I assumed many developers would prefer Windows because you can now run real Linux inside Windows. If your server code is going to run on Linux it helps to also have Linux on your laptop.
Sorta. Not that I use Windows much but from comments here on HN I inferred that the first windows subsystem for linux was decent ish. But then they launched WSL 2 that runs a VM behind the scenes with Linux in it and that limits what you can do with the rest of the OS.
Someone with actual experience please correct me if i'm wrong...
Personally, using a Mac or Windows device is a sign that I'll be using VMs for development anyways. With WSL, that VM is tightly integrated with my host system - on MacOS it's a window into a different computer. Nowadays I'd prefer to avoid both OSes wherever possible, but I'd probably err on the side of using Windows for development simply because you can install Ubuntu with one click.
Brew and macports have to basically start the world from scratch again on a mac to get something resembling a good work environment, and it's STILL terrible. Every single time my work laptop updates anything, I basically have to rebuild those environments again because Xcode overwrites anything I may have configured back to defaults, defaults which were deprecated and non-viable for a secure product like a decade ago. I run into issues with the included version of SSL like twice a month, all because apple refuses to do the leg work to manage the licensing for more modern versions.
Meanwhile in windows world, I can download a nearly full version of ubuntu with one click, run it as if it lives on it's own box, and yet still use tools that jump the layer between windows and linux to make it seem like it's not even there. It's pretty powerful. In some ways, the single best linux installation is the one you get on windows. It's so seamless I use powershell, CMD, and the linux shell interchangeably on my computer.
I recommend giving it a whirl if you're at your wit's end with Mac packaging: https://nixos.org/download.html#nix-install-macos
I used to run Ubuntu for work (dell xps) but the hardware quality was infuriating. My model literally came apart (hinge detached).
I'd much rather spend the hour on dev env than spend a week without a laptop because of poor quality control
* USB access is more difficult than just plugging something in.
* Debugging tools like perf, RR, etc were either unsupported because they needed hardware counters or required custom builds (no system headers in apt to help either).
* The VM takes a lot of disk space.
The rest of the experience was fairly smooth. WSL2 can access the entire filesystem through /mnt/<drive letter>/. Windows -> WSL is a bit janky, but it works. GPU access is supported. Network access works. You can use a remote X session to get GUIs working, though you need to be comfortable with linux. Unfortunately having DISPLAY set caused pip to hang for long periods due to [1], but apparently that's been resolved.
All in all, it mostly replaced my windows usage by the end. It's also a great workaround for legacy IT environments where the system is configured with Windows and only Windows.
Unfortunately, Windows Windows is just the worst of the major OSes today. Windows still has the most market share and the most support, and there are still things it does better than Linux. But Linux and Mac are still better options in most cases.