Is it possible to seriously code and web design on Windows?

[mosco]

LOL definitely not. In fact you shouldn't. You'll find lots of problems when you release your sites, because you would have tested them in Safari, while most of the users will use Internet Explorer (especially for e-commerce). You could go through the trouble of having a virtual machine or something to emulate Windows and IE, but save yourself the trouble and work and test on Windows. Windows has Photoshop too so no problem there (or you could use free alternatives like Gimp).

Bad advice.

 

[mosco]

I've worked at several places, and no where have I've seen most people (if anybody) using Macs. Is it a web development thing? I do more standard applications or embedded coding.

I would say it's a full stack thing.

Java used to be more difficult on the mac because Apple controlled it's Java package and it was difficult to have multiple versions of it installed and Apple would always lag and skip versions. Since Oracle now packages it, it has become a lot easier to run using the same versions as your production environment would and the mac version is always current.

Then you have all the other environments that work a lot better on macs like ruby/rails, node.js, etc. My company hosts the local meet ups for some of these things and most of the people seem to have macs.

In terms of hardware, a rMBP in either 13 or 15inch is a great development machine and I don't think you will find a PC laptop that has the battery life, screen, performance while running linux. And if some reason you do need linux, there are great tools like vagrant/chef for popping up clean VMs.

There are certainly areas where it wouldn't make sense to use a mac like embedded programming or windows development but for a lot of things it is the better choice.

 

[EightySix Four]

You used to be able to do it on Windows using some application that ported Android (java) code to Objective C, but Apple found a way to block that somehow.

Xamarin, and it still exists.

 

[mrjminer]

No experience with Ruby, but the only people I ever see / hear talking about how superior Macs are for programming are people that do front-end design for websites or use Photoshop. Amusingly, though, none of them have even tried to use anything else for the tasks because they were just told by their moronic Mac fanboy teachers that Macs were somehow better for these tasks, and they've just stuck with what they've learned to use. My guess is that some people don't connect the dots between looking at something on a $50 refurbished Dell monitor at their business vs looking at it on the $500-$1000 monitor that came with a Mac.

Like others have said, the OS makes little to no difference whatsoever. There's nothing special about a Mac PC, Windows PC, Linux PC, or anything else that makes their x86 commands any different than the other. Maybe at some point in history it mattered, perhaps Photoshop used to have a lot of bugs on the Windows version or something, but I have no idea.

All I can say is that now, there are little to no limitations with Mac or Windows (don't know about Linux since I don't use it) beyond just making sure whatever software/compiler you use runs; platform-specific bugs / feature differences are pretty few and far between for most things. But, hey, maybe one piece of software does happen to have that feature or bug on a certain platform and not others and it's something you really need/want/much better supported; go with that platform if that is a scenario you find yourself in.

ASP.NET, C#, VB, VBA, Metro, Silverlight, etc. == Windows
php, python, ruby, java, (insert twenty-five micro languages) == Linux
iOS, serious graphic design == Mac
Android == Mac, Linux, Windows, your choice.

As for this, there is Bootcamp to boot Windows on a mac for the windows solutions, and Mono for Linux (though not 100% support of .NET with it). PHP development is perfectly fine on Windows, as is Java (possibly Python/Ruby; haven't used either, but I've got a copy of JetBrains IDE for both so you could probably write the code for them without a problem, but they might be easier to set up / maintain on Linux). Serious graphic design only being viable on a Mac is a gross misconception.

Just from my personal experience, at least.

 

[Cogman]

No experience with Ruby, but the only people I ever see / hear talking about how superior Macs are for programming are people that do front-end design for websites or use Photoshop. Amusingly, though, none of them have even tried to use anything else for the tasks because they were just told by their moronic Mac fanboy teachers that Macs were somehow better for these tasks, and they've just stuck with what they've learned to use. My guess is that some people don't connect the dots between looking at something on a $50 refurbished Dell monitor at their business vs looking at it on the $500-$1000 monitor that came with a Mac.

Like others have said, the OS makes little to no difference whatsoever. There's nothing special about a Mac PC, Windows PC, Linux PC, or anything else that makes their x86 commands any different than the other. Maybe at some point in history it mattered, perhaps Photoshop used to have a lot of bugs on the Windows version or something, but I have no idea.

All I can say is that now, there are little to no limitations with Mac or Windows (don't know about Linux since I don't use it) beyond just making sure whatever software/compiler you use runs; platform-specific bugs / feature differences are pretty few and far between for most things. But, hey, maybe one piece of software does happen to have that feature or bug on a certain platform and not others and it's something you really need/want/much better supported; go with that platform if that is a scenario you find yourself in.



As for this, there is Bootcamp to boot Windows on a mac for the windows solutions, and Mono for Linux (though not 100% support of .NET with it). PHP development is perfectly fine on Windows, as is Java (possibly Python/Ruby; haven't used either, but I've got a copy of JetBrains IDE for both so you could probably write the code for them without a problem, but they might be easier to set up / maintain on Linux). Serious graphic design only being viable on a Mac is a gross misconception.

Just from my personal experience, at least.

The thing that mac does right is the fact that it is unix like. That means you get the full nice command prompt with bash. On top of that, if you are doing development in the open source world, it is pretty much expected that you are running in such a setup. You can do something like this in windows (cygwin, mingw's mysys, etc) but it certainly isn't as nicely integrated with the system as the standard linux/mac console.

Now, what does mac hold over linux? Practically nothing. The only thing you get with mac that you don't get with linux is more commercial applications which are polished (photoshop). The Open source alternatives have some pretty nasty UX problems. What you get with windows is the fact that almost everything will target windows, even a large number of open source libraries. There are very few applications which are mac only and even fewer that are linux only.

Now, speaking about Mac UX. I hear everyone describe it as the best and the easiest, and frankly I'm not sold. I personally believe that they have the best marketing department out there. They have convinced their user base that they have an amazing UX and their users bought it hook line and sinker. The only thing that apple has proven is that it is easier to polish a closed environment.



tl;dr Windows runs everything. Linux has a great development environment, mac is overpriced, but offers a similar development environment to linux.

 

[smackababy]

The thing that mac does right is the fact that it is unix like. That means you get the full nice command prompt with bash. On top of that, if you are doing development in the open source world, it is pretty much expected that you are running in such a setup. You can do something like this in windows (cygwin, mingw's mysys, etc) but it certainly isn't as nicely integrated with the system as the standard linux/mac console.

Now, what does mac hold over linux? Practically nothing. The only thing you get with mac that you don't get with linux is more commercial applications which are polished (photoshop). The Open source alternatives have some pretty nasty UX problems. What you get with windows is the fact that almost everything will target windows, even a large number of open source libraries. There are very few applications which are mac only and even fewer that are linux only.

Now, speaking about Mac UX. I hear everyone describe it as the best and the easiest, and frankly I'm not sold. I personally believe that they have the best marketing department out there. They have convinced their user base that they have an amazing UX and their users bought it hook line and sinker. The only thing that apple has proven is that it is easier to polish a closed environment.



tl;dr Windows runs everything. Linux has a great development environment, mac is overpriced, but offers a similar development environment to linux.

The only thing I prefer about Macs over Windows is their quality of laptops is superior to pretty much anything you can get for Windows. There isn't a laptop that is even close to the rMBP that fits my needs (at least 8gb RAM, SSD, decent resolution monitor, and a sturdy build).

 

[Cogman]

The only thing I prefer about Macs over Windows is their quality of laptops is superior to pretty much anything you can get for Windows. There isn't a laptop that is even close to the rMBP that fits my needs (at least 8gb RAM, SSD, decent resolution monitor, and a sturdy build).

http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/asus-zenbook-ux301.aspx

also

http://www.newegg.com/All-Ultrabooks...nMax=3200.5625

If you are willing to shell out the cash, you can find decent windows laptops which are built every bit as well as rMBPs are.

 

[purbeast0]

http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/asus-zenbook-ux301.aspx

also

http://www.newegg.com/All-Ultrabooks...nMax=3200.5625

If you are willing to shell out the cash, you can find decent windows laptops which are built every bit as well as rMBPs are.

yeah but you aren't allowed to do that, because then the whole "macs are overpriced" argument that people have goes out the window, because you know, a $600 dell laptop is "just as good" as a $1600 mbp according to many people.

/sarcasm

 

[smackababy]

http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/asus-zenbook-ux301.aspx

also

http://www.newegg.com/All-Ultrabooks...nMax=3200.5625

If you are willing to shell out the cash, you can find decent windows laptops which are built every bit as well as rMBPs are.

Yeah, I haven't looked in a while, as those seem fairly new. It looks like companies are finally starting to catch on that not everyone wants a trash $300 laptop.

That Asus actually looks really nice and is the same price as the 13" rMBP.

 

[HumblePie]

Been a developer for over 20 years. I can tell you on one hand how many software developers I've seen work on a Mac for applications that were Mac specific. Vast majority work in linux or windows. If the application tends to be more client specific it tends to be Windows development and if server specific more Linux development. Although in the last 7 years or so I've seen much more Windows server development positions and openings than linux.

For the most part, people I know that use Macs for any real business purpose use it for graphics and photo work. Although the dominance of Macs for even that has waned a bunch over the years. I am typing this out I am working from a windows development machine.

mrjminer or mostly correct with his statements. I've done java development just as easily on a windows machine as on a linux one. I've done python just as well too. I have access to all 3 platforms and can safe I haven't seen much difference in recent years in programming between them. I base my development work on what and where the end product will be used. If I'm making an app for iOS I'll be working on a Mac as I recently did with my company's mobile app. I tend to do development all over the place and various types of development. I'm definitely not specialized to one thing. Although I will say I have never used Ruby at all.

 

[Cerb]

Yeah, I haven't looked in a while, as those seem fairly new. It looks like companies are finally starting to catch on that not everyone wants a trash $300 laptop.

They've been offering them for a long time. Asus, though, hasn't offered as much in the past to the U.S. market as recently. Even today, most people just don't want to pay more, and would rather complain about how much of a POS the POS they bought is.

Ubuntu 13.10 should rune fine in Virtualbox. Or use Debian stable. Or use Scientific. Once it's up and running, install the guest tools, set up a shared directory, and move on.

What specific problems did you have, though? You say it was buggy, but can you be specific?

 

[mikegg]

Been a developer for over 20 years. I can tell you on one hand how many software developers I've seen work on a Mac for applications that were Mac specific. Vast majority work in linux or windows. If the application tends to be more client specific it tends to be Windows development and if server specific more Linux development. Although in the last 7 years or so I've seen much more Windows server development positions and openings than linux.

For the most part, people I know that use Macs for any real business purpose use it for graphics and photo work. Although the dominance of Macs for even that has waned a bunch over the years. I am typing this out I am working from a windows development machine.

mrjminer or mostly correct with his statements. I've done java development just as easily on a windows machine as on a linux one. I've done python just as well too. I have access to all 3 platforms and can safe I haven't seen much difference in recent years in programming between them. I base my development work on what and where the end product will be used. If I'm making an app for iOS I'll be working on a Mac as I recently did with my company's mobile app. I tend to do development all over the place and various types of development. I'm definitely not specialized to one thing. Although I will say I have never used Ruby at all.

Opposite here in Silicon Valley. Most developers use Macs only.

 

[mosco]

Opposite here in Silicon Valley. Most developers use Macs only.

Same in Boston/Cambridge.