Is Windows Going After Mac OSX with WSL for Developers?
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Windows Subsystem for Linux or WSL is coming soon. Is this a play to lure Apple Mac OSX developers over to the Windows world?
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What I don't understand is why people use Mac OSX for development or why WSL would be nice. In both cases I feel like people want Linux but just aren't using it. Why not? If you want Linux, why not work on Linux?
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@scottalanmiller said:
What I don't understand is why people use Mac OSX for development or why WSL would be nice. In both cases I feel like people want Linux but just aren't using it. Why not? If you want Linux, why not work on Linux?
This is a great question - I've always wondered why/how Apple got so deep into silicon valley for dev companies? At Drop box, it's all anyone had.
Is it the iPhone/iPad that did this for them? Is Mac OS so much more secure or easy to manage?
I can't imagine that a company like Drop Box wouldn't want to centrally manage their machines to make sure updates were pushed out, etc - but hell, maybe that's not a real problem on Macs? -
In Silicon Valley they have a huge presence partially because the company itself is based in Silicon Valley while Microsoft is in Seattle so there is a "local" factor that seems to be pretty big there. Everyone in SV knows someone who works for Apple.
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@Dashrender said:
Is it the iPhone/iPad that did this for them? Is Mac OS so much more secure or easy to manage?
No, not more secure and way more work to manage. It is better than Windows for doing most development (that isn't .NET), it has far better command line support, is more similar to deployment targets, is loaded with great tools. Apple put a lot of focus on development stuff and it paid off. But for me, at best, it's a super expensive, kinda slow, half assed attempt at being a Linux desktop. I can't think of a single thing about it that would make it better, just a lot of "nearly as good as" with a few "not nearly as good as" things.
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@Dashrender said:
Is it the iPhone/iPad that did this for them?
This helped as the native dev tools for them are Mac OSX only.
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@scottalanmiller I am a Mac user and I find the user experience much more pleasant on a Mac as opposed to any flavour of Linux. I've also run into issues where software or drivers for that matter are just not available or work right. My 2 cents.
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@antonit said:
@scottalanmiller I am a Mac user and I find the user experience much more pleasant on a Mac as opposed to any flavour of Linux. I've also run into issues where software or drivers for that matter are just not available or work right. My 2 cents.
Really? Having used Mint? I've never heard anyone mention driver issues. It's like the broadest driver support of any OS.
To be fair, Mac OSX won't work at all on the hardware most people run Linux on. If you are comparing them, in one case you are selecting hardware that is only from an HCL and paying someone to install the OS for you and in the other you are skipping the HCL and doing it yourself. So seems an unfair thing to be unhappy about. If you treated them apples to apples (forgive the pun) I think you'd find Linux as good or better, if only because it has so many more choices.
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@scottalanmiller said:
What I don't understand is why people use Mac OSX for development or why WSL would be nice. In both cases I feel like people want Linux but just aren't using it. Why not? If you want Linux, why not work on Linux?
For me personally I have used all 3 platforms and for me, I like the Mac for the Host as it seems to be the most user friendly, everything just works, and I can focus on the task at hand OS. I then run VM's for Windows and Linux on top for whatever I need to get done. I like the hardware, I like the OS, I love the gestures on the mouse pad, and I like the 8hour battery life.
