Ask HN: Most productive OS for web developers?
Which OS do you find most productive for web development?
Despite being a big fan of opensource and how much I love Linux I think a OSx machine is far more productive, for these reasons:
* It just works. I am well aware that linux is way better than 5 years ago and works just fine on most systems, but I am yet to not need some sort of tweak and configuration to run Linux on a laptop, to the Linux is defense considering that number of target platforms it is inevitable.
* Adobe creative suit. Yes, there is alternatives, inkescape, gimp, and others but they're still way behind.
* It's still nix. I am not going into technical difference or the background and what not, from a users perspective, I can install Homebrew and use most of nix tools.
* More visualization options You can't visualize OSx on Linux or Windows for legal and practical reasons but you can still run Windows and OSx on Mac.
Obviously these are mostly only an issue if you are involved with front-end development where you need design and cross-browser compatibility tests and such, if you're doing only back-end, Linux works just fine once you get it run and learn to stop spending time to tweak it.
I have an OSX and XP virtual machine on my Ubuntu chroot on my HP Chromebook 14, so I don't know where you're getting this from.
I try hard to like linux, but this is where it fails. It's the small small things that annoy you.
I'll flip between code, photoshop and browsers like this 100s of times a day.
Though, you can't talk about the OS without the software that runs on it.
Transmit (ftp) is hands down the best (S)Ftp program I've ever used and I've become a fan of Sublime Text.
At home I keep a few Windows PCs around for IE testing and at work I run Parallels
You can actually get free IE VMs for testing. http://www.modern.ie/en-gb/virtualization-tools
Also as front end developer, I'm tied to commercial software (Photoshop, Illustrator mostly, sometimes Indesign and Lightroom) and while there are Linux solutions they aren't ideal.
My job of course can be done from any OS, but OS X I feel offers the most advantages having the best of both worlds from Linux and OS X. I'm able to config apache2 and manage my own Vhosts more sanely than Windows, but I'm also not as beholden to open source and always running workarounds like WINE and VMs for everyday stuff.
I was a big proponent of Ubuntu (and Linux in general) for years, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was able to tweak the hell out of my environment, and I didn't mind doing the occasional Google to see what I need to do to make some package install/function correctly. I thought I enjoyed that, since I felt a little victory rush when it finally worked.
However, I recently bought a Macbook Air, and haven't looked back. The form factor is amazing, the trackpad is the best I've experienced so far, and I feel pretty close to home with the underlying Unix OS. Workspaces in OS X are really great.
I find myself WAY more productive with my Macbook than I ever was on Linux. I'm never wrestling with the OS (as cliché as it is, pretty much everything "just works"), and I'm still empowered to tweak my environment to my liking. The software available for the Mac is pretty consistently great (even though I almost always have to pay for it, I don't mind). Alfred 2 (an application launcher/productivity tool), along with the Powerpack, has saved me untold hours of productivity: I rarely have to take my fingers off the keyboard while working. Dash (a local docset manager) has rescued me numerous times while working offline, and has saved me a good bit of time (Ctrl+H in Sublime -> API docs on the spot).
Overall, it's all the little things that add up to making it a wonderful experience. I'll echo the testimonial that helped me get over the hump to buying a Mac: "Using this machine is so delightful that I find myself writing more, and higher quality, code than I ever have before. My designs have grown by leaps and bounds, since I'm always reminded what great design looks and feels like. My Mac inspires me to create great things." (copy-pasted from a Skype chat with a coworker a few months ago). A little over the top, yes, but I agree with most of it: I also find myself coding more in my spare time, which has resulted in better performance at work. On the topic of my job, I've transitioned from a 2-monitor desktop setup, to exclusively working off my Macbook, and haven't looked back.
I'm by no means an "Apple fanboy", but I'm going to tell you in full seriousness, wanting only for you to find the same happiness and productivity gains that I and others have: do yourself a favor and get a Mac.
The front-end developers at my shop spend a lot of time interacting with the graphics department and less time interacting with the production servers, databases, etc. So they need to be on similar platform as the designers -- OSX. If they were on Linux the workflow of going between Adobe and Gimp would add an additional unnecessary hassle since frequently Gimp ends up rendering PSD files differently then how graphics is seeing it on their Mac. The downside is if they do end up being tasked with something back-end heavy they have to rely on virtualization or a development box running Linux.
If, you're more involved in the back-end and spend more time interacting with the servers, building databases, models, writing deployment/automation scripts and not really touching the markup, then I figure it's best to be on whatever OS your production servers are running or at least something as close as possible. It just nice to have stuff intuitively work 1:1 instead of having to mentally remind yourself of the subtle differences between OSX and Linux or finding yourself relying on packages that are available on one OS but not the other. If I'm using Linux day in and out, I'm more likely to have a full understanding of how it works than if I'm only interacting with it in random encounters with the production and staging servers.
Around the time Windows 8 came out I built a new pc and started using Win8 as my main OS. Now, my workflow basically consists of git, sublime, Photoshop/Illustrator, and gulp. I do use putty/rdp for server admin related tasks and filezilla for any ftp needs. I am pretty obsessive about having a clean OS, knowing exactly where my files are, and having as much customization as I need/want and I feel like Windows does that better for me than OS X. I also just prefer the design of Win8 to OS X.
Here is the kicker, most of things I prefer about Windows can be accomplished on OS X, it's just a personal preference. In general, I don't think Windows 8 is necessarily better than OS X for everyone but for me it is better. Find the OS you like, find the tools that you are most productive with, and build great products :)
The main reason is multiple desktops and speed of switching between programs. For example I use 10 desktops with the following programs on each:
1 - Web Browser 2 - Terminal 3 - Apps (whatever project I'm working on logs its console output here) 4 - Unit tests on left, integration tests on right 5 - Music manager 6 - SSH (into test / prod server usually) 7 - Collectd server stats 8/9 - Misc 0 - Webstorm
So whenever I need anything it's a single keypress away, instead of alt tabbing or jumping between a bunch of windows trying to find the one I want. It's allowed me to work while travelling the world on a 13" laptop when I used to have to use 3 large monitors at home to feel productive.
It's also really easy to jump between and reorganise windows with vim bindings.
I've developed on OS X in the past, used to have a linux box as my main desktop OS, and I currently develop a project that's targeted for linux and so I develop on a linux VM, and I am constantly amazed at how frustrating the process can be, even more amazing that people actually convince themselves they prefer this to a more streamlined process.
Ubuntu also gives me a powerful set of commands. Easy installations and I dont need to keep reaching for my mouse. Meaning I can keep over the keyboard to complete all the tasks I need to.
Doing .net work? Windows.
Doing Rails? Probably OSX.
Doing Python? Slight edge towards linux.
Java? Toss up.
Etc..
These days, it doesn't matter much if it's OS X, Windows, or Linux -- as long as it is configured to stay out of your way and let you get your work done.
However, my affinity for OSX is also tied to the hardware...and so much of the pleasure in computing is tied to how well the Apple hardware works, regardless of the software.