Ask HN: Do I need a Mac in order to be taken seriously as a web developer? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do I need a Mac in order to be taken seriously as a web developer?

People used to use Windows for business, Linux for programming, and Mac for art. The use of Mac for development has risen significantly since the advent of iOS and I seem to notice a growing trend of web developers moving to Mac. I have always considered Macs to be overpriced and representative of a "style over function" mentality, but I now accept Apple hardware and software to be of high functional quality. I am finding more and more web development tools, guides, and tutorials aimed at Mac OS X.

What trends have you noticed?

What trends do you anticipate?

Is it time for me to bite the bullet and go Apple as I attempt to break into web development in the next couple years?

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Short answer: No

Long answer: The computer you use is just a tool. To be taken seriously you need to have an impressive portfolio of projects, you will be judged by your results and not by the tools you used.

I guess my real questions are: Are Macs the best tools available? If yes, will they remain the best tools available? Will the trend of development tools and communities targeting Mac OS continue?

Quit worrying about this crap and start making stuff. I know that sounds like a harsh non-answer, but it's true. I offer it because sometimes I have the same problem. Quit sharpening pencils and start writing.

Do as much as you can with whatever computer you have and a copy of gedit or something similar. If you hit the limits of this within the first few months, it's probably your limit, not the tools. If not, then by that time you will be able to determine for yourself what tools you need.

Amen to all of this

"Best Tool" is highly subjective.

Don't forget the reason why Mac Development is so vogue right now really does have to do with the fact that the OS is based on BSD now, and thus it's a lot easier to get things from the wider Linux world onto the Mac platform. The Linux platform has really been exploding lately, and that's helped Mac out tremendously (In my opinion; Please let me know if I'm talking out of my ass here).

However, don't just go get a Linux box either.

Find what works for you, and go with it.

No. If you want to be taken seriously as a web developer, I would argue to take testing and cross-browser compatibility (HTML/CSS/JS) seriously, whatever machine/environment you decide use doesn't matter.

It depends what you want. If you're trying to get a job, then yeah, it might actually help to seem more like the cool kids. Get a Mac, use RoR/Node.js, insist on NoSQL, and wear a Afghan scarf too for good measure.

In practical terms it doesn't matter at all. The web is cross-platform and if anything I'd say Linux has the advantage as a development environment. It allows you to create a local environment identical to your server environment.

I'd say Linux has the advantage as a development environment

It really depends on how far you lean towards design, if you do a bit of design you are going to find more support on the OSX side, if you do pretty much all code, then I would say you can forgo the Mac. I agree with the parent post though that Linux or one of the Unix variants (Including OSX) has broader development tools support that Windows.

The other thing is a quality PC laptop is going to be pretty close in cost. I view the Sager laptops as being on par with Apple as far as quality of components and they where not that much cheaper last time I looked at them.

That's hilarious. We just bought the cheapest stuff with the best hardware we could find. At the end of the day it gets the job done and we saved a bunch of money that we can use to keep going longer.

To answer the question posed in your title: Absolutely not.

If anything (like another poster here have mentioned), Linux seems to have the most advantage out of "The Big 3", but it really doesn't matter in the long term. You should try to be fluent in at least one environment (OS) , and capable in the others.

Thanks to virtualization, you can run Linux or MacOS on Windows, or any vice-versa-ed combination you might choose. Pick the platform that has the best tools for the language you want, and go with it.

One caveat: If you work in an office with all macs, don't be the guy with the windows machine making the rest of the teams life more difficult. Same goes for an all Linux or all Windows shop. For your professional development needs, you should strive to work in unison with your team.

Personal needs? Go with your heart.

I have also thought about this lately although not exactly in terms of being taken seriously as a developer but I am noticing more and more that, the "publicly seen" portable computer of choice is Mac OS X. In more and more recorded video tutorials, presentations(seminars)- you see the developer using Mac OS X. Sure I know it doesn't matter what you use as long as the job gets done. However sometimes you wonder why a mentor or someone you learn from change from say a Linux box to a Mac. You want to know what tipped the scale in favour of a Mac.

I run Linux on a Thinkpad, boot into Windows and OSX on virtual machines, and I don't know if I'm taken seriously, but I get a lot of work done.

Me too.

Its not the hardware, but the nut behind it that matters.

Hmm, tough question but if you don't have a Mac how do you test? With a Mac you can test easily on Windows and Linux. But if you just use Windows, then you need an alternate machine to test for Mac compatibility, you can dual boot into LInux.

What do you mean by "Mac Compatibility"?

Safari?

Sure, you can test on equivalent browsers under Windows during development. That covers most problems. I wouldn't be comfortable with that though. Not for a final product.

Wanting the tried and true Mac environment for testing is fine.

But that's testing. Your QA team (even if its a team of 1) should have access to some kind of Mac environment. That doesn't mean your devs need to use Macs.

Ideally, anyways.

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