[verdverm]

An environment for software development is much more than an OS. There are tools and systems that are installed onto it. People also have preferences, so there really isn't a one size fits all.

A better question may be "How do you maintain parity for your developer systems?"

This is more complex than using something like Packer or Ansible to create a consistent VM. How do you know if the developer changed something manually?

[baash05]

Yeah. And what does "programmer mean". Python, c++, java, css? Am I coding for windows? Then I'd need a windows box. Iphone? -> Mac, ....

Also what about preferences. I work on a team with 20 devs.. some of us use Vim to edit files. Other use VS code or Atom. Still others use emacs.

[astro-codes]

This was the point of the question :) To see what questions we need to ask if we're designing a software development environment in 2021. It may well be true that the current paradigm is sufficient: I was just curious what else came up.