
Ask HN: Why Apple laptops are predominant laptops on every hackathon I go? - victorantos
I&#x27;ve got 10 years working as a Software Engineer on Windows machines, usually Dell laptops.<p>But I was surprised to notice that most of the people coming to hackathons work on Macbooks - at least in my area - London, UK.<p>About 2-3 years ago I was blown away when I noticed that all my co-workers(20-30) were using Macbooks, except one other guy, IT consultant as myself.<p>Am I living and working in a bubble?<p>Are there any stats about Mac&#x2F;Linux devs vs. Windows devs?
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bitshepherd
Try to find a more solid, ubiquitous Unix-like environment that "just works".
This is especially so if you're deploying entirely onto a Unix-like platform,
such as a Linux flavor or BSD.

The Linux distros, for all their good, requires too much handholding and
prodding to get a productive desktop development environment working. Windows,
too, requires too much handholding, and you're liable to just use a VM for
development.

~~~
jhildings
>The Linux distros, for all their good, requires too much handholding and
prodding to get a productive desktop development environment working.

At least you CAN get a productive environment. The OSX window manager really
really sucks and you can not configure much. Why do not Apple add X11 manager
support ?

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afarrell
Because folks can instead use
[https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst](https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst) if they
want a tiling window manager like xmonad. It is pretty easy to install and it
works well.

~~~
jhildings
i don't want a tiling one, i want a configurable lightweight one like fluxbox

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gesman
I while ago approached my boss and told him i can't stand Apple laptop any
more due to plethora of technical glitches, sporadic loss of bluetooth
connectivity, sluggishness (MacBook Pro), necessity of hard restarts and just
general inability to clearly see what's going on on my laptop.

Luckily it was an easy process to switch to something that works much better
and without Apple brand telling me how i need to work and to see the world.
I'm not coming back to Apple laptop. (Apple iPhone is totally different and
perfect device).

If I need to do Linux development - I use dedicated server / SSH and whatnot.

\--- Back to your question - some environments do require Apple hardware and
cultural fit could be an important factor to blend in and not be criticized.

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alain94040
Try to find a laptop that combines:

\- powerful Unix-like shell and internals for when developers need to work

\- no-brainer UX when developers do not want to have to work

With some bonuses such as:

\- retina display that doesn't mess up every other app's windows

\- a trackpad with multi-finger gestures that actually works

It can be done. Quite a few laptops are now getting there.

~~~
jaisonjustus
Yes you are right. Long back I asked a lot of people why they use Mac rather
than other machines and Most the people said they became productive and more
better because of certain features that Mac provides like smoother touchpad
and the operating system is more optimised with respect to the hardware,so
that the system through put is higher than average when you compare with any
product. also Mac won't get old with in couple of years. I know lot of older
plastic MacBook still runs and people still trusting the device for their
daily use. I am developer converted to designer. And Mac help me in the
transition buy providing good and affordable tools and as everyone started I
used windows in my begin then switch to Linux and after that to Mac and never
went back. I not saying I became a fan boy, but I trusting this product a lot.

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askafriend
It's been a long long time since I've seen a developer using a Windows laptop.
I don't think you're living in a bubble....it's like that everywhere. Every
student in my undergrad CS program was using Macs, everyone at my work uses
Macs, every place I've interviewed provide Macs to their employees (including
huge companies like Google and Facebook).

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jtchang
About 6 months ago I looked for a an alternative to a MacBook. Price was not a
factor. I came from an old thinkpad T400. Keyboard was great.

What I wanted was a damn trackpad that was awesome. I spent a lot of time in
different stores trying various laptops and their trackpad. Nothing came
close. So I ended up with an Macbook. All in all they are solid workhorses
that take a lot of abuse. The biggest gripe is that updates tend to make
everything more unstable and my battery life is going to shit with El Capitan.

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digi_owl
How many of your coworkers deal with C/C++ code and not JS and other "web
tech"?

The way i see it, the return of the Mac has coincided with the rise of the
Web. This because the web started as a document layout format, and thus formal
courses found themselves in the same group as "media production" (print media
in particular).

And that world has been a Mac bastion since the earliest day of gray scale
screens and Photoshop 1.0.

~~~
victorantos
Not many, actually they all worked with web stuff(RoR,Javascript) and elastic
search, while I was working with Microsoft Asp.NET and other web stuff.

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burnallofit
Most non-Mac laptops are designed to be as cheap as possible. That means, of
course, they break a lot.

