I'm being mentored and pruned to become a Front-End Dev for a start-up that's going well out of Cali. My, would be boss is using a Mac and he's constantly making small comments about how "using Windows for development is silly." And there certainly are several mac-focused software packages that help with the process, but I'm sure Windows/Linux have them too.
I don't want to buy a Mac. I'd much rather run Linux (if the console is the issue.) And I will (so long as the company doesn't require my using a Mac.) But I want to know who decided developing with Windows (or Linux) was a bad thing and why do SO many Web Devs use Mac?
Any thoughts?
Also if anyone has any tool recommendations for improving workflow and productivity on the Windows/Linux side, let a guy know.
There is no real reason, linux/osx seemed to be more developed for in terms of tools for web developing. Most tools available on osx are available on windows as well. We have an older post on the forums Web Developer Toolbox. But that hasn't been updated in a while.
from working in a mac office and with macs since 2007 the basic feeling of the old guard of professional Creatives is that Mac/Apple was there for them when Windows wasn't. Now a days I find the argument does not hold up but if you have a habit of buying equipment from one maker and your environment is all around that the thought of buying or learning a completely new system keeps you in what you know.
I always heard that it was due to the performance benefit of the Mac OS, whereas Windows might be doing crap in the background to slow you down inadvertently. I haven't used a Macs though, I'm a gamer and .Net dev so Windows for me right now. Now though I'd say with the cost to performance of modern machines, you can actually get a lot more performance out of a PC for the price just based on hardware compared to a Mac, but all the designers are on Macs already so they probably want to keep you in the same IT support umbrella and an OS that your coworkers have more experience with.
I have stumbled upon the exact same thing in my Front End Developer Udacity course. A lot of the issues that people were encountering were OSX based and very little of them were Windows issues.
I would wager it has to do with the support available for Apple users. Don't have to like the company to admit that the customer support they run is insane.
It's worth its weight in gold as a developer to be able to just send it in and let it be someone elses problem. Every. Single. Time. This is where you find the people looking for that "it just works" platform. If it doesn't, someone somewhere is going to make it right for you.
What @Thanatopsis said about 'old guard' is spot on.
What you'll find is that the 'Mac better for Web/Video/Photos' mantra is mostly started/proliferated by 30+ year old folk who worked back in the late 1990's early 2000's on Web/Video/Photos. Admittedly Mac's were quite good for these things back in those days of buggy Windows and such. These days however the same does not hold true. Especially in a commercial environment where cost/performance/task is so important it boggles the mind why any company would deploy Macs.
EDIT:
Sorry, also wanted to add that if you actually look at business environments the deployment of Mac/Apple is largely influenced by the person(s) responsible for making said decision. Especially if the business owner is an iSheep then there is really no fighting it. Same can be said of marriage. My brother had nothing to do with Apple, got hitched, wife was all about it, now he's got an iPhone. Pity.
I'm sure there are a multitude of reasons why someone would choose one over the other. Just off the top of my head though...
Given that OSX is an unix based OS, you get quite a bit of overlap environment/tool wise when comparing it to a linux based machine (production will probably be linux based) when comparing it to windows. For example, I would have no idea how to setup flask on a windows machine but it's ridiculously simple on OSX. Now when comparing OSX to a desktop linux distribution, you 1) have access to more mainstream commercial software (e.g. photoshop, microsoft office) and 2) it simply just works, you don't have to worry about your wifi or bootloader breaking if you do an update.
The one gotcha here though is that if you're doing development completely remotely. Then it doesn't really matter if you use windows or not, you can ssh into the machine with mobaxterm and you're set. However, from what I know about the tech industry.. they don't really give people personal development servers these days.
Because that's what they were told is the best. Its ridiculous how often you go into a class for this or say at BestBuy you want to do ART stuff and they're like YOU NEED A MAC!
Front end and UX devs are often 'designers' rather than traditional programmers. Designers and arty folk have always prefered macs (and Amigas and ST's if you go back far enough).
Long ago there used to be design and desktop publishing software available for Macs that used proper scalable fonts that were not available on DOS and Windows. There were also proprietary Apple printers that could print such scalable fonts whilst everyone else was using bitmap fonts that would give you jaggies when enlarged. For this reason Apple became entrenched in the DTP and design industry.
It's sort of similar to what @Thanatopsis and @BGL said. I think it all stems from "way back in the day" when Windows was office focused and OSX was Creative Focused. Tools from adobe would only work on the mac back then and only later came to windows.
But also at the same time, you need to remember that a lot of the time the people using these machines are creatives, not tech heads, and the OSX environment is easier for them and the IT department to sort out and integrate. I was watching a live stream with @DeusQain and he said that he deploys mac's where he can to eliviate some of the ... how do we put this ... simple tech help moments ...
I've worked with more than one client who would strongly disagree :-)
The users might like OSX and find it easier to work with (or more difficult to harm themselves with) resulting in fewer helpdesk calls but it is more difficult to manage centrally e.g. lock down, patch and fully integrate with AD. There are wasy to do it but that means there are two desktop environments to support instead of one. For that reason many large corporations try to keep their users on Windows or Windows VDI systems.
At the last large retail .com I worked at only testers were permitted OSX, the creatives just had rather nice Windows Workstations and Linux was kept to a handful of PoC dev servers (which then mysteriously worked their way into production - but that's another story).
I have found that there is a large number of devs who work with the BSD's that seem to be gravitating to OSX though, I don't know if this is a recent thing butu I've now seen it at a couple of smaller companies where 'central IT' isn't yet a thing.
That was the motivation for the job I had in NYC, the whole office was MBPs because the infrastructure didn't want to be desktop support. It lessened that duty, but didn't eliminate it.
For a sysadmin, I could also understand the desire to run with a Mac, it worked rather well until you needed to write some scripts to automate tasks. As the mac version of many shell programs were re-written and don't always work the same way as the linux or BSD versions.
Because people are weak and believe anything they are told, almost all the designers i work with believe MACs cant get viruses and anyone who uses a windows computer is using a dell 19 inch monitor... so yeah.
Which is amusing seeing as dell do PRO level displays unlike MAC that are still stuck on 8 bit colour and horrid glossy screens.
I use my Windows workstation and would NEVER consider using a MAC (unless when I have to because of a particular agency i am working with)
Also people saying MACs look nice is so subjective, i think they look really cheap and horrid. Why in a creative, diverse industry thats all about standing out would i want to sit in a room of white walls with white clinical looking computer thats as inspiring as the morons that designed it.
Because front end developers (I am also one) Don't necessarily know the first thing about anything about computers outside of their field. It's sad... Apple uses propaganda to brainwash its customers. It's funny because most Mac users don't know shit about computers but they will argue themselves to death defending their underpowered overpriced (attractively packaged) gimmick box.
Web development generally is not demanding on the computer so that's why Crapple is getting away with it. I've asked your same question dozens of times and the only answers I get sound something like "... you don't know? Noob" When I was in the market for a laptop a while back I gave apple a fair chance, I really wanted a macbook air. What I found was underpowered hardware and know-nothing know-it-all's repeating the words of others.
Of course CSS will run fast as hell on top of an i5 and an SSD. Apple tends to give good hardware in general (underpowered for the price, true) but when it comes to customer experience, they dont have to deal with pieces of junk like old Windows machines using bare minimum components. Which is an elitist thing to do, but a wonder if you want to create a cult of perso...branding?
I personally develop MVC stuff but mostly focus on the logic aspect, class structure and databases and such. Front end people are so infuriatingly annoying to deal with. Sure they know how to program too, not their strong suit but they know. However, most of them dont know jack shit about hardware and electronics, let alone kernel and OS optimization. They are usually the kind of people that stare at their phones while at dinner or when as kids they had the latest gadget and lost interest in it within weeks, whereas you studied everything you had your hands on to understand the hows and whys.
Sometimes I fkn hate my carreer choices. This god damned country as well, everyone doing IT seems to go straight into web development instead of REAL lower level or enterprise development
We are in a situation where the front end designer was given a tad too much leash and we have had some small code messes in the views. To me a front end dev is sort of a convenience for a small shop, most experienced web devs can work proficiently in css. It's a small shop with some recent turn over so we're just trying to figure out who does what again... oh, and he uses a Mac with a Windows VM so he can open our .Net solutions...
What do you mean? Perhaps define what you mean by web dev as well?