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Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?

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Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?

#1

Post by timaelliott »

I'm curious why the trend over the past few years has resulted in engineers feeling like owning a MBP is a requirement? The vast majority of the tech startup scene seems to only tote around these machines and are very willing to defend their choice in hardware + OS. I often will hear the argument that it's impossible for them to be productive on anything other than Apple hardware running an Apple OS.

There are excellent text editors and IDEs available cross platform. Having a local dev environment that matches production is very easy due to VM software. Viewing the resulting product (most often a website) depends on the cross-platform browser, not a particular OS choice.

Would love to hear HN's stance and viewpoint on this peculiarity.

Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?

#2

Post by andymoe »

It's really only required for iOS/Mac development. The hardware is solid and you don't often have to think about it but I think OS X is a hinderance and a time sink for serious programming work outside of the platform specific stuff.

It's especially painful (subjective) to, for instance, get a rails dev or any number of other environments up and running and it's really annoying to do some embedded systems work on macs. (I say this as someone who makes his living developing iOS apps on a mac right now btw)

Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?

#3

Post by stonemetal »

They need a computer for development, going to meetups and such make a laptop more useful than a desktop. Apple makes the nicest laptop hardware around, and a really usable Unix OS. MBP QED.

I often will hear the argument that it's impossible for them to be productive on anything other than Apple hardware running an Apple OS.

They have spent sometime learning all the keyboard shortcuts, going to a different OS, text editor, etc. means lost productivity until they retrain and catch back up. Any further than that they are being a prima donna.

Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?

#5

Post by technel »

There was a discussion a while ago where a lot of HNers said they rather not have a MBP: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1786930

I am attracted to Apple products, but I don't own any because I don't want to spend the money and I am perfectly happy with a (much faster) PC running Linux. Developing for iOS might be a problem at some point, though...

Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?

#6

Post by geophile »

I've used many platforms for development, over many years. My current setup is an MBP running an Ubuntu VM.

For pure Java dev, I'll usually use Intellij on OSX. As I have to deal with more non-Java components, I'll move to the Ubuntu VM (still using Intellij for Java). Getting open-source components to install, compile and run just seems simpler in Ubuntu than OSX. OSX is familiar enough (Linux-like) so that I can work in it comfortably most of the time. But when I can't, I have Ubuntu nearby.

I far prefer this to a non-VM Ubuntu installation because having the Mac there is nice. Multimedia works really well (it's probably nearly as good on Ubuntu now, but I've stopped trying). And setting up networking (wireless, VPN) is still easier on OSX. It usually isn't bad on Ubuntu, but when I run into roadblocks, I just configure my VM to go through OSX.

This setup also allows me to move my VM easily across hosts, have multiple VMs running (e.g. use an old one, build a new one).

Finally, this is a minor point yet a huge one for me. Gnu Emacs on the Mac just isn't right. There are enough tiny differences to make it frustrating. One of the major irritants is the font. I've been using 9x15 with Emacs on various platforms going back many, many years. For me, it is the perfect font. After many hours of searching, I can't find it for OSX, or anything that even comes close.

What are the alternatives to MBP for me?

- Windows + VM: I just don't want to deal with Windows at all. I've wasted enough time on it. Absolutely will not consider it.

- Ubuntu only (on arbitrary hardware): I'd be open to considering it. My impression is that the entertainment parts of it (audio, video) are far better than a few years ago. This would probably be fine.

One last consideration: The Mac hardware is just so nice, and it's sturdy. I recently replaced a 5-year old MBP. It would have survived longer, but I ran over it with my car a few years ago, and last year, for some reason, the damage started causing the display to flake out.

Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?

#7

Post by envex »

andymoe wrote: post #2

It's really only required for iOS/Mac development. The hardware is solid and you don't often have to think about it but I think OS X is a hinderance and a time sink for serious programming work outside of the platform specific stuff. It's especially painful (subjective) to, for instance, get a rails dev or any number of other environments up and running and it's really annoying to do some embedded systems work on mac…

Serious Question: Isn't it hardest to get ruby/rails running on Windows?

Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?

#8

Post by skulquake »

envex wrote: post #7
andymoe wrote: post #2

It's really only required for iOS/Mac development. The hardware is solid and you don't often have to think about it but I think OS X is a hinderance and a time sink for serious programming work outside of the platform specific stuff. It's especially painful (subjective) to, for instance, get a rails dev or any number of other environments up and running and it's really annoying to do some embedded systems work on mac…

Serious Question: Isn't it hardest to get ruby/rails running on Windows?

Not anymore: http://rubyinstaller.org/

Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?

#9

Post by to3m »

I figure it's because it's easier (and possibly legaler?) to run Mac OS X on the Macbook than it is on an ordinary PC. I presume Linux and Windows would be about the same, in terms of difficulty of setup, whether you're using a PC or a Macbook. So, if you aren't sure what sort of work you might need to be doing, some kind of Mac-thing covers more potential cases.

Also, if you can look past the somewhat childish glowing apple, the Macbook Pro ticks all the usual Apple boxes: looks nice, easy to keep clean, feels solid.

The productivity thing is just the usual bollocks. Changing OSes and development tools and so on can seem like it would be the end of the world, until one day you're forced to do it (for whatever reason), at which point you always find out that it's no more than an annoyance.

(This even takes into account Xcode 4 and the Windows command prompt, both of which are maddeningly, frustratingly awful.)

Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?

#10

Post by bartonfink »

I've got an MBP for work, and I really dislike it. I've gotten used to the software not behaving as I'd expect (I find that I have to use the terminal for many operations that I'd prefer to use a GUI for, which is probably good for me), but I still hate working on it and would gladly take a laptop of lower "quality" for something that didn't rub me the wrong way quite as often.

The thing I find most annoying is the lack of home/end keys on the keyboard. I know that there are shortcuts to emulate these, but I've got a lot of muscle memory tied up in these keys existing, and not having them is a huge imposition to my ability to navigate effectively.

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