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by stuxnet79 3735 days ago
> I grew up around windows and linux, and whenever I tell that in a job interview - people think I am not being serious since "real developers" use mac.

How true is this? I have noticed the proliferation of Macs in the developer community and I was wondering how much it would hurt me professionally by not owning one. Do devs really make snap judgements based on your platform of choice and could this impact me professionally in the long term?
2 comments
logfromblammo 3735 days ago
Real real developers use a precision flathead screwdriver and a bank of DIP switches.~

One of the great triumphs of computing was abstracting the algorithm away from the specifics of the hardware using compilers. We have the good fortune to be able to configure those compilers to generate several varieties of executable containers, such as ELF, a.out, COFF, EXE (MZ), EXE (PE/COFF), JAR, Mach-O, and others. As long as the OS has an installed virtual machine or ABI that can handle the executable, it will be able to run it.

If anyone got snooty with me about my hardware, I think I'd consider myself lucky to not need to work with them.

Does it have a text editor? Does it have a compiler? Yes to both means that real developers can use it.

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Crito 3734 days ago
It's all fun and games until your boss's boss walks into the room and says "Why aren't you using Eclipse? Real developers use Eclipse."

If you have sufficient seniority, you can tell them to fuck off without worrying. But if you're new to the company, or worse, industry...

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emddudley 3735 days ago
From my experience this shift occurred over the past 10 years or so, starting around when the MacBook Pro was released. Gradually Macs gained acceptance as developer machines, not just "creative" workstations.

I think platform preference still varies widely by industry. Macs might be common in app and web development but in engineering and systems development Windows is dominant.

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