monitors is unmatched on any OS with a decent gui

seanalltogether 6y ago
On top of that, every mobile developer I know uses a mac because even if you're an exclusive android developer, at some point you will likely be asked to look into writing code for ios, or be asked to work on a cross platform solution which still requires access to xcode.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Not sure if the topmost model is able to keep Android Studio and Gradle happy though.

Spartan-S63 6y ago

For me, the fact that it's enterprise Unix, basically. It's polished, smooth, well-supported, the hardware it runs on is spectacular, and it Just Works™. I do like Linux for server computing and for command-line/batch computing, but I don't like the state of the Linux Desktop and thus don't consider it seriously as a primary machine. Windows is just a nightmare and even with WSL2, it still feels like it's bolted on. I only keep a Windows desktop around for gaming. I don't and won't do any productive work on Windows anymore.

AsyncAwait 6y ago
Enterprise indeed, including charging premium for features that should come by default. As someone who has to use a Mac at work, it still baffles me how macOS doesn't even ship with a serious file manager by default in 2020 and every decent alternative costs decent amount of money.
- Spartan-S63 6y ago
  Interesting. I've never had an issue with the features of Finder. I'm a pretty light user of a file manager, though. What types of things does it not do that you want it to do?
  - AsyncAwait 6y ago
    It seems like Finder was designed to hide the filesystem. In a normal file manager you start in your home directory and have a toolbar at the top allowing you to easily change your current path, see where exactly on the actual filesystem hierarchy your are etc. Finder seems to like to show you what seem like various 'views' of things but these views aren't actual folders or at lest usually don't contain what you would think the folder would or it doesn't initially open where you'd expect it to, if you want to go to an actual particular folder, (once you even figure out where you are if you have any amount of complexity to your FS hierarchy), it has to be done via a nested menu item, (Go=>Go to folder), where it should be front and center, most managers have it under or as part of the menubar itself. The search doesn't seem to work much of the time, unless one uses Spotlight for everything, no dual pane support & tab support is very, very recent. Not to mention it doesn't seem to remember my view/display preferences for any length of time, doesn't have sane right click options, (it didn't even have copy paste last time I bothered to check). I am probably forgetting a bunch of things since I long switched to alternatives like Path Finder & Forklift, but of course you can't even remove it from the dock if you don't use it.

donniemattingly 6y ago

These questions often ignore the investment (both in time and money) people have made in a particular platform. Even if you assume each platform is equivalent (which isn't true), there's still switching costs incurred moving from one to the other. For many people those switching costs will outweigh any costs incurred from the chip transition.

chongli 6y ago

I used Linux as a daily driver for about a decade until a few weeks before I started university in fall 2017. That’s when I bought my first Mac in well over a decade. Why did I switch just before school? Because I didn’t want the stress of trying to troubleshoot breakage from updates when I was in the middle of assignments and midterms etc. During all of that decade of using Linux daily, there was never a time when I felt like things wouldn’t randomly break (usually from an update) to the point where X wouldn’t even start at boot, requiring a deep dive into display manager configuration, drivers, initial ramdisks, kernels, and everything in between. Macs just work. The trackpad support is unbeatable. Ditto for battery life. And the terminal ecosystem is fine with homebrew. I’m not one of those people who insists on having the GNU version of all the basic tools, so I don’t mind the old BSD versions of most things.

AsyncAwait 6y ago
> Why did I switch just before school? Because I didn’t want the stress of trying to troubleshoot breakage from updates when I was in the middle of assignments and midterms etc. I am certain your experience was as your describe but I do wonder if the community is making a mistake by continuing to recommend Ubuntu or the like as I've always heard most stories of this nature from there. Which is kind of funny considering Arch is generally considered not stable, but I am was able to depend on it during my uni years as well as now when I am a full-time software dev, running close to a decade without major issues in fact.
- pmontra 6y ago
  To add a data point, I upgraded Ubuntu from 19.10 to 20.04 a week ago. It was 99% uneventful maybe for the first time in 10 years. I didn't have to reconfigure even the dozen Gnome Shell extensions I use. The missing 1% is the new openssl. It didn't let me connect to a few servers with old ciphers. I had to google how to enable them again. Hardly Ubuntu's fault and I don't have control on those servers or I would have upgraded them too and solved the problem in the right way.
- Leherenn 6y ago
  I would tend to agree. I think the issue is the LTS model, it's great for servers, but not so much for users. As the LTS version gets older, most of your software starts to get seriously out of date, so every time you need something newer, it's easy to make a mess because you will have multiple versions of the same thing, as well as the dependencies and so on. Upgrades are also quite scary, and often results in broken systems. Rolling releases like Arch are much more user friendly in that regard, and breakage are uncommon. Installing older versions of already installed software is also much less frequent, and with the AUR it's really easy (at least compared to PPAs).

ogre_codes 6y ago

> why go through this transition with macOS as a developer instead of Linux or Windows? With everything still in beta/ pre-release, it's impossible to know how big a transition this is going to be for me personally. By the time I get my next computer most of this will likely be resolved. > Is there something that macOS provides developers that other operating systems don't? I prefer MacOS to Windows. In my experience the platform just has less bullshit to deal with. That said, Windows has gotten quite a bit better for Web Developers over the past 10 years or so, so it might be worth revisiting, but I suspect the headache of migrating to Windows will be just as bad for me as the headache of migrating to MacOS ARM (or worse). If you are a Mobile developer, the transition is almost a no-brainer. Running iPhone apps native is a pretty slam dunk feature. For Web Devs, it's a bit less clear, particularly if you use VMs or Docker as part of your workflow. It's really a huge unknown right now and until they start shipping hardware to end users, I suspect we won't really know what the whole picture looks like.

jamil7 6y ago

I do mostly iOS and some Android work. ARM will likely make things easier for me long term. Occasionally need to do some web dev too, but if I was still just doing web I’d maybe consider linux again.

olliej 6y ago

You need an arm desktop system and those are currently few and far between. The arm windows systems are most robust but they lack a tonne of software - whereas the big name apps already work on Mac/arm (^h^h^hApple Silicon) already. Coupled with native support for iOS apps (because nothing sounds as awesome as running a phone app on my laptop) I wouldn't be surprised for Macs to become the most common arm pc fairly quickly.