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I've turned down a couple jobs because they would have required me to use Windows. I don't hate Windows, I just like working in my little unix-like Mac world.

I've turned down a couple jobs because they would have required me to use Windows. I don't hate Windows, I just like working in my little unix-like Mac world. Of course I can do the whole "Run a mini Linux inside Windows so you can actually code", but I just don't want to. For some types of dev it's essential, like if I were building stuff in Visual Studio. But I'm doing web dev. Typescript, React, serverless. There's no reason I can't use a Mac for that other than the company being lazy and not wanting to support them for whatever baseless reasons.

WolfeReader 3y ago
Macs are pricier than Windows PCs. I think it's perfectly reasonable for a company to give you a cheaper device that's also 100% capable of performing well for a web development job. TypeScript and React work perfectly fine in Windows even without WSL - manually install nvm and Git, then use npm like you would on any other machine. (Ideally using Git Bash.) Personally, I use a mix of Mac (job) and Linux (personal) - haven't touched Windows in over a year. But if someone pays me to do web dev and happens to give me a Windows machine, that's fine too.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  This is a brown M&M type thing for me nowadays. If I can't use MacOS, I don't trust the company's finances or IT. A in the 2000's I used to do the same thing by asking for two displays. If they said no that was pretty much it. Arguments ranged from "we want everyone to use the same setup" to "too expensive". My pay every month would've been multiple times the price of a monitor and at least 2-3 times the price of a MacBook nowadays. If your budget can't handle that, it's a huge red flag for me. And there's always the time when I, a decently expensive external contractor, had to use some bargain-bin laptop with 2GB of memory. And I had to run at least two instances of NetBeans, a local Oracle installation and Adobe Flex at the same time. I lost so much time just waiting for that thing to work it cost them more than a proper computer would've =)
- willio58 3y ago
  While it's good to know you don't need WSL to work on what I work on, I still don't think that's a good argument for why I would _need_ to use Windows at work. For this type of work, just let your workers use whatever machine they want. If the employer can't afford the difference between a Macbook Pro and a comparable PC, that's a huge red flag for the employer for many reasons.

WolfeReader 3y ago

Macs are pricier than Windows PCs. I think it's perfectly reasonable for a company to give you a cheaper device that's also 100% capable of performing well for a web development job. TypeScript and React work perfectly fine in Windows even without WSL - manually install nvm and Git, then use npm like you would on any other machine. (Ideally using Git Bash.) Personally, I use a mix of Mac (job) and Linux (personal) - haven't touched Windows in over a year. But if someone pays me to do web dev and happens to give me a Windows machine, that's fine too.

theshrike79 3y ago
This is a brown M&M type thing for me nowadays. If I can't use MacOS, I don't trust the company's finances or IT. A in the 2000's I used to do the same thing by asking for two displays. If they said no that was pretty much it. Arguments ranged from "we want everyone to use the same setup" to "too expensive". My pay every month would've been multiple times the price of a monitor and at least 2-3 times the price of a MacBook nowadays. If your budget can't handle that, it's a huge red flag for me. And there's always the time when I, a decently expensive external contractor, had to use some bargain-bin laptop with 2GB of memory. And I had to run at least two instances of NetBeans, a local Oracle installation and Adobe Flex at the same time. I lost so much time just waiting for that thing to work it cost them more than a proper computer would've =)
willio58 3y ago
While it's good to know you don't need WSL to work on what I work on, I still don't think that's a good argument for why I would _need_ to use Windows at work. For this type of work, just let your workers use whatever machine they want. If the employer can't afford the difference between a Macbook Pro and a comparable PC, that's a huge red flag for the employer for many reasons.