Ask HN: Why Apple laptops are predominant laptops on every hackathon I go? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why Apple laptops are predominant laptops on every hackathon I go?

4 pointsvictorantos16 comments

I've got 10 years working as a Software Engineer on Windows machines, usually Dell laptops.

But I was surprised to notice that most of the people coming to hackathons work on Macbooks - at least in my area - London, UK.

About 2-3 years ago I was blown away when I noticed that all my co-workers(20-30) were using Macbooks, except one other guy, IT consultant as myself.

Am I living and working in a bubble?

Are there any stats about Mac/Linux devs vs. Windows devs?

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Try to find a more solid, ubiquitous Unix-like environment that "just works". This is especially so if you're deploying entirely onto a Unix-like platform, such as a Linux flavor or BSD.

The Linux distros, for all their good, requires too much handholding and prodding to get a productive desktop development environment working. Windows, too, requires too much handholding, and you're liable to just use a VM for development.

I really do wonder how well Systemd76 would do with a few storefronts around the world.

To add: I write Java, Node, PHP, and Python primarily. I used Windows for years, but was alway frustrated by the differences of my development environment and my deployment environment (Linux web servers). Also the complete shitshow of command line support was just getting to be too much to deal with.

Around 2005 I tried switching to Ubuntu Desktop, then Mint, then Fedora, then... but Jesus was that painful. The worst and last straw was when I went to Walmart corporate HQ as a consultant and the Linux drivers refused to allow me to Auth to their wifi due to whatever handshake problems they were having. Switching over to Windows- it just worked.

As soon as Mac switched to the Intel processors and the laptop bodies that didn't look like toys, I gave OS X a shot on a Hackintosh, then went out and bought my first MBP. I've NEVER looked back. When I have to do things in Windows (like use Visual Studio to write .NET) it just HURTS.

I also forget the link (maybe it was a consumer reports?) but they said the highest rated Windows laptop you could buy was a MacBook Pro- and had been for four straight years.

You do pay a brand tax when you buy one, but they really are consistently good pieces of hardware- certainly by mainstream manufacturer standards (Dell, HP, etc).

Long story short:

- Handsome aluminum body cases (completely my opinion)

- Linux like command line

- Good shell/command line support

- Decent GUI

- Decent stability and performance of the OS

- Good to really good hardware

- Windows support if you need it via Bootcamp/Parallels

- Retina displays

- The trackpad is f%#£ing magical

I bought a mac mini, the cheapest one, just to try it. I am not impressed with it. I can see some good points to UI, but I would not buy a Macbook for my web development work. Actually I recently bought another dell laptop.

>The Linux distros, for all their good, requires too much handholding and prodding to get a productive desktop development environment working.

At least you CAN get a productive environment. The OSX window manager really really sucks and you can not configure much. Why do not Apple add X11 manager support ?

Because folks can instead use https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst if they want a tiling window manager like xmonad. It is pretty easy to install and it works well.

i don't want a tiling one, i want a configurable lightweight one like fluxbox

I while ago approached my boss and told him i can't stand Apple laptop any more due to plethora of technical glitches, sporadic loss of bluetooth connectivity, sluggishness (MacBook Pro), necessity of hard restarts and just general inability to clearly see what's going on on my laptop.

Luckily it was an easy process to switch to something that works much better and without Apple brand telling me how i need to work and to see the world. I'm not coming back to Apple laptop. (Apple iPhone is totally different and perfect device).

If I need to do Linux development - I use dedicated server / SSH and whatnot.

--- Back to your question - some environments do require Apple hardware and cultural fit could be an important factor to blend in and not be criticized.

Try to find a laptop that combines:

- powerful Unix-like shell and internals for when developers need to work

- no-brainer UX when developers do not want to have to work

With some bonuses such as:

- retina display that doesn't mess up every other app's windows

- a trackpad with multi-finger gestures that actually works

It can be done. Quite a few laptops are now getting there.

Yes you are right. Long back I asked a lot of people why they use Mac rather than other machines and Most the people said they became productive and more better because of certain features that Mac provides like smoother touchpad and the operating system is more optimised with respect to the hardware,so that the system through put is higher than average when you compare with any product. also Mac won't get old with in couple of years. I know lot of older plastic MacBook still runs and people still trusting the device for their daily use. I am developer converted to designer. And Mac help me in the transition buy providing good and affordable tools and as everyone started I used windows in my begin then switch to Linux and after that to Mac and never went back. I not saying I became a fan boy, but I trusting this product a lot.

Totally agree, I used to work with a HP running Ubuntu 14.04 but the UI just sucks and most of those tiny functionalities that are available on the Mac just makes you not think of getting another laptop. I don't think I can ever use another machine that is not a Mac. I just recently found out that you could create a digital signature on the mac, also imagine the ease of taking a screen snapshot. With windows you would have installed two shitty software's to do that.

It's been a long long time since I've seen a developer using a Windows laptop. I don't think you're living in a bubble....it's like that everywhere. Every student in my undergrad CS program was using Macs, everyone at my work uses Macs, every place I've interviewed provide Macs to their employees (including huge companies like Google and Facebook).

About 6 months ago I looked for a an alternative to a MacBook. Price was not a factor. I came from an old thinkpad T400. Keyboard was great.

What I wanted was a damn trackpad that was awesome. I spent a lot of time in different stores trying various laptops and their trackpad. Nothing came close. So I ended up with an Macbook. All in all they are solid workhorses that take a lot of abuse. The biggest gripe is that updates tend to make everything more unstable and my battery life is going to shit with El Capitan.

How many of your coworkers deal with C/C++ code and not JS and other "web tech"?

The way i see it, the return of the Mac has coincided with the rise of the Web. This because the web started as a document layout format, and thus formal courses found themselves in the same group as "media production" (print media in particular).

And that world has been a Mac bastion since the earliest day of gray scale screens and Photoshop 1.0.

Not many, actually they all worked with web stuff(RoR,Javascript) and elastic search, while I was working with Microsoft Asp.NET and other web stuff.

Most non-Mac laptops are designed to be as cheap as possible. That means, of course, they break a lot.

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