I'm likewise very curious. Outside of iOS development, I don't seen the need to carry overpriced apple products. I have a used thinkpad that I paid $100 for 2 years ago, and I get more development done on it than most programmers I know.
Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?
21–29 of 29 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?
#22I'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 wo…
I am very curious. Do you mind sharing the circumstances that lead to running over the mbp with your car? I have heard or folks doing it on purpose but it sounds like your situation was an accident. And it still worked for a few years? Cool.
The MBP (2007 17") was in a backpack, and I was putting stuff in my car for a trip, running back and forth to the house, and in general getting very distracted. I got in the car, forgetting that the backpack was leaning against a front tire.
I felt a bump, got out of the car, looked around, and saw nothing. Got back in the car, started driving, and noticed that something was definitely wrong. Got back out of the car, looked around, and finally noticed the backpack between the tire and the wheel well.
I had run over the front left side of the laptop. There were key imprints on the screen, but otherwise everything seemed fine. The wireless connection was never really good after that, but it did work given a strong enough signal. I guess I damaged the antenna.
And then, years later, the display started flaking out, getting to the point that the system was unusable. For a while I could work around the problem by putting 2-3 of those huge black paper clips on the frame of the display, near the damage. But then that stopped working.
That was a fine computer. I can't bring myself to just discard it. Burial might be more appropriate. The replacement MBP (2011 15") is just awesome.
Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?
#231 - I know people will disagree, I use and love linux etc, but a macbook is like using linux except not ass for desktop usage. Audio playing, wifi, volume controls, brightness controls, sleep, hibernate, multiple monitors, multiple screens, different resolutions for projectors, bluetooth, etc all just work . It is possible to make these things work on linux laptops? Sometimes, maybe, sorta, and if you have a bunch of…
Re 6: Apple has a patent for magnetic charger connections. Whether Apple isn't willing to license the patent or other manufacturers aren't willing to pay to license it I don't know.
Re 1: Absolutely true, and it's something that might make me go back to a mac (from Ubuntu) in the future.
Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?
#24I 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 glowi…
>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. Bollocks for you maybe. We don't all have the same job needs. I absolutely need Adobe Creative Suite and several multimedia tools, as well as…
There's a big difference between "impossible", and merely "impossible to be productive"! The latter is what the question mentions. And when I deny that this is the case, the sort of thing I'm denying is that people who use (say) Mac OS X for developing their iOS programs would find it impossible to be productive, were they suddenly to find themselves forced into using (say) Windows to write things for the Xbox360.
Oh well - perhaps my reading of the question is wrong, but this is very strongly what it implies to me.
Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?
#25It'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…
> It's really only required for iOS/Mac development. Really? I program in HTML5/JS, PHP, Java, C and Python, but also need to do multimedia work. That is, besides doing web or desktop programming, you also need to create and/or embed to your work bitmap and vector graphics, stuff for print, edit video and music, etc? Now, you might never have to do anything but pure programming with no multimedia, BUT, what about als…
I said it's only required for iOS/Mac development. I was obviously not speaking to your set of personal hobbies but only answering the question that was asked and providing my viewpoint.
Yes, Mac can be convenient for multimedia work but again not required by any means and for some projects the Mac does get in the way. (And yes embedded systems stuff is a lot easer on Linux than mac for the most part)
Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am very curious. Do you mind sharing the circumstances that lead to running over the mbp with your car? I have heard or folks doing it on purpose but it sounds like your situation was an accident. And it still worked for a few years? Cool.
The MBP (2007 17") was in a backpack, and I was putting stuff in my car for a trip, running back and forth to the house, and in general getting very distracted. I got in the car, forgetting that the backpack was leaning against a front tire. I felt a bump, got out of the car, looked around, and saw nothing. Got back in the car, started driving, and noticed that something was definitely wrong. Got back out of the car,…
Thanks for sharing. Thats about how I imagine doing it myself.
I am currently on a 2011 13" MBP and understand the just awesome feeling!
Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?
#27They 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…
It's this. I want a laptop. I hate everyone elses laptop hardware (more or less) and it's nice having the unix/bsd underpinnings available. I worked for a long time on embedded linux systems and used windows as my dev environment. These days I do web stuff and I use a MBP. I prefer the MBP over all my windows machines. I could probably learn to love linux, even though I still have dark memories from the past. However…
A lot of us recommend Lenovo hardware, specifically the T- and X- series notebooks. I ran Lubuntu for a time last year on my X220i, and everything Just Worked. The touchpad in particular was amazing, so good that it was virtually telepathic in its responsiveness.
Cory Doctorow's experience with Ubuntu on his X220: http://m.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/may/17/computing-ope...
Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Serious Question: Isn't it hardest to get ruby/rails running on Windows?
Not anymore: http://rubyinstaller.org/
can't beat rvm. Run 3 commands and its done. Automated.
Lazy people can just use the rails version preinstalled on macs (though that's like 2.something)
Re: Ask HN: Why do devs feel a MacBook Pro is required for development?
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's this. I want a laptop. I hate everyone elses laptop hardware (more or less) and it's nice having the unix/bsd underpinnings available. I worked for a long time on embedded linux systems and used windows as my dev environment. These days I do web stuff and I use a MBP. I prefer the MBP over all my windows machines. I could probably learn to love linux, even though I still have dark memories from the past. However…
A lot of us recommend Lenovo hardware, specifically the T- and X- series notebooks. I ran Lubuntu for a time last year on my X220i, and everything Just Worked. The touchpad in particular was amazing, so good that it was virtually telepathic in its responsiveness. Cory Doctorow's experience with Ubuntu on his X220: http://m.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/may/17/computing-ope...
Incidentally, I may be the only programmer around that doesn't like the Lenovo hardware. It never felt "right". The touchpad is more responsive but I'm not a fan of the "nib" and the physical buttons for the touch pad (Though I'm pretty sure you dont HAVE to use the physical buttons they're still obnoxious).
You're right though. If I were going to move away from my MBP I'd probably go with a Lenovo machine. Alternatively, I'd be interested in trying out the new Vizio laptop hardware and seeing how it feels. It could be crap, it could be awesome.
EDIT: As an aside, I do keep a windows machine around for gaming purposes and I still love windows 7... just not for dev-ing. Sadly, I only have time for a couple of games a year these days. Busy making stuff.