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It totally depends on what kind of development work you want to do. Windows apps? Then get a Surface Pro or the like. iOS or native macOS apps? Get a Macbook.

It totally depends on what kind of development work you want to do. Windows apps? Then get a Surface Pro or the like. iOS or native macOS apps? Get a Macbook. Web development? It doesn't matter as long as you're comfortable using the respective OS (macOS or Linux). Data science? If you plan on using the built-in GPU for machine learning, don't get a Macbook. The 16" ones have AMD GPUs that aren't well-supported for ML, everything below has Intel GPUs which, while plenty powerful for day-to-day usage, aren't usable for ML. Get a Thinkpad or Dell with a Nvidia GPU and an Intel GPU, so you can use the dedicated GPU for ML exclusively. If you plan on running such workloads in the cloud (as many do) it doesn't matter. Backend work? Depending on the backend, it won't matter. PHP, Ruby, Java, Scala, Python, Go, Rust, ... can be done on macOS and Linux equally well. ASP.net and the like will require Windows. Devops-heavy work? If you expect to be running lots of VMs on your laptop, get a Linux laptop with as much RAM as you can cram into it. A 16" MBP with lots of RAM will do, too, but that's going to be pricey. If you can run such workloads in the cloud, it doesn't matter. If you want the most versatile, also get a Macbook. It'll run Linux and Windows virtualized just fine, macOS natively, you can do Android development and iOS development, all in a single machine. Depending on your needs a spec-ed up Air may be powerful enough, still not exactly cheap though. That's what I do, but with a 13" Macbook Pro (plus GCP instances for ML training). If you want to stick with Linux in earnest, and don't see yourself developing native macOS or iOS apps in the forseeable future, get a Dell or Thinkpad with good Linux support for your distro of choice.

mraza007 6y ago
I see I totally agree with what you said. I have always thought about buying a macbook but i always remained hesitant due to it’s high price but what I believe is it’s worth its price I don’t plan to do machine learning for that you probably need a heavy machine such as a desktop with GPUs. But coming from a Linux world I wanna settle on one stable os instead keep distro hopping i might just go with macbook
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  For what it's worth, barring catastrophic failure, which seems to be rare, these things tend to hold up quite well. My previous Macbook lasted me about 6 years, I had its battery replaced half a year ago without any issues; it's my backup machine now, and if it weren't a tad too sluggish at some tasks, I would have postponed the upgrade another year. Lots of people (on HN, too) run even older Macbooks, apparently happily. Just be sure to get the latest gen, especially for the 13" Pros ones – you absolutely want the 2020 keyboard (physical ESC key, no failure-prone butterfly mechanics, really nice feel, "old" arrow key arrangement that is easier to find by feel) and the newest CPUs. I have both keyboards (my own 2020 one and my 2018 work laptop) and the difference is crazy. But as I mentioned before, have a look at the current Air as well – cheaper and still plenty powerful, depending on what you need.
  - kingkongjaffa 6y ago
    my 2012 16gb ssd macbookpro is running okay the only things lagging behind now are graphics for light gaming and the battery is pretty shot.
mraza007 6y ago
Just curious can you customize macbook the way you customize linux such as changing window managers I come from i3 world
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  If you're asking that question, you probably won't like macOS. Much of the appeal lies in its defaults, which are pretty good – but you can't change many of them, including lots of things that are bog-standard on Linux, you can't even fine-tune animations (there is a toggle to tone them down, but that's all – two global settings) That also means you don't have to worry about your OS or machine much – I've sunk many times as much time into occasionally trying to run Linux than I ever have into running macOS, which by comparison is very, very hands-off, "just works", as the moniker goes. That said, there are experimental window managers that some people run, but it's really not anything I would recommend. If you need i3 and want it configured just-so, you're probably going to suffer. I use Hammerspoon to get some really simple tiling, but it's not even in the same solar system as i3.

mraza007 6y ago

I see I totally agree with what you said. I have always thought about buying a macbook but i always remained hesitant due to it’s high price but what I believe is it’s worth its price I don’t plan to do machine learning for that you probably need a heavy machine such as a desktop with GPUs. But coming from a Linux world I wanna settle on one stable os instead keep distro hopping i might just go with macbook

dividedbyzero 6y ago
For what it's worth, barring catastrophic failure, which seems to be rare, these things tend to hold up quite well. My previous Macbook lasted me about 6 years, I had its battery replaced half a year ago without any issues; it's my backup machine now, and if it weren't a tad too sluggish at some tasks, I would have postponed the upgrade another year. Lots of people (on HN, too) run even older Macbooks, apparently happily. Just be sure to get the latest gen, especially for the 13" Pros ones – you absolutely want the 2020 keyboard (physical ESC key, no failure-prone butterfly mechanics, really nice feel, "old" arrow key arrangement that is easier to find by feel) and the newest CPUs. I have both keyboards (my own 2020 one and my 2018 work laptop) and the difference is crazy. But as I mentioned before, have a look at the current Air as well – cheaper and still plenty powerful, depending on what you need.
- kingkongjaffa 6y ago
  my 2012 16gb ssd macbookpro is running okay the only things lagging behind now are graphics for light gaming and the battery is pretty shot.

mraza007 6y ago

Just curious can you customize macbook the way you customize linux such as changing window managers I come from i3 world

dividedbyzero 6y ago
If you're asking that question, you probably won't like macOS. Much of the appeal lies in its defaults, which are pretty good – but you can't change many of them, including lots of things that are bog-standard on Linux, you can't even fine-tune animations (there is a toggle to tone them down, but that's all – two global settings) That also means you don't have to worry about your OS or machine much – I've sunk many times as much time into occasionally trying to run Linux than I ever have into running macOS, which by comparison is very, very hands-off, "just works", as the moniker goes. That said, there are experimental window managers that some people run, but it's really not anything I would recommend. If you need i3 and want it configured just-so, you're probably going to suffer. I use Hammerspoon to get some really simple tiling, but it's not even in the same solar system as i3.