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Java development on a Mac. Pros and Cons?

 
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Increasingly so, I am seeing IT guys doing their development work on a Mac. These are Java or C# programmers.
What is the pull? What's the value that they are obtaining from doing so?

I've always been a PC guy but someone gave me a semi-decent Macbook Pro.
I'm not used to Macs but it can't hurt using it to get familiar with it.



 
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They probably like the OS better. And/or they're using iPhones and iPads which allows them to sync a number of things across all OS X and iOS devices they have.
 
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My work development machine is a Mac. The primary reason for that is that the application I work on is deployed on Unix machines in production, so because the Mac OS is fundamentally a Unix based platform it is "easy" to deploy and run it on my local laptop. Of course a Linux machine would equally serve this purpose but our Security and IT guys won't allow that because they don't know how to control and remote manage them satisfactorily.
 
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As been mentioned, macOS is a UNIX certified (in 2012 if I remember well) system. Solid and reliable. Its kernel (brains) derived from BSD family OS (FreeBSD 4.4), while graphical user interface was built fully by Apple. The main reason in my belief, why so many developers moved to OS X, because its stability and user friendly UI, that's one. Second thing is, that you get a shell (BASH) and its command line tools. Many production systems are deployed on Unix-like operating systems, so to program on a machine with the same philosophy gives you an advantage of knowing it better how it works.

Back in time BSD family OS's or Linux used to be only solid, and graphical user interface (X system) used to be a weakest link, such things as hardware support in order to boot up GUI were near dreadfull experience - that changed a lot since then. Now you can get equally user friendly desktop machine using any of Linux distribution or any of BSD family OS. You can get full featured KDE or GNOME environments which are very customizable components. Basically in nowadays Linux can be used by a regular user without a problem.

So why to bother with Windows and their every-day mystical updates? Why to be scared after every PC restart if it will boot up again or not anymore? Why to bother with things when PC stucks for unknown reasons? Why to bother when an app hangs and you can't kill it with task-manager so you need to restart pc... Why to bother when things get messed up when you connect 2 external monitors... on and on and on... it seems Microsoft does so much, but nothing good. Windows 10 is absolute unpleasantness to me (have to use at work).

I'm saying this because I used Windows for quite long, since 3.1x version, can't remember which year it was and I used till Millenium version appeared, I think, and then said enough. Formatted HDD format c: /s and never installed it back. Then started using various Linux distributions, tried all BSD family OS's for my own curiosity, and mostly I liked FreeBSD for its ports tree and wonderful documentation, so you aren't alone. In nowadays I use MacBook, mainly for its screen quality (Retina), couldn't find any other laptop with such a quality screen. One day if I will, might will buy it and install back BSD, but currently I'm quite happy with macOS.

Mark, give a try for few months and report back how things going.
 
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Many reasons I prefer a Mac. The primary three:
  • I prefer OS X for day to day usage. It just works better for me.
  • For development, nothing beats having a real unix command line.
  • Front-end development (which is where I've been working the past few years) is dominated by the Mac. So that's where the tools, community and mindshare are at.
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    Liutauras Vilda
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    Earlier, I wrote:So why to bother with Windows and their every-day mystical updates? Why to be scared after every PC restart if it will boot up again or not anymore?


    @OP so you better understand what I meant. Just came to work, trying to boot my work pc, and wuolia. On Friday was ok, though.
    image1.JPG
    [Thumbnail for image1.JPG]
     
    Tim Cooke
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    On the other hand, my Wife has had the same MacBook since 2006 and it has never failed to start. The battery died about 5 years ago but that's it. Incredibly dependable.
     
    Liutauras Vilda
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    Mark Richardson,

    Cowgratulations, your topic has been published in August edition of our CodeRanch Journal.
     
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    I code at work on Windows and at home on a Mac. It's pretty similar. (My work machine has git bash so I have a UNIX command line.)

    However, at work someone else takes care of keeping the Windows machine patched and dealing with problems ;). At home, my Mac just works.
     
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