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> we strongly encourage people to choose between the MacBook Pro and Air. We’ve had several people originally opt for various flavours of Linux, but they’ve all

> we strongly encourage people to choose between the MacBook Pro and Air. We’ve had several people originally opt for various flavours of Linux, but they’ve all swapped over to Macs within 12 months. I'm curious if they've swapped more because of their own personal preference, or the "strong encouragement" from your team, or some combination of both. While I completely get the added value that comes from the homogeneity of equipment in the office, as a Linux guy, I've interviewed in places where they were basically like "Yeah, we're a mac shop, and you need to be too". It was kind of a turn off. I like macs and don't mind using them, but at the end of the day I'm a big believer in going back to the tools you're most comfortable with. I guess what I'm trying to ask here is, how do you strongly encourage people to go for MB Pro or MB Air, without coming off as overly pushy? Interested to hear how you strike that balance, because I agree 100% that getting most of the team on the same equipment (or roughly so) is a big plus.

alguemoi 13y ago
Yes, I really really really care about Linux, and started working at a "use the tools of your choice" company, but since I was the only one using linux, and no one was caring about compatibility issues, I had to switch to a Mac. And no, I wasn't having fun, it wasn't my choice. It's a Ruby thing, that love of macs, makes me want to never program ruby again.
- troels 13y ago
  Really? I find that Ruby works fine on linux. In fact, I doubt anyone is using anything else for their production setup.
  - alguemoi 13y ago
    it do works fine, it's the ruby people that don't work fine. actually, you see, I was randomly trolling HN to see how much points I could get (seriously).
nraynaud 13y ago
I generally ask people to all use the same tools so that they can interract on each other's machine, and so that the code is all looking the same (unless someone is trying a new tool, of course). Development is about collaboration and thinking, it's not about typing fast or other time sensitive things. But i explain all this at the interview, so that candidates can determine themselve before accepting a job. Switching to linux would emcompass convincing the whole team.
- capisce 13y ago
  On the other hand, I see a developer's tools as an extension of his or her mind. Enforcing that everyone uses the same tools seems like a great way to encourage hive mind thinking. Especially proprietary tools that can not be automated or extended is something you should be wary of pushing onto for example a bash and vim wielding programmer, unless your business has no need for major productivity gains to grow or to sustain itself.
  - nraynaud 13y ago
    I don't encourage hive mind, by other means. The proprietary tools I recently used where automatable with either apple script system or in java for jetbrain product, but generaly we would do a lot of command line automation because we are more proficient in that. And I try to push products designed for their users instead of designed for their licence or their developers to my product team. But also i leave the freedom to my team to change the tools, every wednesday, we can change some tools, for the whole team.
- 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
  > Development is about collaboration... It some cases development might require or benefit from the collaboration between more than one developer, but I think it's quite a stretch to write "Development is about collaboration." There does exist successful software and applications written by a single developer.
  - nraynaud 13y ago
tomblomfield 13y ago
We actually didn't encourage people to choose Macs until very recently, and the ones who have previously made the switch had to fight hard for it internally, since it requires significant expenditure - we basically ditched £2,500 of equipment for each person. They were just fed up with not being able to use many of our standard internal tools, which were largely built for Mac. Having to debug and adapt each one for a new OS gets old pretty quickly.
walshemj 13y ago
A laptop how cute I would expect a decent mac pro if I was going to be using that as my main dev machine and have a couple of pool laptops for when you need to be mobile And if your not developing a mac application - why would you develop on macs? You should normaly (ie 99% of the time) develop on identical hardware to that on which production is going to be running - rules out all the risks of differences between dev and live

alguemoi 13y ago

Yes, I really really really care about Linux, and started working at a "use the tools of your choice" company, but since I was the only one using linux, and no one was caring about compatibility issues, I had to switch to a Mac. And no, I wasn't having fun, it wasn't my choice. It's a Ruby thing, that love of macs, makes me want to never program ruby again.

troels 13y ago
Really? I find that Ruby works fine on linux. In fact, I doubt anyone is using anything else for their production setup.
- alguemoi 13y ago
  it do works fine, it's the ruby people that don't work fine. actually, you see, I was randomly trolling HN to see how much points I could get (seriously).

nraynaud 13y ago

I generally ask people to all use the same tools so that they can interract on each other's machine, and so that the code is all looking the same (unless someone is trying a new tool, of course). Development is about collaboration and thinking, it's not about typing fast or other time sensitive things. But i explain all this at the interview, so that candidates can determine themselve before accepting a job. Switching to linux would emcompass convincing the whole team.

capisce 13y ago
On the other hand, I see a developer's tools as an extension of his or her mind. Enforcing that everyone uses the same tools seems like a great way to encourage hive mind thinking. Especially proprietary tools that can not be automated or extended is something you should be wary of pushing onto for example a bash and vim wielding programmer, unless your business has no need for major productivity gains to grow or to sustain itself.
- nraynaud 13y ago
  I don't encourage hive mind, by other means. The proprietary tools I recently used where automatable with either apple script system or in java for jetbrain product, but generaly we would do a lot of command line automation because we are more proficient in that. And I try to push products designed for their users instead of designed for their licence or their developers to my product team. But also i leave the freedom to my team to change the tools, every wednesday, we can change some tools, for the whole team.
7Figures2Commas 13y ago
> Development is about collaboration... It some cases development might require or benefit from the collaboration between more than one developer, but I think it's quite a stretch to write "Development is about collaboration." There does exist successful software and applications written by a single developer.
- nraynaud 13y ago

tomblomfield 13y ago

We actually didn't encourage people to choose Macs until very recently, and the ones who have previously made the switch had to fight hard for it internally, since it requires significant expenditure - we basically ditched £2,500 of equipment for each person. They were just fed up with not being able to use many of our standard internal tools, which were largely built for Mac. Having to debug and adapt each one for a new OS gets old pretty quickly.

walshemj 13y ago

A laptop how cute I would expect a decent mac pro if I was going to be using that as my main dev machine and have a couple of pool laptops for when you need to be mobile And if your not developing a mac application - why would you develop on macs? You should normaly (ie 99% of the time) develop on identical hardware to that on which production is going to be running - rules out all the risks of differences between dev and live