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Comment by ducttape12 | Hacker News Reader

I've struggled with this idea - almost everything (outside Apple specific development) is ported to Windows. My work is in .NET and various Javascript frameworks. Never had a problem with Windows.

Plus I feel if I really needed a Linux environment, the Linux subsystem would fill that need.

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> Plus I feel if I really needed a Linux environment, the Linux subsystem would fill that need.

Have you actually used it? A bunch of devs I work with continually have issues relating to WSL so i'm not sure if its comparable to macOS.

Early WSL was a pain, but they’ve come a long way. My entire web dev stack works natively on WSL these days–and WSL2 is due any day now, which should make it entirely on-par going forward.

That's big news! Apparently any day now is by the end of June. Here's the announcement for anyone who (like me) hadn't already heard:

    https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/

I'm a little skeptical given the shortcomings/difficulties I encountered last year, but a solid competitor to macOS as a unix workstation with broad desktop app support would be great to have.

Even in the last year it’s actually a dramatic shift in the landscape. I use WSL as my full-time development environment with Docker/PHP/Node.JS, and have few problems getting anything working–no more than any other platform.

Yeah, I really wanted to WSL to be ready for prime time, and bought a Dell XPS 13 on that expectation, but... nope. It's still mostly promise, you only pull off using it for day-to-day unix-based dev if you're willing to put in a lot of effort, jump through hoops, address unanticipated conditions, and otherwise engage in a lot of yak-shaving.

Our family has lots of Apple hardware and I’ve had Macs off on over the years. But, the last time I owned a Mac - the 2006 Core Duo Mac Mini - I realized that there was no software that I was using on it that I couldn’t get for Windows that I cared about.

I also told myself I needed a Windows laptop for hobby projects outside of work. A few things happened to make me think about getting another Mac within the next 18 months.

- All of my work now is cross platform .Net Core, JavaScript, and Python.

- I don’t have any plans on doing any Windows specific development.

- In the unlikely event that I need to do anything on Windows, I’ll spin up an EC2 instance in my hobby AWS account.

- the chances of any company I work for not giving me a Windows laptop is slim.

But honestly, I don’t do side projects that aren’t work related and I hardly ever use my computer at home besides as a Plex server. I use my iPad at home mostly with a Bluetooth keyboard for the rare personal MS Office work

Sketch is probably the single biggest seller of Mac's.

I'd say it's probably Microsoft Office or Photoshop…

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