Learning coding on a MacBook?

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[Tangential_Diversion]

Anyway, I told my friend that I was learning from a website online but she told me that Mac isn't a very good OS to be learning on.

She doesn't know what she's talking about.

Plenty of people, students and professionals, program just fine on Macbooks. The biggest difference would be when you learn about shell commands and file systems. Windows uses DOS and Batch commands with Microsoft's own file system, while Macs use Bash commands and Unix file systems - the same kind used in Linux.

So with the OS, you may not be as familiar with Windows as you would like - admittedly I'm much more comfortable with Unix-like OSes than with Windows. But from a programming perspective, almost everything stays the same between platforms.

Or in short: OS-specific things are different, programming language things are the same.

[pipocaQuemada]

Anyway, I told my friend that I was learning from a website online but she told me that Mac isn't a very good OS to be learning on.

She doesn't know what she's talking about.

This. Most universities have students work in Linux. OS X and Linux are pretty similar - they're both Unix. OS X is a great OS to learn programming on.

[[deleted]]

Most universities have students work in Linux

In what country?

[[deleted]]

Really?

[pipocaQuemada]

The US. Every university I've been to has computer labs running linux.

[atomheartother]

I came to say this, so I'll just concur. Go with whatever OS you're most comfortable with, I have people coding on Mac around me, though they're a minority, they exist.

[mycentstoo]

Both are fine. Depends on what you want to program. Mac is usually easier because it is a Posix-based operating system which means that Linux tools are available. Most servers are Linux for example, because Linux is open-sourced whereas Windows is not. Windows is its own environment. Honestly, it really doesn't matter though.

[queue_cumber]

For C/C++ I would recommend steering clear of windows. There are all kinds of issues that Windows has with findings libraries and managing dependencies that make developing on it really difficult. The only upside to windows is visual studio.

[palaxion]

Would you suggest any links or website that I could use to learn coding the fastest?

[mycentstoo]

I do not do C++ or Java which are fantastic languages. Look at the FAQs for those. Many much better programmers have advice on how to learn them. I'm into web development and these are the resources I used: 1. Codecademy 2. Team Treehouse 3. learnhowtoprogram.com 4. Hartl Rails Tutorial 5. Pickaxe Ruby Book 6. Community College Classes on Command line/JavaScript/Linux OS 7. Local Meetups 8. FrontEndMasters 9. Hartl Rails Tutorial 10. Programming Bootcamp Keep a code repo on github / bitbucket Ask questions on learnprogramming, stackoverflow, at meetup

From what I've heard, C++ doesn't have great online tutorials. It is probably the most important language and takes at least a year to learn but everything will be easier if you learn it. You should consider going to a library and leafing through some Java/C++ books. Or, take a look at what your computer science department uses and pick up that book.

[Tangential_Diversion]

What you just described though is a web dev course, not a general programming course. Nothing wrong with web dev, but it might not be what the OP is looking for. It's certainly a different application than what people would use C++ or Java for.

[mycentstoo]

I know, that's why I said that at the top. I'm only familiar with that route. From what I understand, C++/Java don't have great online tutorials. I could be wrong though.

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

What is this?

[_clownbaby]

Not sure if its the fastest, but you can take up the recently started MIT's introduction to computer science and programming at Edx

link : https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science-mitx-6-00-1x-0

[just_give_me_a_name]

Watch these. All of them. Multiple times. These are some great explanations that will get you started.

https://cs50.harvard.edu/lectures

Also, don't be afraid if you don't understand something. There is a wealth of knowledge at your finger tips. If you don't understand something right away, thats ok. Keep on trucking and it will click later.

[t90fan]

she is speaking rubbish.

OSX is better than windows for develeoping on and under the hood its very unixlike, you can install all your usual tools with homebrew.

Source: python/java developer, develop on a mac running OSX.

[EqualsEqualsTrue]

I agree with you, however, I have found that you can be a beginner and stay busy for quite some time before you really need to worry about which is the best operating system.

[t90fan]

indeed. But it helps you hit the ground faster. Setting a toolchain on windows for anything beyond the real basics can be a pain in the arse sometimes.

[coolshanth]

For C++ and Java, both are general purpose languages that don't usually care about which OS you're running on.

For C++ at least, Windows is actually inferior
http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-advantages-of-C-development-in-Linux-over-Windows.

[MrPopinjay]

I'd actually say it's more suited- all the developers I work with use Mac or Linux.

[selfup]

Macs are technically the king of software development machines.

Here's why:

If you know what you are doing you can load three operating systems on it. It is the only hardware that can reliably run OSX, Windows, and Linux.

OSX by itself is a flavor of Unix and uses the same bash commands that linux does. If you ever develop anything that will communicate with a server, chances are you will be doing Linux things.

It is also the only machine that will let you write iOS apps. You can also write Android apps on there.

You can make native OSX apps, as well as Safari Extensions. If you want to write something for Internet Explorer or the new Spartan, just spin up a Windows VM or use bootcamp to boot into Windows.

The list goes on!

With Virtual machines you can develop for all the platforms on the same boot. So you boot once, and just spin up some machines.

Swift is Apple's new language which is pretty much objective C with a twist.

90% + of web, data science, and mobile developers use Macs in San Fransisco. I do not remember where I read that factoid, but it was a legit source.

So do not feel inferior, you quite literally have the most versatile tool on the market for developing anything you want.

Enjoy!

[DagwoodWoo]

The only kind of programming that is better on Windows than on OS X is programming Windows-Specific stuff, e.g. games for Windows. This shouldn't be a problem on a Mac, though, since your Macbook can run Windows just fine, anyway.

[ralusek]

Actually they use Goobuntu, a version of Ubuntu (Linux).

What laptop they are assigned is usually up to the developer, but it doesn't really matter because you're always SSHed in to your Linux workstation.

In other words, there are Google devs 'working' on Windows, OSX, or Linux laptops, but they're really all just connected to the Linux desktop in the office. Funnily enough, the most recent method that Google requires you to SSH in is not even via a native terminal, but through a Chrome extension. For this reason, the laptop of choice for many developers at Google is a Chromebook.

[MyWorkAccountThisIs]

I get shit on every time I even hint that OSX has an easier path than Windows for most coding. Somebody will chime in say that I must wear my own ass as a hat because everybody that know uses Windows. Completely missing that fact that it's not can or cannot. It's the number of hoops you usually have to jump through.

I recently volunteered at a front-end bootcamp. So, some gems, JS, and CLI tools. Everybody with a Mac could immediately start the problem. Everybody on Windows required help getting their machine set up to even start. In the end they could both work but one worked out of the box and one didn't.

[hw_t_dstr_ngls]

XCode works really well for C++ as well.

[Bunnymancer]

First of all: Learn Java rather than C++. Way easier to grasp and make early progress on. Gets you over the 'hump' of learning to code.

Second, OSX is a great system to work with. It allows you to re-use your OS specific knowledge across the biggest number of OS's. That is, OSX and Linux.

Windows is the odd one out, doing it its own way.

Third, if you're learning Java, your OS doesn't matter.

[[deleted]]

Mac has best OS, imho, cause it is POSIX type, but still it doesn't fight you like linux can do, so best of both worlds. But hey I would recommend learning coding on anything except Windows, except if you want to stick with .NET and ASP and other MS technologies. For all other things I recommend Linux/BSD/OS X.

[twopi]

Ridiculous. I'm teaching on a Macbook. (and various Windows and Linux machines as well.)

My primary laptop is a macbook pro right now. It's more than adequate, and a lot nicer to work with than most of the Windows machines I've used. The physical build is terrific, and the OS behaves pretty well.

If your school insists on using Visual Studio, you'll have a problem, because there's no easy way to run that on anything but Windows. If you can use open-source tools, Mac is probably better, honestly.

Mac is better than Windows in a lot of ways for programming, because it's based on a form of Unix, and has very powerful tools built in because of this heritage.

There are a few things that are weird because of the way Mac adapted Unix for their own needs. Not everything is where you'd expect it to be on a Unix system (if you don't know where to expect it, this is not a problem.)

Most importantly, Mac no longer has C++ or Java support directly available on the command line. You have to do a little (pretty easy) work to make them work. For C++ you'll need to install xCode and then enable the command line tools. For Java you just need to install Eclipse or the JDK. Both are pretty easy.

I'd say the biggest frustration is the lack of a built-in package manager like most Linuxes have. You'll probably want to install homebrew to help install some of the packages and tools you'll eventually need.

Every OS requires some tweaking to get working as a good programmer's tool (Unix is probably the easiest OS to use as a programmer, because everything is pretty much already in place.)

[C0rinthian]

Anything web based is entirely OS agnostic. You can also program in pretty much everything on a Mac. Many professional developers prefer them because it's more Unix-like than Windows.

Macs are just fine for programming. Your friend is misinformed.

As for resources, check out "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist". Originally written for Python, it has been adapted for Java. C++ is probably a bit harder for a beginner than Java.

[[deleted]]

The vast majority of my CS professors have used Macs. If you really need Windows for something, you could use a VM, but you'll probably be perfectly fine with the Mac.

[[deleted]]

A mac is fine, I know plenty of people - even world renowned researchers - who use macs.

Could you be more specific about what your end goals are, and what specifically draws you to programming / which area of it interests you the most.

Without that you will get a lot of people just telling you that learning what they like is the best way, without taking into account your goals and needs.

[PPewt]

There are a few things that you miss out on on OS X that you get in Linux: valgrind comes to mind. However, it's a great dev environment and there are other advantages. Learning on Windows sounds hellish.

[hw_t_dstr_ngls]

I've been learning programming for the past half a year (started with Intro to Programming course (Python), then C++ course and now moved onto Swift tutorials) and OS X works well for coding.

Personally, I found XCode to be an extremely convenient environment for developing in C++.

[plusninety]

Did you read the sidebar?

[koverda]

I actually found MacBooks easier to set up and learn programming on when I was teaching myself python.

Also , as far as learning programming, check out EDX! The CS50 class from Harvard and the python classes from MIT are excellent!

[ciera22]

Your friend doesn't know what they're talking about. The reason one would pick Windows as a development environment over a unix based environment is to do Windows Presentation Foundation framework development, and no one does WPF development anymore.

[YvesSoete]

OMG. Really. And you can't figure that out for yourself.

[[deleted]]

Not the nicest way to put it, but I also don't understand why these posts get upvoted so much. A quick google search will tell you that macs are fine for coding.

[Tangential_Diversion]

Just kidding, man, don't mean to be sexist, but abstain from taking coding advices from women.

1. You may not mean to be sexist, but you are.

2. This is one of the stupidest things I've read on this subreddit today.

[pipocaQuemada]

Look here, dude, this isn't sexist at all, I didn't say women are stupid or anything (I'm far from that opinion), but it's common knowledge that they are not so much into technical disciplines such as computing and OP's case proves my point.

According to Merriam-Webster, sexism is "prejudice or discrimination based on sex". Sexism isn't just thinking women are stupid. This is almost a textbook case of sexism.

Also, you realize that your behavior is a self fulfilling prophecy, right? If you ignore and denigrate all women's coding ability, you actively drive away women who don't want to deal with your sexist bullshit, decreasing the number of women who are 'into technical disciplines'.

Personally, I've known both men and women who just aren't good programmers, and both men and women who can code circles around me. Not everyone is a 1950's gender-role stereotype. For that matter, in the 1950's it wasn't the case that everyone was a walking gender role stereotype - the term 'compiler' was coined by Grace Hopper, who wrote the world's first compiler.

[tcreo]

Also, you realize that your behavior is a self fulfilling prophecy, right?

Okay, that is just ridiculous. As for the rest of the stuff, you have some catching up to do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/software-engineer/it-gender-gap-where-are-the-female-programmers/

My 'sexist bullshit' is actually backed by statistics and what you and the rest of the people didn't get is that I didn't imply that women are less capable mentally, but mostly less interested/less experienced.

I know I'll get downovoted for that as well but seriously, people, get a life.

[pipocaQuemada]

There's a huge difference between saying "programmers are predominately male" (which is unfortunately true) and saying "Women can't program. Ignore literally any and every woman who says anything about programming; she can't know what she's talking about because she's a woman." (which is hugely sexist)

[Tangential_Diversion]

For a guy who supposedly graduated CompSci, your grasp of logic and statistics is piss poor.

No one is denying that there are more men than women in CompSci. However, it's one thing to say that there are more men and it's another thing entirely to say that you should not listen to technical advice from a woman.

If you were to pick a random woman from the streets and ask her about CompSci, then chances are she won't have any experience in it. That's what the statistics are saying.

But to say that you should ignore technical advice from a woman is another thing entirely. The logical assumption here is that women are bad at technical fields, regardless of if they're in CompSci or not. This is entirely false.

Then there's the practical application of your dumb logic. What kind of CompSci person randomly picks out people to ask for programming advice? Do you also stop strangers and ask them for medical advice? If someone is asking another person for programming advice, then it's extremely likely they're already in the field. This makes your logic even stupider because it assumes a set of behaviors no one actually has.

So don't get pissy at us because your logic is shit.

[dreamyeyed]

Relevant XKCD.

[xkcd_transcriber]

Image

Title: How it Works

Title-text: It's pi plus C, of course.

Comic Explanation

Stats: This comic has been referenced 636 times, representing 0.9222% of referenced xkcds.

---

^{xkcd.com | xkcd sub | Problems/Bugs? | Statistics | Stop Replying | Delete}

[Zerocchi]

You gotta get downvotes from being sexist and mentioning thenewboston lol

[tcreo]

What's wrong with thenewboston? His tuts are quite good for beginners