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Jeremy Dixon
1,621 PointsTo Mac or not to Mac
So I have recently begun my adventure into web development. I've been living off my savings and coding full time to kickstart this little journey. I can't afford bootcamp, but I can afford Treehouse and self-education. I want to get a laptop so I can go do work someplace other than my bedroom (it's getting hard to focus being couped up in here for weeks). But here is the rub... I can't use a Mac for the life of me. I'm not kidding when I say Im lost on a Mac. I also know a lot of companies use mac for web development. A good friend of mine who is a web developer has told me it's an important skill. So I am at an impasse....
1) Buy a Mac that I cannot afford- I'm not excited about Macs at all but if being lost on a Mac is going to noticeably hinder my career I imagine it might be worth it. I can spent 1k on something like this
2) Buy a cheap Linux laptop 3) Buy a nicer Linux/PC Laptop for the same price as the old mac and worry about macOS when I find a reason to.
Thoughts?
Matt Coston
18,425 PointsThe only real advantage that I have seen purchasing a mac is that it is a Unix type system so creating a server to test somethings is much easier to do. Personally I went to Apple.com and scrolled all the way down and you can click refurbished. I then ordered a couple year old Macbook with a tax return last year. You can code on any of the 3 operating systems though.
3 Answers
Alex Markelov
4,080 PointsJeremy, I used to have Windows, then Linux, FreeBSD, Linux again on my personal laptops, which for many years were different models of IBM ThinkPad. Then in 2008 I bought my first Mac and never looked back. That is UNIX with the best UI available. Integration with the rest of Apple products is the best part of the package. I can do any development work I need and be right at home with Terminal (I'm UNIX Sysadmin). Just as Matt suggested I'd buy a refurbished MacBook Pro. Say early 2013 model will do just fine for good few years. My 2008 MacBook is still sound performer. I upgraded RAM and replaced HDD with SSD as time went. After good 8+ years of service it has never failed me. I'd have to upgrade it soon only because El Capitan is the highest I can go to with this model.
As an alternative you can buy Dell XPS and with a bit of work have OSX running on it, if you want to try it without buying a Mac :-)
Jeremy Dixon
1,621 PointsThanks for the responses folks. Angela It's good to hear you have money coming in :P I'm not sure how long it will be before I am in the same position. I'm curious how long it took you two to get to that point.
I'm aware that I can code on anything I guess the real meat of the question is...
If you were the hiring manager at your average web development firm and I came in fully capable of designing websites on Linux or PC but was a lost little kitten on a mac would that be a deciding factor as to whether or not I get that job? Is knowledge of the macOS valuable enough to warrant what appears to be a solid 30% price markup.
Matt Coston
18,425 PointsI would say experience in the MacOS environment is pretty crucial. I would also say that it is not that hard of a transition if you have unix skills. Most of the time you are going to be just using the same commands or very similar you would use in Linux. I was a Windows kid from Win 95 onward and the transition to Mac was pretty easy. I am by no means a pro, but I can do what I need to do with development stuff.
stjarnan
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 56,488 PointsLate reply here, but here's my story!
I started learning here at Treehouse using a Chromebook, worked great! I then swapped to a refurbished Macbook Pro, I was lost, but it worked great and I managed to get comfortable within days! Last year I bought myself a Surface Book, not a single problem! Now I recently bought a new Macbook Pro (Needed it to create an iPhone app), but I still do a lot of my work on the Surface Book, two fantastic machines!
Point is, no matter what OS you buy, you will be good! :) I don't think a company will turn you down for not being used to MacOS, maybe 1 company for every 1000.
The thing is, Mac computers offers a great experience, fantastic build quality and that's why people love them. High-end Windows laptops like Microsofts Surface line or Asus Zenbooks has the same draw, they don't get people to buy them only because of power but for the design and the experience they offer.
You could do just as good with a laptop for 200$ as with one for 2000$, reason that people pay the higher is for things like battery time, lighter weight, more beautiful case, better screens and keyboards etc.
<b>tl;dr</b>
Buy a laptop you can afford, it won't hinder your future as a developer no matter the OS. If you find yourself wanting to invest in a high-end laptop later on when you have a job or can afford it, then please do as they are definitely worth it! But A cheaper one won't stop you from starting a career as a web developer :)
Good luck Jeremy Dixon!
Angela Visnesky
20,927 PointsAngela Visnesky
20,927 PointsJeremy, my husband and I are in a similar situation. He works full time and I work part time, but the rest of the story is the same. We ended up buying HP laptops with an i5 processor, 12 gigs of ram, and a terabyte hard drive. Our rationale was to buy the best laptop we could comfortably afford at the time, so we didn't have a mountain of debt. My husband partitioned our hard drives so we can boot in windows or linux. As freelance money came in, we purchased 27" monitors, and eventually got a mac mini, as well. I can honestly say that I am happy with the route we chose. We don't have debt for our equipment. We haven't had any issues completing any of the treehouse courses with windows. TL;DR, buy what you can comfortably afford and upgrade as money comes in.