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I've used a Mac in my previous job and it was OK experience. The M1's hardware is truly great (I bought one for myself as well, since I didn't have a laptop at

by _hao 3y ago

I've used a Mac in my previous job and it was OK experience. The M1's hardware is truly great (I bought one for myself as well, since I didn't have a laptop at the time) and I like the portability. There are a lot of smaller features that I really like, but the overall experience for development is just not there. I use mostly my desktop setup for dev work. I can attach different machines to my monitor or use picture in picture or side by side (49" ultrawide). Last year I was back on Linux for a few months to see if that was going to be "the year of the Linux desktop" for me. I've done this every year for a few months for the past decade. However, unfortunately yet again I've went back to Windows 10. The same nagging issues with things just randomly stopping working on Linux keep showing up after time. Ten years of the same thing. Windows (with WSL) despite all of its flaws and bullshit seems to be the best OS for development. I find that very sad to be honest.

davidmurdoch 3y ago
I'm switching back to Windows after 5 yrs on Linux. There are many things Linux is not just better at, but so many things windows just can't do (because devs haven't bother to make it work). Do you find that wsl is all you need to run all the dev tooling and software for development, or do you have to spin up a Linux VM?
- _hao 3y ago
  I do most of my back-end development inside WSL (C#/C++, some JS). There's a way to run GUI Linux apps from WSL as well (for example GitKraken which I use on both Windows and from WSL) which is awesome - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/gui-apps https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/gui-.... Docker Desktop on Windows has full support inside WSL and integrates seamlessly i.e. can access running containers on your Win install from WSL without issues etc. One thing I have to highlight is that you shouldn't do dev from WSL inside windows folders (my main work folders are under WSL's /home). File access is very slow, If you want to do that I think you can go for WSL 1, not 2, but I won't bother honestly. Just use WSL2 and do your work on Linux folders. For Windows I use PowerToys extensively to bring window layouts and stacking the way I want via FancyZones. It's not exactly like the window tiling managers you'll find on Linux, but it does the job well enough.

by _hao 3y ago

davidmurdoch 3y ago

I'm switching back to Windows after 5 yrs on Linux. There are many things Linux is not just better at, but so many things windows just can't do (because devs haven't bother to make it work). Do you find that wsl is all you need to run all the dev tooling and software for development, or do you have to spin up a Linux VM?

_hao 3y ago
I do most of my back-end development inside WSL (C#/C++, some JS). There's a way to run GUI Linux apps from WSL as well (for example GitKraken which I use on both Windows and from WSL) which is awesome - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/gui-apps https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/gui-.... Docker Desktop on Windows has full support inside WSL and integrates seamlessly i.e. can access running containers on your Win install from WSL without issues etc. One thing I have to highlight is that you shouldn't do dev from WSL inside windows folders (my main work folders are under WSL's /home). File access is very slow, If you want to do that I think you can go for WSL 1, not 2, but I won't bother honestly. Just use WSL2 and do your work on Linux folders. For Windows I use PowerToys extensively to bring window layouts and stacking the way I want via FancyZones. It's not exactly like the window tiling managers you'll find on Linux, but it does the job well enough.