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Discussion on: You Probably Don't Need a Mac

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tavy315 profile image
Octavian Matei

I never understood why software developers ever might need mac unless they develop macos apps.

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siy profile image
Sergiy Yevtushenko

This case is quite simple: mac is best choice for those who want development convenience of Linux, but afraid that Linux UI is too complex for them :)

P.S. Mac is not ideal for development, but much more convenient than windows.

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metalmikester profile image
Michel Renaud

The Linux UI (I assume you meant the GUI, not the command line) really feels antiquated and even ugly and it's kind of a pain to look at (I'm typing this on a Linux laptop). If I'm going to stare at something all day, I like it to be somewhat pleasant-looking. Still much better than when I started using Linux in 1995, though. :)

I find that some development can be more difficult on the Mac than on Linux for some things because installation is sometimes hacky, like a user-contributed version that's not officially supported. I've had this happen a couple of times in recent months. In one instance I had to give up because I was wasting too much time trying to work around the problems.

I use Mac, Linux and Windows every day, so I find it hard these days to get into a religious war about platforms. Ultimately the choice should be whatever one is most comfortable with.

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harken24 profile image
Jozo

Not sure about that, I'm using debian buster and with few tweaks it looks really nice.
Also there are distros like PopOS, Manjaro and others who look awesome.

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metalmikester profile image
Michel Renaud

Well, that's the thing with Linux: so many distros. I wish I had time to mess around installing distros all day, but I don't. And you never know if your favourite distro won't just disappear (as in no further updates to whatever niceties it might bring) unless it's one of the big-ish ones.

I'm using Linux Mint at the moment. (Well, not this VERY moment - right now I'm using a Windows 10 VM hosted on Azure).

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katafrakt profile image
Paweł Świątkowski • Edited

Well that's the thing with cars: so many makes. I wish I had time to try out makes and models all month, but I don't. And you never know if your favourite make won't go bankrupt. That's why I don't own a car. Oh wait...

There are so many thing Linux can be accused of. But having a choice is just not one of them.

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metalmikester profile image
Michel Renaud

Crappy analogy, and you completely missed my point. sigh

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patarapolw profile image
Pacharapol Withayasakpunt

I think Pantheon UI is quite polished (Elementary OS), but still, it is more geared towards keyboard users; but then who the hell need Desktop Environment anyways. CLI these days is quite powerful enough.

Unless you need a JavaScript/CSS/HTML powered web browser.

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metalmikester profile image
Michel Renaud

I've heard of that one but didn't get a chance to check it out.

It is certainly interesting that, even though GUIs are more powerful and flexible than ever, there's been a move toward the command line for a lot of development-related tasks. "ugh... Don't feel like finding it in the GUI, I'll just type the command". Even when developing .NET Core stuff in Visual Studio, I'll often type commands to get some things done.

Anyway, I use all three platforms and have likes and dislikes for each one of them.

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bloodgain profile image
Cliff

The Linux GUI is ugly and antiquated -- what? Aside from the fact that there isn't a single Linux desktop environment, I'm using Fedora with the default, most popular DE, GNOME, and it looks perfectly modern to me. It has all the modern visual design elements that Windows and MacOS have and does all the fancy window docking tricks (in fact, some Linux DEs have supported that far longer). And it's very easily customized with themes and icon packs, frankly much more easily than Windows. Ubuntu, the other big distro, uses a customized DE that I believe is based on GNOME as well. But if GNOME isn't to your tastes, they have direct support for another half dozen DEs out of the box as "flavors" of Ubuntu, several of which as also quite modern.

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ggichure profile image
ggriffo

Used Ubuntu but found it "heavy" and switched to Kali it's been 3yrs now .

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bloodgain profile image
Cliff

I haven't tried Kali. I'm using Fedora mostly because all the systems I use professionally are Red Hat, and I often find myself needing to test something at home and/or advise the IT folks about how to install or configure something.

I thought Kali was mostly only used for security testing or similar gray-hat work. I didn't know many people used it as a daily driver.

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hpmtopkek profile image
Heaven Piercing Man

Linux GUI, antiquated? Are you still on GNOME2, KDE4, LXDE or some niche text mode tiling GUI? I mean even XFCE becomes modern with a dock and a theme. Throw in a global menu and it's perfect Mac refugee territory.

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maxdevjs profile image
maxdevjs

I never understood why software developers ever might need to choose a Linux distro based on the look and feel when they can install basically what they want in any distro.

Just kidding :D