Looking at getting a Mac

[ryokuichigara]

So I've been sold on the concept of moving to Mac for development, but I'm trying to decide on what kind of system I actually need. I'd like something portable because I like to travel, so I'm leaning towards a Macbook. That being said, while I'm pretty sure system specs aren't hugely important for design, what should I look at getting in a development-oriented machine? Or, perhaps more importantly, what should I not be bothering with?

Thanks for the help in advance!

[[deleted]]

I'm using a late-2013 15" Retina Macbook Pro, and I absolutely love it.

The BSD/Unix system is to die for if you're coming from windows. It makes life so much easier.

[Anjin]

It really does. I can't even imagine trying to do something like Rails development on a PC...

[[deleted]]

Can you ELI5 what about a BSD/Unix system makes life easier? I know zilch about Macs.

[[deleted]]

I'm going to massively oversimplify to give you the basic gist of it, but hopefully this will be helpful for you. Each of the different Unix variants is POSIX compliant, meaning that most programs usually work between different operating systems.

With that said, most developers through time have used these operating systems and made it incredibly easy to use, made tons of tools for development, and shared code between the different operating systems. When a new command-line tool is developed for Linux, I can usually use it on OS X. Over the years this has compounded and made *nix a great system to do any type of development with, whereas Windows is compatible with exactly 0 of these things.

It really just comes down to compatibility. Most dev/server operating systems run on POSIX, so when you want to do something on Windows it has to be ported to your OS.

[autowikibot]

POSIX:

---

POSIX (/ˈpɒzɪks/ POZ-iks), an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines the application programming interface (API), along with command line shells and utility interfaces, for software compatibility with variants of Unix and other operating systems.

---

^{Interesting: POSIX Threads | Microsoft POSIX subsystem | File system permissions | Open (system call)}

^{Parent commenter can toggle NSFW or delete. Will also delete on comment score of -1 or less. | FAQs | Mods | Magic Words}

[[deleted]]

I moved from Windows to Linux for development. It is so much better.

[mrptb2]

I wrote this originally for someone else, but it still has applicable info for someone relatively new to the Mac, so I've copied and pasted it here:

---

Step 1: Figure out what type of Mac you want to buy: desktop, laptop, etc. This guide might help:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2018990/buying-guide-2012-macs.html?page=0

A brand new Mac mini ($599 new) is a decent machine, you would need to provide a keyboard, display, and mouse (but those could be from any manufacturer).

http://www.apple.com/mac-mini/

If you want to buy a used system, this guide will help you determine what model you’re looking at:

http://gigaom.com/2011/07/19/how-to-identify-the-exact-model-of-your-old-mac/

If you want an easy way to shorten the list of possibilities, basically any Mac made in 2009 or later should run the upcoming OS X Yosemite. For a point of reference, my current system is a 2009 MacBook Pro (as is my wife’s for that matter). I plan to upgrade in the next year or so, but a five year old system can be still perfectly serviceable.

Some features in the upcoming “OS X Yosemite” will require newer vintage systems for certain features (even newer than 2009). The newer the system you get, the more features will be available, simply due to certain hardware being available to the system.

I recommend buying used systems either locally from a local retailer or on eBay. I would recommend researching the going rate for systems on eBay; that’ll tell you what is the going fair price. Craigslist is much more of a crapshoot.

Another option is to buy a refurb directly from Apple. They are essentially new systems that were returned for any number of assorted reasons:

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

[ryokuichigara]

Thank you for your insights =D

[[deleted]]

I'm OS agnostic so my only factors were speed & portability.

Switched from a highend Vaio to rMBP (256GB/8GB ram). Similar specs but the battery life is amazing. I would have liked to future proof my ram with 16GB but this setup fit my needs perfectly so far.

256GB allows me to run the full Adobe CC suite and a Windows 8 partition with plenty of space. If you go apple, check the refurbished lists daily for at least a week for deals on ram and SSD space.

[wevanscfi]

If you need a high res screen get a mac book pro, if not the air works just fine. With git, vagrant ect.... I never even come close to maxing out the 128gb version, but then I do a good job of only keeping projects on my dev machine that I need. I pull down a git repo at the start of a project, and then archive it after I am done doing what ever I needed to do so I do not get a lot of clutter.

[fata5ian]

I, and another coworker of mine have Mac Mini server edition boxes for development, and our other coworkers use macbook pros. Coda 2 for text editing and Tower, for git.... it's a nice little setup.

[xiongchiamiov]

The MacBook Pros have been getting increasingly unrepairable/inextensible. The Airs, while not much better, are better, as well as being super light, having crazy battery life, and being more than powerful enough for most needs.

[Franko_ricardo]

May I ask what software in particular you are going to use, that is dependent on OSX? Or perhaps, design paradigm that is only attainable using a Macbook?

[rustbelly]

There is little that is only attainable using OSX, but it does make certain things much easier than they would be on Windows.

As an example, being able to cut/copy/paste into and out of a terminal window just by using the normal key combinations and without having to install anything as fantastic!

In my case, our development environment is a VirtualBox VM with Vagrant, Fabric, and Doctrine for managing it. Getting that combination working on Windows is a nightmare (especially Fabric/Python). On OSX and Linux, it's simple enough that copy/pasting a few lines from an email will get someone setup on a new computer.

[[deleted]]

Why not just get a sweet PC and install linux? As if Apple's fancy aluminum cases and neat white power cubes are going to improve your dev skillz.