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AS an outsider looking in. What is holding a developer from moving to Linux? I don't understand the draw of OS X for developers especially the past few yearsI've used UNIX for ages, started on Sun OS (pre-Solaris), HP-UX, have used several early Linux distros, RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Mandrake (!), FreeBSD for a year or so, and now I use Ubuntu for personal stuff and Centos professionally.
I wouldn't use a Linux loaded laptop.
What OS X has?
Great hardware (Linus himself used to praise the Air for example -- which he used as a personal machine until 2014, and complained why no other company could make something like that -- he now uses a hi-end Chromebook).
No messing to get it to sleep, work with external monitors, including dual 4K, import camera photos and videos, work with new RAW formats, external peripherals etc. And by no messing I mean "an order of magnitude less messing that those things take in Linux".
Certified UNIX with full terminal access, bash, classic userland, etc.
Several package managers (brew, macports etc) to get 99% of anything one will need in Linux. And make && make install etc usually just works too, if one is so inclined.
Runs Linux on a VM just fine -- why would a developer pollute their OS with development environment stuff like installing DBs, compilers etc directly? And if you don't run it directly, then OS X is as good as Linux to host your developing VMs -- or SSH to some remote host.
A full, well thought out UI, even if it's not perfect. Even from 10.1 to 10.12, it never has the sudden "let's change everything and break everybody just because we can" turns that Gnome and KDE have had (I've used KDE but stopped with the 3 to 4 transition -- now I just run bare Linux or when I need a UI Linux whatever comes with Ubuntu).
Ability to run basic proprietary apps: Adobe Creative Suite, MS Office, etc. Lots of developers need those too, and I, for one, sure do for my sideprojects.
>These yearly updates seem to break everyone's workflow for a while.
No, it's just the vocal minority. Have used OS X since 2003, using it for programming (JS, Python, Java, Go, PHP, some C), video editing and music (various DAWs), and never had my workflow break, and I usually jump at a new OS the first day it comes out. The worst case was having to wait 1 month for Cubase 8.5 to support 10.11 -- but that's the fault of Steinberg for milking their customers, as other DAWs I have worked just fine, or had updates within the week or so.
Linux changes break just as many workflows (percentage wise) but there are so fewer (1/10 or so) Linux desktop users and even they so fragmented (different DEs, desktops, WMs, etc) that their laments are not really heard. Of course most major tech outlets hardly ever publish Linux related stuff in the first place, in contrast with Apple stuff that helps get eyeballs...