

Ask HN: Help buying a developer laptop - arrowgunz

I need a developer laptop. I am a web developer. I primarily use Windows. I am planning on buying a Mac. Which one would be a better option for development (Mac/Windows). Also I am an occasional gamer. So, can you please give me some suggestions.
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workhorse
Macbook Pro runs Ruby and PHP without changing or installing a single thing.

That being said, from a personal experience, nothing increased my development
more in the past 10 years than when I switched from a PC to a Mac.

The specific things I noticed were: \- Terminal was much more intuitive (as
compared to command prompt in windows) \- Tabbing between windows on a Mac
works much better for me as compared to windows. \- It forced me to learn more
about how PHP actually works by forcing me to learn more Sys Admin stuff such
as file structures, apache configs, vhosts, exim mail configurations, mod
rewrites, and proper linking structures. \- Right out of the box I could run a
full LAMP website on my local box. \- It allowed me to become a better
programmer by teaching me to extend my application beyond the capabilities of
PHP such as executing shell scripts, etc.

I can't stress enough how much of an impact a Macbook Pro had on my
productivity and skill development.

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devmonk
Don't fail to consider the screen type if getting a macbook/macbook pro:

<http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-202306.html>

And the magsafe power adapter can get stuff caught up in it easily, so
consider something to guard it (even just a piece of tape might help):

<http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1314018>

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kls
There is a similar thread going on in this discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1786930>

