Ask HN: Setting up Mac for dev work

Having just been laid off from a megacorp, I find myself back outside a technological walled garden for the first time in over seven years. In the past I've done Android development, server side development, data analysis, as well as frontend dev (but I hate it). I'm armed with a Macbook Pro but I have no idea what the latest sine qua non software is for development.

Any recommendations for a software engineer looking to start coding in the real world again?

Homebrew, as already suggested. iTerm2 is better than Terminal in subtle ways. I personally like Sublime Text and Sublime Merge for all purpose editing and committing.

I bought a MacBook recently - the first in 5 years - and I realised that I didn't have to do much else to make the system mine.

Don’t install many things on your Mac. Use virtual machines or containers as much as you can. You never know if ‘npm install’ (and similars) is going to take over your computer.