Ask HN: Why macOS?
Why do I always see developers using MacOS for everything? I would assume developers would be the first ones to use a much more customizable system like some DIY linux distro or something. Is there something im missing here?
I'm mostly using Ubuntu on laptops, but there are small annoyances usually, things don't work as well out of the box given the variety of hardware out there.
Yet, when you replace MacOS on those well-engineered laptops, trackpad sensitivity and battery life suffers.
You can technically run other systems, but better to simply run MacOS.
There’s a parallel universe where chromebooks had a more functional stock local terminal, or Windows did WSL much earlier, where I’d be using one of those options.
I find that my Linux laptops have excellent terminals, decent battery life, are slim enough, I never worry about hardware compatibility these days, and I never have to fight with some half-assed GUI configurator instead of just editing a config file.
No actual evidence, to be honest, and I don’t think it, only wonder it (thus the ‘I wonder if maybe …?’ phrasing). I’ve never used it, I just know that it was in some ways a predecessor of Unix and I believe it was designed as a coherent whole; I wonder if it — like so many other things — could have been iterated on rather than replaced.
It’s so much more fun to replace things, but I have come to think that it is very often less work to evolve a system than to replace one. Not an idea original to me: Joel Spolsky wrote about it in 2000!
At $WORK we have moved to Windows 11 with WSL2 and it has been largely pain free.
WSL2 handles our Linux needs and development environment to include containers.
VS Code is our primary IDE and works well for WSL2 and containers.
IT is happy because they like admining Windows and don't have as much trouble with lab hardware drivers.
Developers are happy because they have Linux and VS Code.
Management is happy because it costs less than Macs.
Your needs and preferences may be different.
That is fine. Use what works best for you.
Developers prefer to customize the tools/applications that they use (i.e IDE, terminal, editors etc) not necessarily the OS itself. Other reason being that the requirement of IT teams to manage the systems as easily as possible. There are many easy to use MDM solutions for macOS.
My home system is Linux.
Some people want that. I just want a machine that mostly works most of the time, where I don't have to spend too much fighting it. And OS X is that.
Windows is flat out not an option for me; I'm pretty sure that they don't show advertisements in the start menu or task bar anymore, and that their weird mix of touch-screen OS and desktop OS is only slightly worse than the OS X approach - but I'm not willing to put in the time to find out.